By Rep. Musa Hassan Bility
There is a kind of arrogance that does not merely offend the ear, it injures the nation. It is the arrogance of power when it forgets its purpose, and the arrogance of corruption when it believes it has become a law unto itself.
I have watched this arrogance grow legs in our country. It walks freely. It speaks loudly. It threatens quietly. It signs papers as if signatures can replace conscience. It sits in offices that were built by taxpayers and behaves as though the office is personal property, as though the people are tenants living on borrowed mercy. And the most dangerous part is not the corruption itself, it is the sense of entitlement that comes with it.
Corrupt entitlement is a strange sickness. It makes a man feel chosen when he is only positioned. It makes a woman feel untouchable when she is only protected by silence. It makes people walk on stones in the air, stepping on nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, because they have convinced themselves that they are above consequence. They act as though the country is a private estate and the citizens are just noise.
But do they not know the wall watches them?
Yes, the wall watches them. The market watches them. The roads watch them. The hospitals watch them. The school benches watch them. The empty rice pot watches them. The generator that never comes on watches them. The rent that cannot be paid watches them. The child who learns under a leaking roof watches them. The mother who walks miles with a sick baby watches them. The father who cannot find work watches them. The wall watches them, and the wall remembers.
Because the wealth they display is not innocent.
Let us say this plainly. Much of the wealth that arrogance flaunts in our country is not earned wealth. It is extracted wealth. It is wealth taken from the sweat of the poor and polished into luxury for the powerful. It is the blood and labor of ordinary people turned into comfort for those who have mastered the art of being important without being useful.
And when corrupt people become entitled, they stop even pretending to respect the suffering around them. They talk to citizens as if citizens are a burden. They treat questions like insults. They treat accountability like rebellion. They use institutions not as public service, but as private weapons, punishing opponents, rewarding friends, and confusing the public with paperwork and procedure.
That is how power and corruption join forces.
Power gives corruption cover. Corruption gives power motive. Arrogance gives both permission.
So the ordinary person becomes the casualty of a system that is designed to feel strong, not to do right. In that system, a simple request becomes a struggle. A lawful right becomes a favor. A citizen becomes a beggar in their own country. And the poorest people, men, women, and children, carry the heaviest weight of this arrogance because they have the least protection against it.
This is why the suffering looks normal.
It is normalized suffering, suffering that has become so common that leaders no longer hear its sound. Yet the ordinary people are not weak. They are tired, but not weak. They are struggling, but not defeated. They are enduring, and endurance is strength. They have built this country with hands that never appear in headlines. They have carried families on backs that never enter convoys. They have kept hope alive with nothing but prayer, patience, and the stubborn refusal to die.
But endurance should not be the national plan.
A country cannot be governed by entitlement and remain stable. A nation cannot be led by arrogance and remain united. Because arrogance eventually produces something it cannot control, anger. And when anger meets hunger, and hunger meets injustice, history begins to move.
Let the entitled remember this. Power is borrowed. Office is rented. Authority is temporary. The people may be patient, but patience is not permission. The wall watches, and the wall speaks, sometimes softly through whispers, and sometimes loudly through consequences.
This week, my letter is not just a complaint. It is a warning and a plea.
To those who hold power, stop walking on air. Come down. See the stones. Feel the heat of ordinary life. Remember that leadership is not entitlement, it is duty.
To those who practice corruption, know that what you call success is often the stolen future of a child. What you call position is often the delayed medicine of a mother. What you call influence is often the broken dreams of a young man. The wall watches, and the wall remembers.
And to the ordinary people, the poor, the working, the struggling, the forgotten, your suffering is not your shame. Your survival is your strength. You deserve a country where your sweat becomes progress, not somebody else’s arrogance.
The true measure of a nation is not the comfort of the powerful. It is the dignity of the ordinary person.
Have a peaceful week.