A tale of two cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”… Charles Dickens dropped that line in 1859, but he might as well have been writing about Nigeria in 2026. Because right now, as we inch toward the titanic electoral battles of 2027, this country has become a living, breathing, sweating, and thoroughly bewildering […]

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”… Charles Dickens dropped that line in 1859, but he might as well have been writing about Nigeria in 2026. Because right now, as we inch toward the titanic electoral battles of 2027, this country has become a living, breathing, sweating, and thoroughly bewildering adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities. The only difference? Instead of the French Revolution, we are staring down the barrel of a political reckoning that could either give us a renaissance or send us straight into the guillotine of chaos. Oga, fasten your seatbelt.

Let us start with the obvious: the two Nigerias. Dickens wrote about aristocrats sipping wine while peasants starved. Fast-forward to today. You have a tiny elite flying private jets to London for the weekend, dropping hundreds of millions on houses they won’t even live in or even rent out, while the other Nigeria—the real Nigeria—is calculating how to stretch one thousand naira into three meals.

Fuel subsidy removal? Done. Floating of the naira? Done. The result? Petrol that once sold for N185 now changes hands at N1,400 per litre. The naira, which was N700 to the dollar when this government took office, is now dancing around N1,400. That is not devaluation. That is a free fall with no parachute. And yet, you see politicians commissioning roads named after themselves, handing out bags of rice and pretending that they are messiahs feeding the poor from the goodness of their hearts and altruism of their own pockets.  As the very ancient Hausa proverb goes, “ga Allah nan, ga jama’a nan kuma ga mulkin Tinubu.” Wink, wink.

This widening gap is not just economics. It is a pressure cooker. And pressure cookers, my friends, explode. That is where the Madame Defarge energy comes in. For those who missed the book, Madame Defarge sat in a corner knitting quietly, but every stitch was the name of someone who would face the blade when the revolution came. In Nigeria today, you see that same quiet rage. The people in the streets are not shouting yet. They are watching. They are waiting. They are knitting their own list—not with wool, but with tweets, WhatsApp forwards and the silent nods at political rallies they unpacked at the teburin maishayi. The 2027 elections are no longer just another electoral circus. For many, it is the day of reckoning. “Nawa rashi, na gani,” as we say in Kano—I have seen it, I have experienced it. And what we have seen is that the political class has been feasting while the masses grind stones and grit their teeth.

And speaking of grinding—Dickens used the grindstone as a symbol of how the state crushes the spirit of the people. In Nigeria, the grindstone is called policy. The removal of fuel subsidies sounded good on paper: “Let the market decide.” But the market decided that the poor man needs lots of exercise. Transport fares tripled. Food prices followed. A bag of rice that was N30,000 is now N90,000 in some markets. The average civil servant, earning N70, 000 minimum wage a month, is supposed to survive this? “Ba ruwa ba kogi,” the Hausa elders say—neither water nor river. There is no escape. People are being ground down, and the only thing keeping the lid on is the hope of vengeance, not another “Change”, in 2027.

 Now, let’s talk about sacrifice versus self-interest. In A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton gave his life for a friend. He said, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” That is the kind of leader Nigerians are searching for in 2027—someone willing to bleed for the nation, not just bleed the nation dry. But look at the politicking so far. Defections here, alliances there, billions spent on “consultations.” The question on everyone’s lips is not “What can I do for my country?” but rather “What is my share of the stomach infrastructure?” The scramble for power is so intense that you would think the presidency comes with a lifetime supply of babar-rigas and an unlimited data plan. Selfishness is the order of the day. And Dickens warned us: when the ruling class becomes indifferent to the suffering of the masses, a storm is inevitable.

Which brings us to the danger of the mob. Dickens said he loved the poor—he understood their suffering—but he was terrified of what they would become once the guillotine started swinging. In Nigeria, the mob is the crowd at the polling unit. The mob is the angry youth who has been jobless for five years after graduating with a first-class degree. The mob is the mother who watched her child died because she could not afford a doctor. If the ballot box fails to provide a vent for this frustration—if the 2027 elections are seen as another rigged charade—then the revolutionary fervor could spill into the streets. And we have seen small previews: #EndSARS, the looting of warehouses, the rising cases of “unknown gunmen.” Dickens called it “the grindstone of the people’s wrath.” I call it the “shege” that no one wants to experience.

But here is the thing… it does not have to end like Paris. Nigeria has a chance to prove that we are not just a tragic sequel to a nineteenth-century novel. We have the ballot. We have the constitution. We have a vibrant civil society and a youth population that is more connected and more aware than ever before. The question is whether we will use these tools wisely or whether we will let anger turn us into the very mob that Dickens feared.

As the 2027 elections approach, every Nigerian must ask himself: are we heading toward a peaceful renaissance, or are we sharpening the blades of a guillotine? The answer lies not with the politicians—they will always chase their own bellies. The answer lies with us. Wisdom is the greatest gift God gave man. Let us use that wisdom. Let us demand leadership that sacrifices, not leadership that feasts. Let us vote not with anger but with purpose. Because if we don’t, we might end up like those French aristocrats: wondering, just as the blade fell, how we missed every single warning sign and

It is the best of times to be alive. It is the worst of times to be careless. Choose wisely. Jiki magayi… indeed, the body will tell the story.