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There is a dangerous way of speaking about leadership as though public office were a chair passed around at a family meeting. One person sits, another waits, and eventually somebody announces, “It is our turn.” Missing from the conversation is the person whose life depends on what happens in that chair.

Use, Dump, OYO, Olabisi Rabiu’s forthcoming work of political and social satire, examines the cycle beneath that language: people are courted when useful, praised when obedient and abandoned when their purpose has been served. The title is funny because the pattern is familiar. The laughter becomes uncomfortable when we recognise the cost.

Nigeria is the board

Chess teaches a simple lesson: no move exists alone. Move one piece and the safety of another changes. Chase a quick advantage and you may expose the entire board. Strong players think beyond the excitement of the present move. They ask what becomes possible next.

Leadership should demand the same discipline. A fuel policy is not merely an announcement; it affects transport, food, school fees, salaries and the small trader’s ability to open tomorrow. A security failure is not a statistic; it changes how families travel, farm and sleep. A careless move at the top multiplies into thousands of private emergencies below.

Citizens are often treated like pawns: useful for numbers, rallies and slogans, then forgotten until the next contest. But on a national board, there are no disposable pieces. Every person represents a life, a household and a future. Leadership that sacrifices people for position has misunderstood the game.

The politics of use

Before power is secured, ordinary people suddenly become important. Their markets are visited. Their meals are tasted for cameras. Their languages are spoken with enthusiasm. Young people are called the future. Women are praised as the backbone of society. Communities hear promises tailored to their deepest needs.

Use begins when human beings are reduced to what they can deliver: votes, loyalty, labour, silence or public defence. The relationship is presented as partnership, but it is often extraction. People give their energy and hope to a structure that has no plan to honour them once the immediate goal is achieved.

The speed of the dump

After victory, the language changes. Access closes. Urgency disappears. Those who were addressed as stakeholders become background noise. When citizens ask about promises, they are told to be patient, patriotic or realistic. Their suffering is explained more often than it is reduced.

This is the “dump” inside the title. It is not only political. Institutions, employers, movements and even personal relationships can celebrate people while they are useful, then discard them when their usefulness ends. Satire exposes the behaviour by making its logic impossible to ignore.

Then comes OYO

“On your own” is more than a phrase. It describes the moment responsibility is pushed back onto people after collective promises have failed. Find your own electricity. Arrange your own water. Protect yourself. Fund your treatment. Survive the policy. Adjust again.

The citizen pays taxes, obeys rules and participates in elections, yet is frequently told to solve privately what leadership was created to address publicly. Resilience becomes an excuse for neglect. Because people always find a way, those in power begin to assume they should never have to provide one.

When loyalty replaces accountability

The cycle survives because criticism is redirected into identity. Ask a leader to account for a poor move and the conversation shifts to party, tribe or religion. Evidence becomes less important than loyalty. Citizens defend outcomes that hurt them because admitting failure feels like helping an opponent.

Chess offers another warning: protecting one piece at every cost can lose the entire game. No leader or party should become more important than the citizens it serves. Loyalty that cannot ask questions is permission without supervision.

Accountability is not hatred. It means checking whether a promised move produced its result. When public debate becomes teams shouting at one another, poor leadership wins because citizens spend their energy defending colours instead of measuring consequences.

Leadership is consequence

Good leadership is not proven by the title a person carries or the length of time they waited for it. It is proven by consequences. Are children learning? Are roads safer? Can businesses plan? Can families afford food without panic? Do citizens trust that laws apply beyond the powerless?

This is why leadership is not your turn. It is not a reward for loyalty, age, region, friendship or patience. It is a temporary responsibility to make moves whose benefits extend beyond the player. Anyone who wants the chair without accepting that burden wants power, not leadership.

Use, Dump, OYO uses humour because sometimes truth enters more easily when people are laughing. But the purpose is not laughter alone. It is recognition. Once we see the pattern, we can stop applauding the performance and begin examining the result.

The board belongs to all of us. Every move has a consequence, and citizens should never be treated as pieces to use, dump and leave on their own.

Discover Use, Dump, OYO and join the waitlist for the official reveal, publication news and first access.