By Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi
As Chairman of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), she was entrusted with the nation’s workers’ welfare. The NSITF’s mandate is simple yet sacred: collect and protect funds contributed by workers and employers, and provide compensation when accidents, disabilities, or deaths occur.
Every political season in Nigeria has its apostles of certainty, and in 2015, one of the loudest was Dr. Ngozi Olejeme — Chairman of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) and Deputy Chairman, Finance Committee of the Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation.
Her confidence was not just political; it was spiritual. She spoke as one who believed power had already renewed its lease.
“PDP will have a resounding victory. That is very clear,” she declared to a group of Niger Delta youths in Asaba (ScanNews, March 2015).
She promised jobs, education, youth empowerment, national unity, food security, and—ironically—“social safety nets for the vulnerable.” She listed the pillars of a perfect Nigeria with the rhythm of a gospel sermon.
But hidden behind that optimism was the tragic contradiction of Nigerian politics: people who speak of safety nets often stand nearest to the scissors.
Chapter Two – 2017: The Arrest and the Nation’s Numbness
Two years later, Olejeme’s voice of certainty became a face of controversy. In December 2017, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested her after months on the run.
The Commission alleged that ₦62.3 billion had been diverted from the NSITF between 2009 and 2015. Investigators traced $48.4 million through bureau de change operators, “consultancy” contracts, and personal accounts.
Funds meant to compensate injured workers and sustain families in crisis allegedly became political fuel for election season.
It was a scandal that could have shaken a nation’s conscience—but Nigeria’s conscience has been shaken so many times it has developed shock absorbers.
We gasped, then giggled. We watched the evening news, then moved on.
This is the psychology of national numbness: when corruption becomes so frequent that outrage feels like wasted energy.
By 2018, the headlines had cooled. Her “useful statements” to investigators were forgotten. The nation had moved on to new scandals, new names, same fatigue.
Chapter Three – 2021: The Medical Defense
Four years later, the name resurfaced with a new diagnosis.
In November 2021, the EFCC arraigned her again—this time before Justice Maryam Hassan Aliyu of the FCT High Court on a ₦3 billion fraud charge.
The trial didn’t last an hour. Her counsel, Paul Erokoro, SAN, announced that Olejeme suffered acute diabetes, hypertension, fainting spells, and post-COVID heart failure. She had undergone four major surgeries abroad and needed urgent medical attention.
Justice Aliyu, moved by compassion, adjourned.
And just like that, the courtroom turned into a clinic.
It was the “medical defense doctrine” in action—the classic Nigerian courtroom ritual where sickness becomes the new legal strategy.
Psychologically, it’s a sophisticated survival mechanism: guilt converted into frailty, accountability rebranded as fragility. The mind says, “If I can’t win in law, I’ll win in sympathy.”
And it works—again and again.
Each time this scene repeats, citizens lose more faith in justice, and justice loses more weight on the scales.
Chapter Four – 2025: The Resurrection
Fast forward to October 2025. Eight years after her first arrest, the EFCC remembered her file.
Dr. Ngozi Olejeme appeared once again—this time before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, Abuja—facing eight counts of money laundering totaling ₦1 billion.
She pleaded not guilty. The EFCC, represented by Emenike Mgbemele, promised to call fourteen witnesses. Her lawyer, Emeka Ogboguo, SAN, pleaded for bail. Justice Nwite released her to her counsel, with the next hearing fixed for November 17, 2025.
For Nigerians, it was both absurd and satisfying. “Ah, she’s back? So EFCC files can resurrect!”
Behind the jokes was a small ember of relief—proof that memory, once buried, can breathe again.
The case is not yet justice, but at least it is motion. In a country where corruption cases die quietly, even a faint heartbeat matters.
Chapter Five – When Loyalty Replaces Law
Her story is more than personal—it is institutional.
As Chairman of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), she was entrusted with the nation’s workers’ welfare. The NSITF’s mandate is simple yet sacred: collect and protect funds contributed by workers and employers, and provide compensation when accidents, disabilities, or deaths occur.
Yet, while holding that sensitive public office, Dr. Ngozi Olejeme simultaneously served as Deputy Chairman of the Finance Committee for the 2015 Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation.
She did not take a leave of absence. She did not step down. She crossed seamlessly from government payroll to party payroll—using one hand to sign agency papers and the other to plan campaign funding.
That contradiction is not just political; it is psychological. It reveals a collapse of ethical boundaries—a symptom of Nigeria’s deeper ailment, where institutions become political instruments and officials become loyalists first, public servants second.
In most functioning democracies, such dual service would be viewed as scandalous. But in Nigeria, it was seen as competence—proof of “trustworthiness” to the ruling circle.
The message was clear: the road to power runs through public institutions, and loyalty to the throne outweighs loyalty to the Constitution.
This is what psychologists describe as institutional identity fusion—when an individual merges personal ambition with systemic corruption until both become indistinguishable. The person no longer asks, “Is this right?” but “Will my patron approve?”
In Olejeme’s case, the NSITF—the agency designed to shield workers from hardship—was psychologically reprogrammed into a political arm of comfort for those already in power.
That inversion of duty mirrors the tragedy of governance across much of Africa: public trust treated as a partisan tool, and civil service reduced to campaign logistics.
Explaining It to a Student: How Power Taught Confusion
If I were to explain this to a 14-year-old Nigerian social studies student, I would say:
Imagine your school bursar, whose job is to manage school fees and make sure the money goes to books, teachers, and repairs. One day, that same bursar also becomes the treasurer of a political club trying to make the head boy win an election. He begins using some of the school money to print posters, buy T-shirts, and host campaign parties. When the head teacher asks why there’s no money for new desks, the bursar says, “We’re still helping the school—just in another way.”
That’s exactly what happened here. Dr. Olejeme was like that bursar. Her duty was to protect workers’ funds, but she joined a political campaign while still in office. In doing so, she blurred the difference between public service and party service—between the people’s money and political money.
And worst of all, President Goodluck Jonathan allowed it.
He watched as a sitting chair of a federal agency became a campaign financier under his own administration—and said nothing. It was a silent approval of confusion, a quiet endorsement of disorder. It showed that in Nigerian politics, what matters is not propriety but proximity.
Ironically, the very loyalty that made Olejeme useful to the campaign did not save the campaign itself. Jonathan lost the 2015 election.
So the money, the loyalty, the blurred lines—all of it—ended where so many Nigerian political stories end: in regret, investigation, and endless court hearings.
This is how Nigeria trains its contradictions—by rewarding blurred ethics until failure teaches what principle.
Chapter Six – The Judiciary: The Captured Middleman
At this point in the national story, Nigerians no longer look only at the accused—they look at the courts. Because between the EFCC’s pursuit and the public’s pain stands the one institution meant to anchor justice but too often floats with politics: the judiciary.
To the ordinary Nigerian, the judiciary is no longer a temple of justice—it is a marketplace of tactics. Cases enter clean and leave dirty. The public sees robes, gavels, and Latin phrases, but behind them, they smell politics, negotiation, and fatigue.
Dr. Olejeme’s case is one among hundreds that seem trapped in a judicial limbo, moving in circles for years. She was arrested in 2017, diagnosed in 2021, and arraigned again in 2025—and still, we are waiting for a single verdict. In this timeline, a child born when her case began could now read the court transcripts aloud in secondary school.
The lawyers, both prosecution and defense, have become marathon runners of delay. They know the system’s weaknesses—the missing documents, the “not properly served” excuses, the sudden medical reports, the technical adjournments that stretch into eternity. They turn the law into a chessboard where justice is always in check but never mates.
Some of these lawyers are not advocates—they are magicians. They perform disappearance acts with witnesses and illusions with evidence. They weaponize procedure to paralyze truth.
And what of the judges?
Public perception—whether fair or not—is that too many judges have been captured, subtly or silently. Not by guns, but by gifts; not by threats, but by favors. Some fear losing promotions. Others simply fear inconvenience. So they play the long game—extend, postpone, pretend
A case like this reveals the psychology of avoidance in Nigerian justice: judges balancing self-preservation against moral duty, lawyers feeding on technicalities, and investigators aging before their cases breathe.
Which leads us to the cruelest irony—time itself becomes the greatest accomplice.
Many of the original EFCC investigators have retired. Some witnesses are dead. Others cannot be found. A few may not even remember what they once testified about. Files yellow, memories fade, and the accused grows old enough to claim compassion as defense.
This is why Nigerians have learned to ask bitter, rhetorical questions:
Where are the first investigators who built this case?
Do the witnesses even remember the details?
Will this trial end before another generation begins?
Each adjournment feels like a psychological conditioning exercise—training the public to lower expectations, to equate court processes with comedy.
It is not just delay—it is institutional gaslighting. The system keeps saying “justice is coming,” while every citizen knows it’s stuck in traffic.
In truth, Nigeria’s legal culture has developed its own emotional language: one of eternal postponement. The longer a case lasts, the weaker public memory becomes. And when the nation forgets, corruption wins quietly.
But not all hope is lost. There remain honorable judges—few but fearless—who know that the law is not paperwork but principle. The question is whether one of them will preside over this case with the courage to end the cycle.
Justice, at its core, is not about perfection—it is about presence. A nation must see it happen, not just exist.
So to the courts, this is the moment:
Do not let this case die like so many before it. Do not let time become the judge and memory the jury.
Do not allow Chairman Ola Olukoyede’s renewed effort to become another entry in the book of unfinished justice.
Because every time the judiciary stalls, it is not only a case that dies—it is the public’s faith that rots.
Chapter Seven – The Psychology of Forgetfulness
Nigeria’s greatest mental adaptation is selective amnesia.
We forget to survive. We joke to stay sane. We move on to keep from breaking down
Chapter Eight – The Ola Olukoyede Moment
Still, something unusual is happening in 2025.
Under Chairman Ola Olukoyede, the EFCC appears to be rediscovering both old files and old courage.
Olukoyede is not loud; he is consistent. He has reopened dormant cases, revived forgotten prosecutions, and challenged the idea that time buries truth.
Psychologically, this signals institutional recovery—a transition from denial to self-awareness. He seems to understand that anti-corruption work is not just about arresting suspects but about restoring faith in systems.
His quiet firmness has reawakened citizens’ cautious belief that the EFCC can remember, can act, and perhaps can finish what it starts.
If he can sustain this—avoiding political manipulation and public fatigue—Olukoyede may become a symbol of institutional conscience. Because in a nation addicted to forgetting, the act of remembering itself is revolutionary
Chapter Nine – A Nation That Laughs While Bleeding
Dr. Ngozi Olejeme’s saga—2009 to 2025—is not just the tale of one woman’s fall; it is a diagnosis of a country that laughs through its wounds.
She is not the disease; she is a symptom.
We laughed in 2017 when she was arrested.
We sighed in 2021 when she became ill.
We chuckled in 2025 when her case returned.
And we will cry—quietly—if it dies again.
This is collective cognitive dissonance: we despise corruption yet adapt to it; we mock impunity yet live under it; we call for justice but expect none.
And yet, even amid the fatigue, there is space for hope.
Because every time an old case returns to court, it reopens a window into our national conscience. It reminds us that memory can be healed, that moral paralysis is not destiny.
Epilogue – Memory and Moral Resurrection
So yes, EFCC, thank you for remembering.
We had almost buried her file beside the nation’s faith in fairness.
Now that she’s back, let this not be another ritual of delay.
To the judiciary—please, don’t let justice collapse on the hospital bed of excuses.
To the EFCC—stay the course.
To Chairman Ola Olukoyede—history is watching.
Because in Nigeria, corruption never dies—it only takes medical leave.
Welcome back, Madam. The nation’s memory is short, but not extinct.
And to Chairman Ola Olukoyede, keep unearthing the forgotten and confronting the powerful—for every reopened case is not just a legal act, but a national therapy session for a wounded republic.
About the Author
Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi is an American psychologist, educator, and public affairs analyst specializing in forensic, legal, clinical, and cross-cultural psychology. Born in Uromi, Edo State, Nigeria, and son of a 37-year veteran of the Nigeria Police Force, he has dedicated his career to linking psychology with justice, education, and governance. In 2011, he introduced advanced forensic psychology to Nigeria through the National Universities Commission and Nasarawa State University, where he served as Associate Professor of Psychology.
He is currently contributing faculty in the Doctorate in Clinical and School Psychology at Nova Southeastern University; PhD Clinical Psychology, BS Psychology, and BS Tempo Criminal Justice programs at Walden University; Professor of Leadership Studies/Management and Social Sciences (Virtual Faculty) at ISCOM University, Benin Republic; and virtual faculty at Weldios University. He also serves as President and Chief Psychologist at the Oshodi Foundation, Center for Psychological and Forensic Services, United States.
Prof. Oshodi is a Black Republican with interests in individual responsibility, community self-reliance, and institutional democracy. He is the founder of Psychoafricalysis (Psychoafricalytic Psychology), a culturally grounded framework centering African sociocultural realities, historical memory, and future-oriented identity. He has authored over 500 articles, multiple books, and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles spanning Africentric psychological theory, higher education reform, forensic and correctional psychology, African democracy, and decolonized therapeutic models.
**Opinion Nigeria is a practical online community where both local and international authors through their opinion pieces, address today’s topical issues. In Opinion Nigeria, we believe in the right to freedom of opinion and expression. We believe that people should be free to express their opinion without interference from anyone especially the government.
**About the Author
Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi is an American psychologist, educator, and public affairs analyst specializing in forensic, legal, clinical, and cross-cultural psychology.
Culled from Opinion Nigeria
