By VITUS OZOKE, PhD

A few days ago, I came across Genesis 18:22–33 – the remarkable conversation between Abraham and God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is one of those passages I first encountered as a child in Sunday school. Back then, I read it simply as a fascinating Bible story: Abraham pleading with God to spare a wicked city if enough righteous people could be found within it.

Over the years, I must have read that passage many times, but this time was different.

As I slowly followed Abraham’s negotiation with God – from fifty righteous people to forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten – I found myself reading it not merely as ancient history but as an enduring meditation on public morality, leadership, and the moral health of nations.

Before I knew it, my thoughts had wandered thousands of years and thousands of miles from the plains of Sodom. They had arrived in Nigeria.

And I could not help but wonder how that extraordinary conversation might sound if it were taking place today – not about Sodom and Gomorrah, but about Nigeria and the character of those entrusted with its leadership.

What follows is, of course, satire. Yet, as with all good satire, it poses a serious question.

Then Abraham drew near and said,

“Will You indeed sweep away a nation, the righteous and the corrupt alike?”

And the Lord said,

“If I find fifty honest and incorruptible politicians in the nation of Nigeria, I will spare the entire nation for their sake.”

Abraham bowed his head and thought for a moment.

Then he said,

“Lord, perhaps fifty is… a bit ambitious. Suppose there are forty-five?”

The Lord replied,

“If I find forty-five honest and incorruptible politicians in Nigeria, I will spare the nation.”

Abraham looked toward the National Assembly, the Government Houses, the Ministries, the Local Government Secretariats, and the countless agencies, commissions, boards, and parastatals.

He cleared his throat.

“Lord, perhaps forty?”

The Lord answered,

“I will spare it for forty.”

Abraham sighed. He remembered abandoned roads that were inaugurated three times but never finished. He remembered hospitals without medicine, schools without teachers, budgets without accountability, contracts without projects, investigations without convictions, elections without consequences, and promises without shame.

Then he spoke again.

“Suppose thirty are found?”

The Lord answered,

“For thirty, I will spare Nigeria.”

Abraham was growing uncomfortable. He remembered roads that existed only in budget speeches, hospitals where patients supplied everything except the diagnosis, schools where children learned resilience more than literacy, and contracts whose only visible product was the contractor’s wealth.

He remembered a nation in which truth had become an endangered species. He remembered that when a respected bishop dared to speak uncomfortable truths about the state of the nation, the full weight of government and its media machinery descended on him – not to answer his arguments, but to attack the messenger.

He remembered a government so desperate to defend questionable educational credentials that one of its senior officials publicly declared, with astonishing confidence, that “great men do not attend primary and secondary school,” as if logic itself had resigned from public service.

He remembered governors who adopted entirely new political convictions as soon as whispers of corruption investigations began to circulate; men who crossed the aisle overnight, not because their principles had changed, but because self-preservation had. In Nigeria’s peculiar political theology, repentance is measured not by restitution but by defection.

He remembered anti-corruption campaigns that somehow lost their urgency the moment the accused joined the ruling establishment. He remembered institutions created to hold power accountable that had instead become experts at explaining why accountability must always be deferred to another day.

Then Abraham said,

“Lord, do not be angry. Suppose twenty are found?”

The Lord replied,

“For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy Nigeria.”

Abraham looked once more across the land. He saw young graduates searching endlessly for jobs that never materialized. He saw pensioners waiting for benefits they had already earned. He saw communities building their own roads, drilling their own boreholes, hiring their own security, and providing their own electricity because the government had become little more than a collector of taxes and a dispenser of speeches.

He saw citizens who no longer expected honesty, merely hoping that those who stole would at least leave enough for the country to function. He saw elections fought in the language of service yet governed by the language of entitlement. He saw public office transformed from a sacred trust into the fastest route to private wealth.

He saw courtrooms where justice was increasingly judged not only by the soundness of legal reasoning but also by the public’s suspicion that verdicts could be swayed by considerations having little to do with the law. Even the judiciary – the institution that should inspire the greatest confidence – had, in the minds of many citizens, become vulnerable to the corrosive stain of transactional justice.

He saw a political class that had perfected the art of campaigning as servants and of governing as emperors. He saw a republic in which integrity had become so rare that the honest public official was celebrated not as the norm but as an astonishing exception.

Then Abraham spoke one last time.

“Lord, let me speak but once more. Suppose only ten honest and incorruptible politicians can be found in all of Nigeria?”

The Lord answered,

“For the sake of ten, I will spare the nation of Nigeria.”

And Abraham searched. He searched the Executive. He searched the Legislature. He searched the political parties. He searched the Ministries. He searched the States. He searched the Local Governments. He searched the campaign platforms. He searched the anti-corruption committees and commissions. He searched INEC, EFCC, ICPC, NEPA, OMPADEC, WAEC, DSS, and bullion vans. He searched the procurement boards. He searched the budget committees. He searched the appointments.

Abraham searched the political party defections. He searched the declarations of assets. He searched forfeited state assets, including those of Enugu State. He searched the contracts. He searched the subsidies. He searched the constituency projects. He searched the endless commissions of inquiry.

He searched until his feet were weary and his eyes were dimmed.

Then Abraham returned.

He did not ask for five. He did not ask for one. He feared that even one might prove difficult to certify.

And there was silence. And Heaven answered no more, for even Heaven could not certify what Nigeria could not produce.

Then, as Abraham turned to leave, another thought occurred to him. He remembered that before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, the Lord had first brought Lot and his family safely out of the doomed cities.

Perhaps Abraham wondered, the Lord does not always preserve a nation because of the many. Sometimes He preserves one righteous man so that, after judgment has run its course, someone may still be left to rebuild.

If there is a modern-day Lot in Nigeria’s political wilderness, many would point to Peter Obi. Not because he claims perfection or is beyond criticism. But because, in the eyes of many, he has come to embody a steadfast insistence that public office should be an exercise in stewardship rather than self-enrichment, accountability rather than impunity, and service rather than entitlement.

Whether history ultimately vindicates that hope remains to be seen.

But if the Lord could not find fifty… Or forty-five… Or forty… Or thirty… Or twenty… Or even ten… Then perhaps Heaven is no longer searching for a number. Perhaps Heaven is preserving a remnant.

Nigeria’s greatest crisis is not a shortage of oil, gas, minerals, fertile land, brilliant minds, or entrepreneurial spirit. It is a crisis of public integrity. Nations do not collapse merely because they are poor. They collapse when corruption becomes respectable, when public office becomes private investment, when theft becomes governance, when accountability becomes persecution, and when citizens come to expect dishonesty as the standard qualification for political leadership.

The tragedy is no longer merely that corruption exists. It exists everywhere. The deeper tragedy is that integrity has become the exception rather than the expectation. We have reached the point where the honest public official is treated as an oddity, almost a miracle worthy of national celebration.

A nation should never have to search for ten honest politicians. It should struggle to find ten dishonest ones. That, perhaps, is the saddest commentary of all.

•Dr. Vitus Ozoke is a lawyer, human rights activist, and public affairs analyst based in the United States. He writes on politics, governance, and the moral costs of leadership failure in Africa.

Update news