In the United States, corporate culture has a colorful vocabulary for the hyper-sycophant: the brown-noser, the bootlicker, the corporate shill. But in Nigeria, this behavior isn’t just a personality trait of that one annoying guy in middle management. It is a highly sophisticated, deeply institutionalized standard operating procedure known colloquially as “Eye Service.”
If you have ever dealt with the Nigerian civil, commercial, or security services, you have witnessed Eye Service in its purest form. It is the art of performing loyalty so aggressively that you anticipate your boss’s desires before they even form them.
The unique danger of Eye Service is its unsolicited nature. A Nigerian official practicing Eye Service doesn’t wait for orders. They will gladly bend the law, shatter due process, and launch unprovoked battles on behalf of their “Lord and Master” all without the master ever asking. It takes an incredibly strong-willed, principled leader to look at a sycophant fighting an imaginary war for them and say, “Hey, sit down. Who sent you?”
Unfortunately, those leaders are in short supply. Instead, we get what is currently playing out in our national security apparatus.
When the Security State Becomes a Personal PR Firm
Consider the latest political drama dominating the airwaves. An opposition leader, Omoyele Sowore publicly calls President Tinubu a criminal, digging up a laundry list of past controversies. He points to decades-old US civil litigation that ended in asset forfeiture, involving heavy allegations of drug trafficking and money laundering. He brings up the perennial favorite: the President Tinubu’s post-primary educational qualifications, noting with a smirk that the school he claims to have graduated from didn’t actually exist until years after his graduation date.
Now, in a standard democracy, this is called a Tuesday. It’s messy, it’s personal, and it’s arguably slander. If the President Tinubu feels his character has been assassinated, he has a very clear constitutional remedy: hire a private lawyer, file a civil defamation suit, and see the critic in court. The slander, after all, was directed at the man, not the office.
Enter the Department of State Services (DSS), the Olympic gold medalists of institutional Eye Service.
[Personal Grievance] ──> Should be: Private Civil Lawsuit │ └──> Real Path (Eye Service): DSS Criminal Prosecution
Instead of letting the President Tinubu handle his own personal legal battles, the DSS has collectively decided to catch feelings on his behalf. Deeming a piece of political rhetoric a threat to national security, they have mobilized the full weight of the state to seek criminal prosecution against the critic.
On what legal grounds? None that would survive a basic law school exam. But Eye Service doesn’t care about jurisprudence; it cares about optics.
The Loyalty Olympics
This is the standard playbook for operatives across Nigeria. Without a single thought spared for due process, legal efficacy, or the public image of the agencies they represent, they will eagerly abuse the public just to show the guy at the top how much they care.
- The Goal: It isn’t actually to protect the President.
- The Reality: It’s to ensure the President sees them protecting him. It’s a performance staged for an audience of one.
The irony, of course, is that this overzealous sycophancy does more damage to the principal than the original slander ever could. By turning a personal insult into a state-sponsored criminal hunt, the DSS effectively validates the critic’s narrative, transforming a loud political opponent into a democratic martyr.
But hey, that’s the beauty of Eye Service. You don’t have to be smart, and you don’t have to be effective. You just have to make sure the boss sees you swinging your sword—even if you’re accidentally cutting off his own feet in the process.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 