Moses Ebe Ochonu writing in NVS:
On the 'Big Man'syndrome:Most Nigerians love to be called Oga. Not only because it projects relevance but also because it entitles the bearer to a natural or forced subservience. To be called Oga is a reassurance that one has subordinates and social inferiors that are willing to confer on or concede to one the trappings of socio-economic distinction. But the Oga phenomenon is also an allegory for our many afflictions as a nation. At the heart of the Nigerian crisis of values, bad leadership, and social decay is an obsession with a distorted, vulgar notion of what it means to be important, to be an Oga.
The problem in Nigeria is that we desire status and want to be able to deploy that status for personal pecuniary gains, but we shirk the responsibility of contributing to the production of the material benefits we covet—the benefits that come with Ogahood. Ours is an insatiable desire for the benefits of Ogahood and a corresponding disdain for its responsibilities. In its fullest realization, Oga is the Nigerian rendition of the popular figure of the African big man. The original African big man is a father and a patriarch, a servant, a caregiver. He is a compassionate do-gooder who may occasionally consume conspicuously and partake in bizarre and vulgar rituals of power but who nonetheless denies himself for the community’s sake.More here
