01/06/2026
*The Prison, The Tunnel, and the Policeman’s Lesson.*
There are two stories worth remembering.
The first comes from Colombia. Drug lord Pablo Escobar was so powerful that he negotiated the terms of his own imprisonment. He designed and built the prison, chose who guarded the it. It looked like justice had finally caught up with him, but in reality, the prisoner had more control than the state itself. When four inmates were killed in the prison, the government decided to reassert its authority. Escobar escaped through a tunnel he had quietly built during construction.
The lesson; when those who should be subject to the law are allowed to shape the law’s enforcement around themselves, accountability becomes theatre. A state that permits this discovers too late that it has been guarding an illusion.
The second story comes from Alfred Hitchcock. At the age of five, his father sent him to a police station with a note. The officer read the note, locked the boy in a cell for several minutes, and told him, “This is what happens to naughty boys.” The experience left a profound mark on Hitchcock for the rest of his life. He developed a lifelong fear of authority and a deep respect for consequences. The brief encounter shaped his behaviour far more effectively than endless lectures ever could.
The lesson here is equally simple; institutions derive their power not merely from force but from credibility. When citizens believe that rules have consequences, society regulates itself. When they cease to believe it, disorder follows.
Nigeria stands uneasily between these two stories.
Too often, powerful political actors appear to operate like Escobar’s prison architects, designing the systems meant to restrain them, influencing the institutions meant to scrutinise them, and shaping the rules under which they are judged. Citizens watch and wonder whether the referee is truly independent of the players.
At the same time, ordinary Nigerians are frequently expected to learn Hitchcock’s lesson; obey the law, pay taxes, endure hardship, and accept sacrifice for the good of the nation. Yet discipline imposed on the weak while the powerful seem exempt breeds cynicism rather than civic virtue.
President Tinubu’s government faces a choice that every administration eventually confronts. It can build institutions that command respect because they apply equally to all, or it can preside over institutions that increasingly appear selective in whom they restrain and whom they protect.
A nation cannot be governed indefinitely by asking citizens to behave like Hitchcock while allowing the powerful to behave like Escobar.
The strength of a government is not measured by how firmly it can discipline ordinary people, it is measured by whether those at the very top are willing to submit to the same rules as everyone else.
A prison designed by the prisoner is not a prison. A law obeyed only by the powerless is not justice.
*Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.*
