Oshiomhole, KWAM 1, and the Slow Death of Order

[John Onyeukwu]

Oshiomhole, KWAM 1, and the Slow Death of Order

 John Onyeukwu

(Published on the Backpage of Business am Newspaper of Wednesday August 13, 2025). Attached 

Two recent incidents at Nigerian airports both absurd yet deeply symbolic, cast a harsh spotlight on the state of law, order, and entitlement in our society.

On June 11, 2025, Senator Adams Oshiomhole reportedly disrupted check-in operations at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos after being denied boarding by Air Peace. He allegedly blocked a conveyor belt and caused a scene, insisting he had checked in online despite arriving late. Then, exactly 8 weeks and 2 days later, on August 5, 2025, Fuji musician King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (popularly known as KWAM 1) allegedly attempted to carry a flask of alcohol (he claims water), through security at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. When asked to surrender it, he reportedly poured its contents on a security officer and proceeded to physically obstruct a ValueJet aircraft from taxiing for takeoff.

These are not isolated incidents. They are vivid expressions of elite impunity, where status is used to bend, or even break, the rules governing public space. These acts are not simply tantrums of the powerful, they are warning signs of a deeper moral, political, and economic breakdown. Let us try to understand this.

These events point to a collapse of the civic imagination. In a just society, individuals are guided by the moral force of rules, laws exist not only to regulate behavior, but to express a shared social contract. In disrupting airport operations, both Oshiomhole and KWAM 1 undermined not just airport protocol, but the very idea that the public sphere should be ruled by reason and fairness. In Kantian terms, such actions violate the categorical imperative: if everyone acted this way, what kind of society would we have? Public institutions, including airports, can only function when individuals act with restraint and respect for universal norms. But when the elite treat order as optional, they distort the moral compass of the society at large.

There is also a philosophical quietism at play, where we, as citizens, observe these infractions and shrug. This normalization of misconduct is not just a leadership crisis, but a societal one. The philosopher Cornel West puts it succinctly: “Justice is what love looks like in public.” When the powerful act without consequence, love, expressed as justice, vanishes from public life.

Politically, these incidents reveal the crisis of unaccountable power. Oshiomhole is a senator, a lawmaker. KWAM 1 is an entertainer with access to political corridors and state patronage. Both understand the unspoken privilege that status grants in Nigeria: rules are for the ruled. This mirrors a broader pattern of what political theorists call clientelist authoritarianism, where power is personalized and selectively enforced. Institutions exist, but they serve the interests of the few. When public figures physically interfere with airport operations and suffer no immediate legal consequences, the message is clear: hierarchy trumps law.

Furthermore, enforcement only comes after social media outcry, showing that our institutions respond more to optics than to principle.  That is why the timely and decisive intervention of the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, is commendable. By swiftly suspending KWAM1 from flying and initiating further regulatory sanctions, he sent a clear message that aviation rules are not optional and that safety and accountability must override status or celebrity. In functioning democracies, rule of law is proactive and blind to power. In Nigeria, law is often reactive, and calibrated to avoid offending power. This dynamic fosters public cynicism. Why should a citizen queue at the airport, obey traffic lights, or pay taxes, when public figures can openly defy the state and walk away unscathed?

The economic implications are equally dire. Airports are not just points of transit; they are nodes of national infrastructure and symbols of modernity. When they become theatres of anyhowness, the cost is reputational, operational, and ultimately developmental. Investor confidence takes a hit as a country where airports can be disrupted by ego and chaos does not signal predictability, safety, or seriousness, Operational inefficiency increases, as delayed flights, damaged equipment, and safety breaches all have a cost. Aviation is a sensitive sector, such incidents could trigger sanctions or downgrade Nigeria’s aviation safety rating, and public sector productivity is undermined as rule-breaking goes unpunished, it seeps into other sectors - customs, health, judiciary, education. If airports are not safe from elite interference, can we trust procurement processes, land registries, or financial regulators?

A nation cannot develop with symbolic or performative infrastructure alone. As Nobel laureate Douglass North once argued, institutions are the rules of the game in a society. Where those rules are undermined, the game itself collapses.

To course correct, we must respond not just with outrage but with clear, sustained reform:

Strengthen Aviation Law Enforcement. FAAN and NCAA must be fully empowered, not just in law but in practice, to arrest and prosecute all individuals, regardless of social status or political title, for obstructing operations or assaulting airport staff. Blacklisting should be swift, public, and non-negotiable.

Codify Zero-Tolerance Policies. No fly lists and minimum penalty provisions must be formally built into aviation and civil security law. It should never require presidential clearance or media outrage to enforce basic discipline at airports or any public facility.

Invest in Civic Education. Both the elite and the general public need structured re-orientation. Civic order is not a Western imposition; it is the foundation of any stable and modern society. Without it, development becomes performative rather than structural.

Build Institutions, Not Exceptions. The engine of sustainable development must be institutional logic, not the whims of powerful individuals. Until our systems are robust enough to withstand pressure from the top, we will remain trapped in cycles of dysfunction and elite impunity.

The fight for national development is not only about GDP, FDI, or infrastructure; it is also about culture, character, and civility. When powerful individuals disrupt public systems without consequence, they chip away at the very foundations of statehood.

There is no developed country where the elite behave like this in public. That we tolerate such conduct is evidence of a society still unsure of its own rules. Until we domesticate discipline and constitutionalism, no policy reform, no matter how well-written, can deliver sustained progress. In the end, the question is simple: Will Nigeria be a country of laws, or a country of noise, where anyhowness reigns?

John Onyeukwu
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/

 http://about.me/onyeukwu
“Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation.”
-- James D. Wolfensohn
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