By Vitus Ozoke
Nigeria has perfected a rare and lucrative export: titles without substance. We no longer export people; we export disgrace in formal wear. We export crude oil, yes – but more efficiently, we export Doctorates, Ambassadors, and Distinguished Anything-At-All, neatly packaged with zero intellectual content and shipped abroad with diplomatic immunity.
We have turned titles into souvenirs – things you buy at the airport on your way out of accountability. The title “Dr.” no longer suggests academic achievement in scholarship, research, medicine, or even literacy. It merely indicates that, at some point, a cheque was cleared, and the title “Dr.” is the receipt. The recipient may not be able to spell “thesis,” but fear not, he has funded one somewhere. Allegedly. You steal enough money, fund a building, shake a few hands, and suddenly you are “Dr.” The title is not proof of learning; it is proof that Nigeria’s institutions are for sale to bidders.
Today’s Nigerian “Dr.” may struggle to read a restaurant menu, but rest assured, he has been “honored.” He cannot write a paragraph, but he has received an honorary doctorate in Strategic Leadership in National Plundering. We now have Doctors who cannot read policy documents but make national policy. Doctors who cannot write a coherent sentence but demand to be addressed with reverence. Doctors whose greatest research contribution is discovering how much money it takes to buy silence. Doctors who believe peer review means asking their driver if the speech sounds good. In Nigeria, the “Dr.” title is not honorary recognition; it is intellectual fraud.
If degrees were calories, Nigeria would be obese with scholars. If they required thinking, we would be on life support. The “Dr.” title has been so thoroughly abused and misused that, in Nigeria today, calling someone “Dr.” tells you absolutely nothing, except that money once changed hands. The title “Dr.” now functions like “Mr.”, except louder and more insecure. It is screamed into microphones, printed in bold, and weaponized to silence criticism. “Address me properly,” they say – because when you lack substance, you must demand ceremony.
But Nigeria never stops at one tragedy when it can orchestrate a sequel. So, here comes the Ambassador. The true masterpiece of Nigerian moral decay is not the Dr. It is the Ambassador. Ambassadorship is the trophy for ruining Nigeria. Ambassadorial posting is no longer a call to service. It is a political exile with benefits. Did you fail spectacularly at governance? Did you loot shamelessly? Did you lie publicly and often? Congratulations, you have qualified to represent Nigeria abroad! Take a bow and bon voyage!
Nigeria is not failing by accident; it is failing by design. Once upon a time, Nigerian ambassadors were thinkers, diplomats, intellectual heavyweights. The era of Bola I. Akinyemi and George Obiozor, men who could walk into a room and command respect before speaking, and articulate Nigeria’s interests without embarrassing the national flag or themselves, now feels like historical fiction from ancient times. Back then, ambassadors were statesmen. Today, they are diplomatic garbage in exile destinations. Ambassadorship has become a polite way of saying: “Please leave the country, but keep the title.” We have built a conveyor belt that takes corruption at home and repackages it as representation abroad. The process is elegant in its wickedness: loot, fail, embarrass the nation, then get rewarded with a diplomatic passport and a title so heavy it collapses under its own lies.
Nigeria sends abroad its worst specimens – political leftovers, failed godfathers, ethical disasters – all wrapped in diplomatic passports and introduced to the world as His or Her Excellency. We now appoint ambassadors the way criminal gangs assign lookouts – based on loyalty, not competence; obedience, not integrity. A man who cannot be trusted with a local government budget is now trusted to speak for Nigeria. Men with pending allegations. Women with histories so radioactive they glow. A woman whose name triggers court cases is now introduced as “Her Excellency.”
Let us say the unsayable plainly: Nigeria uses diplomacy to launder criminals. Diplomatic immunity has become a witness protection program for political failure. Embassies have become safe houses for reputations that cannot survive daylight. Ambassadors are no longer voices of the nation; they are evidence that the country refuses to reform. This is why Nigeria is not respected. This is why Nigerians are profiled. This is why our passports are treated like liabilities. The world judges countries by who they send to speak for them. Nigeria keeps sending its worst and demanding applause.
Criminals who should be explaining themselves to prosecutors are instead explaining Nigeria to the world. These are the faces intended to represent more than 220 million people. These are the voices designed to speak for Nigeria in rooms where words matter. This is not diplomacy. This is institutional madness. This is no longer a story of mismanagement. It is a story of Nigeria’s deliberate insult to its citizens, to its partners, and to the very idea of diplomacy. Nigeria has crossed the threshold from dysfunction to international disrepute.
And then the Nigerian government acts surprised when Nigeria, with its image in the gutter, is treated like a joke. And they ask: “Why does the world look down on Nigeria?” What do you expect when your messenger is a documented liar? We keep asking the world to “respect us” while consistently presenting our worst citizens as our official faces and voices. Respect is not demanded; it is earned. And no amount of protocol can compensate for rot. A country that sends thieves as ambassadors should not be shocked when it is treated like a crime scene. Diplomatic immunity was designed to protect diplomats – not to protect criminals cosplaying as diplomats. But Nigeria treats it like bulletproof moral armor. Foreign countries know this. They see the files. They read the reports. They understand perfectly well when a country is trying to smuggle disgrace under a flag.
Now, let us address the uncomfortable but necessary question: Can a country reject an ambassador? The short answer is: Yes. Absolutely. Unequivocally. Under international law (specifically the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations), no country is obligated to accept anyone another country sends. No country is required to accept your garbage just because you wrapped it in a flag. Diplomatic immunity is not moral immunity.
International law does not say, “Accept all ambassadors, no matter how criminal, corrupt, or grotesquely unqualified.” It states that the receiving country must agree, approve, and consent before an ambassador can assume post. Without it, the nominee is diplomatically dead on arrival. Countries reject ambassadorial nominees all the time – quietly, firmly, but sometimes brutally.
If nations can deny tourist visas to criminals, corrupt officials, and human rights violators, then diplomatic passports are not magical cloaks of moral invisibility. A diplomatic passport does not launder character. It is not a baptismal certificate. It does not wash sins away. It does not erase criminal records. It does not convert thieves into statesmen. It merely advertises them internationally. It simply exposes how unserious the sending country is.
So yes, foreign countries not only can reject ambassadorial nominees, they should, especially when due diligence screams, “Danger! National embarrassment approaching!” Rejecting a corrupt ambassador is not a diplomatic insult; it is a sanity check. Accepting one is self-harm. And this is where Nigerians abroad come in. If you are Nigerian abroad, this part is for you – and it will not flatter you. We must stop being polite spectators to our own disgrace. Silence is no longer neutral; it is complicity. Politeness is surrender. If Nigeria insists on exporting disgrace, Nigerians abroad must refuse to be passive consumers of it.
When a deeply compromised individual is sent to your country as Nigeria’s representative, your silence is an endorsement. Every smiling photo-op, every handshake, every “let us be respectful” is a betrayal of the country you claim to love. When such a figure is posted to your country as Nigeria’s representative, protest – peacefully, loudly, and legally; petition the host country’s foreign ministry; refuse photo-ops, endorsements, and respectability theater; engage civil society, journalists, and lawmakers; present documented records, not gossip; persist, not once, not loudly, but consistently; and refuse to clap for nonsense. This is your lawful call to patriotic arms.
You do not owe respect to corruption. You do not owe silence to criminals. You do not owe applause to mediocrity. This is not sabotage. This is quality control. You are not insulting Nigeria; you are defending it from those who treat public office like a criminal reward system. You are not embarrassing Nigeria; you are interrupting a crime scene. Nigeria does not look bad because good people speak up against criminals. No, Nigeria looks bad because criminals and corrupt operatives speak for good people. National betrayal is allowing thieves to introduce themselves as the face of your country while you clap politely. So, let’s stop romanticizing Nigeria’s decay. Let’s stop defending nonsense as culture. Let us stop conflating silence with patriotism. Every corrupt ambassador rejected abroad is not a national humiliation; it is a national opportunity. A mirror held up to a system that refuses to self-correct.
A country that treats integrity like a nuisance and criminals like elders should not expect miracles. You cannot build a nation by rewarding its worst citizens and punishing its best. You cannot command respect abroad while institutionalizing disgrace at home. You cannot fix Nigeria without offending the people who broke it. Nigeria will not be fixed by pretending everything is fine. It will not be rescued by chanting patriotism while mediocrity and corruption are crowned with titles. Nations are not rebuilt by silence; they are rebuilt by confrontation. Nigeria’s reputation is already bleeding. At a minimum, you can stop the hemorrhage. The saddest part of it all is that Nigeria does not lack brilliant minds. It lacks the courage to choose them. Until that changes, embassies will remain crime exhibits, honorary degrees will remain jokes, and titles will continue to mean nothing. Because until Nigeria stops exporting criminals with titles, the world will continue to receive us exactly as we present ourselves: not as a great nation betrayed by a few bad leaders, but as a country that keeps choosing them.
And let us not pretend that Bola Tinubu himself does not understand this reality perfectly. He is not confused. He understands power. He understands optics. He understands consequences. Tinubu knows – they all know – that sending Nigeria’s most compromised, criminally scented, and intellectually bankrupt political rejects to serious nations or serious institutions is not an option. I will bet you this. When Tinubu assigns postings to his ambassador nominees, you will never see these deplorables posted to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, China, Russia, Australia, or anywhere near the United Nations. Those places are not run on sentiment or “African solidarity.” They are run on files, intelligence briefings, and consequences.
Sending known criminals and corrupt political operatives to those countries would not be treated as a mistake. It would be treated as a hostile behavior – a willful attempt to abuse diplomatic norms. A quiet but severe reprimand would follow. Not only would they be rejected, but doors would close, files would thicken, and Nigeria would be marked. I will bet a substantial sum that Bola Tinubu will reroute the refuse. He will send them to fellow African countries and the Caribbean, treating those nations as diplomatic dumping grounds, less deserving of dignity, as though African solidarity means swallowing Nigeria’s garbage with a smile. As though respect is optional when the recipient is Black and formerly colonized. But even that era is ending. A serious African country like Rwanda will not accept Nigeria’s diplomatic sewage. The world is no longer fooled. The dumping grounds are filling up; Nigeria is running out of places to hide its shame. Sadly, only Nigeria still pretends this is normal.
So, the next time someone introduces himself as “Dr.”, squint and ask: Doctor of what, exactly? And the next time someone is called “Ambassador”, do not stand, investigate. And when someone says, “This is how things are done in Nigeria,” let your response be: That is precisely why Nigeria is where it is. Respect, like titles, must be earned. Nigeria deserves better representatives than the ones currently being shipped out like defective goods, with diplomatic seals. If Nigeria is to stop withering everything it touches, it must first stop touching everything with corruption. Until Nigeria stops exporting criminals as ambassadors and buying intelligence with honorary degrees, it will remain exactly what it is today: A loud country with nothing credible to say – and no one credible to say it.
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.
Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Ikengaonline.
