From my balcony- by Sam Kargbo

Standing upon my balcony—no ordinary balcony, but that elevated ledge of inconvenient memory from which history refuses to blink—I behold a carnival of sudden conscience. The square below is crowded with men and women freshly perfumed in the fragrance of reform.

Yesterday’s custodians of iron decrees now wrap themselves in linen woven from the vocabulary of liberty. Their wrists, once accustomed to the weight of sceptres, now jingle with activist bangles. How supple is the human spine when the political season changes.

Observe how beautifully they wear their new costumes. The messianic cut suits them. The lighting flatters them. The applause baptizes them. In this theatre of national redemption, the former architect of silence now declaims the poetry of free speech with a trembling lip.

The overseer of order now whispers of civil rights. The warden rehearses the rhetoric of emancipation. And the crowd—ah, the crowd!—is mercifully forgetful.
But from my balcony, the spectacle is less convincing.

I see the Political Chameleons, masters of chromatic survival, dissolving into the very crowd they once disciplined. They match the oppressed not by repentance, but by adaptation. They have learned that camouflage is cheaper than contrition. They know that in politics, memory is seasonal and outrage perishable.

I see the Turncoats, spinning with the precision of weather vanes, discovering that yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s embarrassment. With solemn gravity they renounce their former selves—as though the past were an outdated manifesto rather than a lived regime. They abandon conviction with such athletic grace that one almost applauds the flexibility.

I see the Hypocrites, whose activism is choreography. Their indignation arrives fully scripted; their outrage lands precisely on cue. They protest injustice with the confidence of men who once administered it. They condemn oppression in accents perfected during their tenure of command.
And there—how unmistakable—are the Reactionaries in Revolutionary Garb: men who have merely changed the anthem while preserving the appetite. Their language is radical; their instincts remain imperial. They speak of restructuring but dream of re-entry. They chant reform, but calculate restoration.

I search, earnestly, for an Apostate of Power—one who has truly relinquished the intoxication of dominion. I strain my eyes for repentance that is not strategic. But what I see instead are power-hungry rogues, rehearsing humility like a stage direction. They have mistaken volume for virtue and visibility for virtue’s proof.

Around them swirl the practitioners of Counter-Elite Rebranding—those who, having exhausted their tenure at the centre, now colonize the margins. They do not abandon power; they relocate it. They exchange the throne for the podium, the cabinet for the coalition, the decree for the demand. But the appetite remains constant: to rule, to dominate, to preside.
What a wondrous republic we have built, where memory is negotiable and reinvention requires no confession. In this democracy of costumes, redemption requires neither apology nor restitution—only a microphone.

Yet I remain on my balcony, unfashionable and unamused, for history has taught me this: The loudest apostle of reform is often the most seasoned alumnus of repression. The costume may change. The slogans may upgrade. The anthem may be remixed.

But power, when it has not been renounced, merely changes address.
And from here, I can still see the forwarding mail.

Sam Kargbo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, writes from Abuja