The Day Justice Became a Business: EFCC, Malami, and Nigeria’s Deep Psychological Wound -By Psychologist John Egbeazien Oshodi

A Nation Forced to Look at What It Tried to Forget

Nigeria has known corruption for decades, but what the country is now confronting feels different and more disturbing. When the EFCC announced that it traced over N212.9 billion in properties linked to a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, the shock did not come only from the figures. It came from something deeper and more painful.

This was the Minister of Justice.

In a growing democracy, that office is not supposed to be ordinary. It is the place where the nation keeps its moral compass. It is the seat that should steady the hands of government when temptation rises. It is the voice that should say “no” when power tries to bend the law.

And yet, here we are.

This was not just about one public officer.

It was about the very meaning of Justice itself.

Not a confession from the accused.

A confession from the system itself.

It feels as if the institutions created to defend law and fairness slowly learned how to exploit both. An office designed to guide the country toward discipline, trust, and fairness now appears, at least in perception, to be standing inside the same storm it was meant to calm.

For many citizens, that realization is not intellectual. It is emotional. It feels like watching someone tear a sacred cloth. It feels like seeing a guardian step aside while the house burns. It feels like betrayal from a place where safety was promised.

This is not simply a court case.

It is an emotional wound.

People can live through poverty. They know how to survive scarcity.

But when the very office called Justice becomes questioned, something breaks inside the soul of a nation.

And in quiet moments, even the strongest Nigerians feel it:

a heaviness in the chest, a sadness that is difficult to name, a worry that trust itself may no longer be safe.

That is the weight pressing across hearts today as each new revelation emerges.

Power Without Restraint: The Psychology of Becoming Untouchable

Corruption is not only about stolen resources. It is about emotional distance. It is what happens when power slowly disconnects itself from the people it was meant to serve. Power begins as responsibility. Over time, it transforms into identity. Eventually, it mutates into entitlement.

A leader begins to believe that the system belongs to him.

He begins to think that if he falls, the nation will fall, and therefore nothing should touch him.

That is the psychology of untouchability.

It numbs conscience.

It rewires morality.

It converts national institutions into personal tools.

And each time society tolerates that mind-set, the illness grows deeper.

Nigeria is now witnessing the late stages of that sickness, where corruption is no longer done in fear but in confidence.

Forty-One Doors Into a Hidden Empire

The EFCC report does not merely list properties. It maps out an alternate life constructed outside public accountability. There are universities. There are hotels. There are estates. There are factories. There are mansions.

Forty-one documented properties — at least according to investigative tracing — and those are the ones visible enough not to disappear through paperwork and concealment.

Like buried trauma in human psychology, the larger part of the financial network may lie beyond sight: offshore structures, proxies, corporate layers, and shadow beneficiaries.

To the market woman feeding her children on borrowed money, these figures sound unreal.

To the unemployed graduate walking the streets, they feel humiliating.

To the child begging under traffic lights, they feel fatal.

These properties are not just real estate.

They are emotional symbols of a society where some feast openly while others starve silently.

Marriage, Power, and the Silent Crown

The perception of invincibility around the former Attorney-General did not rely solely on office authority. It relied on relationships. His marriage into presidential proximity created a psychological shield. People no longer saw an ordinary public officer. They saw someone tied personally to the head of state.

In fragile democracies, private relationships turn into political armor.

Power becomes personal.

Accountability becomes negotiable.

The public learned, again, a dangerous rule:

Those connected are protected.

Those disconnected must obey.

A Kingdom Built Beside Hunger

Travel through Nigeria and the contrast feels brutal. In Kebbi, wealth emerges in heavy blocks of concrete. In Kano, luxury hotels rise beside street children surviving on charity from strangers. In Abuja, gated estates expand while families sleep along the edges of sidewalks and unfinished structures.

These developments are not national progress.

They are private expansions within a broken public landscape.

They quietly tell citizens that the country belongs to a few, and everyone else merely lives around them.

Corruption is not simply theft.

It is the removal of dignity.

It pushes people out of their own future.

The Deepest Wound: The Math That Should Break a Country

Forty-one properties. Millions without safe housing. Hospitals with missing equipment. Schools without roofs. Communities struggling for basic water and electricity.

Private universities flourish while public schools decay. Private estates flourish while families share single rooms. The moral equation collapses under its own weight.

It is not only injustice.

It is abandonment.

Abandoned citizens slowly lose either hope or patience. Both conditions are dangerous and corrosive.

A Difficult Truth: He Did Some Good Too

It is also important to state honestly that the former Attorney-General was not without achievements. Under his watch, some reforms were initiated. Certain prosecutions were pursued. Efforts were made to recover seized assets and push legal modernization. Some institutional reorganizations attempted to streamline legal processes. There were moments when he appeared determined to strengthen state authority and reinforce the reach of the justice ministry.

These contributions do not vanish simply because controversy has arrived. They were real, they affected governance, and in some instances they helped stabilize fragile legal processes.

But this is where the psychological injury deepens. When individuals who have done meaningful good are later linked to alleged abuse of power, the public experiences a double wound. People do not simply lose trust in one leader. They lose confidence in the idea that integrity truly exists within public office at all.

That is the tragedy beneath the scandal.

When Courts Become Stages

For years, Nigerians have watched court cases stretch endlessly. Files disappear. Motions multiply. Language grows complicated. Justice drifts.

Courtrooms sometimes feel less like halls of truth and more like theaters for power-driven strategy.

But then, something unexpected happened in this case.

Bail was denied.

The process was allowed to continue.

It was not a final victory.

But it was disruption.

For once, the power structure felt the sharp edge of judicial seriousness. That moment disturbed a long-held assumption: that certain individuals would never face procedural accountability.

That psychological disturbance matters.

The Law Written for Convenience

The 2019 regulation that centralized asset recovery authority under the Attorney-General was introduced as administrative coordination. Today, it carries a different tone. It now appears like strategic design, like a carefully placed lever inside a weak system.

Some laws are created to fight corruption.

Others are designed to manage it.

It is painful that Nigerians are discovering the difference so late.

EFCC: A Weapon Still Needed

The EFCC is imperfect. It has stumbled. It has faced influence and pressure. Yet it remains one of the few institutions still willing to challenge deeply rooted corruption.

To weaken the EFCC at this moment would not protect Nigeria.

It would surrender Nigeria.

This investigation is not about embarrassing anyone.

It is about whether truth still has a legal address in this country.

Turning Evidence Into Emotion

When the former Attorney-General demanded that the EFCC Chairman step aside, the move was strategic. It attempted to shift attention from documentation to personality. It invited the nation to see the case as personal, rather than structural.

But key questions do not disappear:

Does workplace disagreement buy luxury estates?

Does personal rivalry construct entire residential zones?

Leadership positions may change. Names may change.

But documents, signatures, land titles, and bank records do not resign.

The Irony of Power Meeting the System It Helped Shape

History does not forget. The hands that once shaped the law now tremble before it. For years, citizens pleaded for justice to awaken. Now that it finally stirs, the loudest complaints rise from those who once believed they would never feel its touch. The law they directed toward others has turned back toward them, not in anger, but in quiet, unavoidable consequence.

The Psychological Cost to a Nation’s Soul

Young Nigerians are watching all of this, even when they pretend not to care. They scroll past the headlines. They laugh at the jokes. But something inside them is changing. They are slowly learning a lesson that no society should ever teach its children: that dishonesty may reward, that the law may bend for the powerful, and that loyalty to influence can count more than loyalty to truth.

Yet the most tragic part is this: many of them believe this is simply how life works. They think the lesson has arrived too late, that the system is already permanently shaped. But it is exactly here that learning must begin. If the youth absorb corruption as normal, the future becomes permanently injured. If they challenge it, the story can still change.

This is far more dangerous than inflation or unemployment. A country does not collapse only when its economy fails. It collapses when its young people begin to believe that morality is foolish, that integrity is naive, and that righteousness has no future. When that belief settles into the heart of a generation, the soul of the nation starts to shrink quietly.

Youth Memory: The Last Defense

And yet, something unexpected is happening. The strongest anti-corruption force in Nigeria today is not a government agency. It is memory. Screenshots. Saved videos. Forwarded recordings. Archived articles. Shared documents. Young people have discovered that truth can be preserved, even when institutions hesitate.

This generation does not forget easily. Corruption survives only where silence and amnesia exist. But the culture of forgetting is weakening. Documentation is slowly becoming an act of civic courage. The attempt to erase truth now meets citizens who store it, share it, and protect it.

In this sense, Malami — willingly or unwillingly — becomes a mirror. The youth look at his journey, his decisions, his current situation, and they see a reflection of what happens when the pursuit of power grows faster than the growth of conscience. The mirror is painful, but it is also instructive. It is not too late to learn from it.

In that quiet habit of recording and reflecting lies a new form of accountability — one that future courts and future leaders cannot easily ignore.

The Day Untouchability Trembled

When the court refused bail, the decision carried meaning beyond legal language. It felt like a crack running through a wall that once looked indestructible. For one brief moment, Nigerians saw that officeholders, too, can stand where ordinary citizens stand, answer questions, and face the weight of the law.

But we must also be honest. Judges do not live in isolation. They know the power of those who once commanded government. They know how suddenly cases can be influenced, redirected, or delayed. They know that when the powerful feel threatened, pressure often travels quietly through phone calls, friendships, and political corridors.

In such moments, many judges become internally tense, cautious, and sometimes deeply afraid. Their greatest fear is not only for themselves, but for their families and their safety. Some feel a quiet hopelessness inside the robe, trapped between conscience and consequence.

And yet, this is where courage matters most. We hope the courts, and the judges who serve within them, will choose to stand with Justice itself — not for one person, not for one administration, but for the soul of the nation. Because when judges stand firm, democracy remembers its strength.

Untouchability trembled.

It did not collapse.

But it shook enough to whisper to both leaders and judges alike that truth still has a path, if they allow it to walk.

The Court Beyond the Courtroom

Legal courts will eventually issue rulings. Judges will decide. Lawyers will argue. But another court has already spoken: the quiet court of conscience.

A justice system that shields privilege while hospitals crumble cannot claim moral authority. A system that replaces schools with estates and clinics with private mansions is not merely dysfunctional. It is morally fractured.

Minister should still mean servant.

Justice should still mean fairness.

When those meanings collapse under the weight of unexplained wealth, the nation’s moral compass breaks.

Nigeria may convict or acquit in the legal sense. But the deeper question remains: Will justice finally become something that protects everyone, or will it continue to wait for permission from power?

A nation can survive hardship.

It cannot survive without trust.

If this EFCC investigation offers any gift at all, it is the painful gift of clarity. Nigeria has been forced to see itself without makeup, without excuses, without camouflage.

The truth is painful.

But truth buried is far more dangerous.

A Therapeutic Ending: Pain, Consequence, and the Long Road Back

In moments like this, it is important to remember that no story of power and collapse belongs to one man alone. He did not operate in isolation. A system surrounded him. Institutions enabled him. Friends benefited. Silence protected. Loyalty often replaced conscience. In that sense, he is not alone.

But today, accountability has found a pause point. Today, he sits behind bars, facing the slow weight of the law he once supervised. In the courtroom images shared by the media, I saw his son, and I saw a woman by his side — perhaps a wife, perhaps another close family member. Their faces carried confusion, exhaustion, and a quiet fear. They now stand as defendants. Yet even in that role, it was impossible to miss how deeply they were wounded by proximity to power.

That is what corruption really does. It wounds far beyond the person in custody. It stretches into families. It collapses trust inside households. It turns loved ones into unintended spectators of shame. It forces children, spouses, relatives, and communities to confront consequences they never designed.

Accountability must continue. Justice must run its course. The nation deserves truth, restitution, and reform. But healing must also begin. Healing for citizens who feel betrayed. Healing for institutions that have lost credibility. Healing even for families who now live with the emotional fallout of choices they did not make.

Because Nigeria will not recover simply by punishing individuals.

Nigeria will recover only when the culture that allows power to become private business finally breaks — and the word Justice once again belongs to everyone.

About the Author

Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi is an American psychologist, an expert in policing and corrections, and an educator with expertise in forensic, legal, clinical, and cross-cultural psychology, including public ethical policy. A native of Uromi, Edo State, Nigeria, and son of a 37-year veteran of the Nigeria Police Force, he has long worked at the intersection of psychology, justice, and governance. In 2011, he helped introduce advanced forensic psychology to Nigeria through the National Universities Commission and Nasarawa State University, where he served as Associate Professor of Psychology.

He teaches in the Doctorate in Clinical and School Psychology at Nova Southeastern University; the Doctorate Clinical Psychology, BS Psychology, and BS Tempo Criminal Justice programs at Walden University; and lectures virtually in Management and Leadership Studies at Weldios University and ISCOM University. He is also the President and Chief Psychologist at the Oshodi Foundation, Center for Psychological and Forensic Services, United States.

Prof. Oshodi is a Black Republican in the United States but belongs to no political party in Nigeria—his work is guided solely by justice, good governance, democracy, and Africa’s development. He is the founder of Psychoafricalysis (Psychoafricalytic Psychology), a culturally grounded framework that integrates African sociocultural realities, historical awareness, and future-oriented identity. He has authored more than 500 articles, multiple books, and numerous peer-reviewed works on Africentric psychology, higher education reform, forensic and correctional psychology, African democracy, and decolonized models of clinical and community engagement.