The Curse of Proximity to Power: How Aides Fail Their Principals
By Bamidele Atoyebi
I’ve always been curious about the strange way power changes people, or perhaps how proximity to it exposes who they truly are. Once someone becomes a special assistant, adviser, or even just a gatekeeper to a powerful figure, something shifts. They suddenly carry themselves like mini-gods, guarding the gates of influence as though the position belongs to them.
It’s almost amusing but tragic. The people appointed to help leaders manage their workload have somehow become the biggest obstacle between the people and those leaders. What should be a bridge of service has turned into a barricade of arrogance.
Take a simple example: a secretary to a pastor starts deciding who can see the man of God and who cannot. In government, special assistants act as if seeing their boss requires divine intervention.
Many have even turned their desks into toll gates, where access must be bought. If you don’t “drop something,” your file never moves, your letter never gets seen, and your request dies before it’s ever considered.
This attitude has eaten deep into our national culture. From political aides to party secretaries, even to gatemen who were hired to open and close doors, everyone now acts as though the power of access makes them superior.
Aides, who should be invisible hands of support, now behave like gatekeeper principalities, frustrating citizens and embarrassing the very leaders they represent.
The irony is that most of them are ordinary people elevated by opportunity, not competence. Yet, once the title comes, humility disappears. They forget they were appointed to assist, not to dominate. They forget that their boss’s reputation often depends on how they treat others.
The damage they cause runs deeper than individual rudeness. It destroys trust between leaders and citizens. When people are turned away repeatedly by arrogant aides, they start believing the leaders themselves are inaccessible and indifferent. That perception, even when untrue, is poison to governance. It creates distance, resentment, and eventually, apathy.
I understand that access must be managed. No leader can meet everyone who shows up at the door. But there’s a difference between managing access and weaponising it. There’s a difference between order and oppression.
A well-meaning aide can filter requests without shutting people out completely. The least they can do is accept letters, listen politely, or direct people properly. Instead, some have turned it into a business venture.
I’ve heard of cases where people are asked to pay ridiculous sums just to submit letters or schedule meetings, money that never reaches the principal and letters that never get delivered.
This is not how a country progresses. When those closest to power start abusing it, leadership fails from within. It’s not always external enemies or opposition that weaken governments; sometimes it’s the arrogance of those standing too close to the throne.
I think it’s time leaders started paying attention to how their aides behave. They need to ask hard questions: Who’s turning people away in my name? Who’s blocking communication under the guise of protocol? Because if they don’t, they’ll keep losing the trust of the very people they’re trying to serve.
Proximity to power should be a test of character, not an excuse for tyranny. Those who serve in such positions must understand that power is not transferred to them; it’s only entrusted for a purpose. True loyalty to a leader means protecting their image, not inflating one’s ego at the expense of others.
In the end, the greatest measure of service is humility. And until aides, assistants, and gatekeepers rediscover that truth, the curse of proximity to power will keep haunting our leadership, and our progress as a nation.
Bamidele Atoyebi is the Convenor of BAT Ideological Group, National Coordinator of Accountability and Policy monitoring and a publisher at Unfiltered and Mining Reporting
