After more than twelve years in office, Nicolás Maduro has become a symbol of how prolonged and unchecked power can destroy a nation while abandoning its people. Venezuela, a country blessed with enormous natural resources, especially oil, should be a model of prosperity in Latin America. Instead, it stands as a painful example of how dictatorship and elite greed can plunge a nation into widespread suffering.
Maduro’s excesses in power are evident in the daily realities of ordinary Venezuelans. While a small political and economic elite enjoys wealth and privilege, the majority struggle with poverty, food insecurity, a collapsing healthcare system, and mass migration. This sharp contrast exposes a leadership more obsessed with retaining power and accumulating wealth than addressing the suffering of its citizens.
A responsible leader knows when to step aside. After more than a decade in power, Maduro has shown no willingness to relinquish authority, despite overwhelming evidence that his leadership has failed the people. His refusal to leave office has only deepened Venezuela’s crisis and prolonged the hardship endured by millions.
The possible intervention of the United States to arrest and prosecute Maduro should not be viewed solely as foreign interference. It may serve as a powerful deterrent to entrenched dictatorships. When leaders understand that abuse of power can result in international accountability, it may discourage similar behavior elsewhere, particularly in parts of Africa where prolonged rule, repression, and the concentration of national wealth among elites remain common.
How dictatorship is stopped is ultimately less important than the fact that it is stopped. Whether through internal reform, international pressure, or legal accountability, the global community must send a clear message. No leader has the right to hold an entire nation hostage for personal gain. Countries rich in natural resources should not have populations condemned to misery while a privileged few enjoy abundance.
Venezuela’s experience is both a warning and a call to action. Dictatorship, wherever it exists, must be discouraged and dismantled in the interest of justice, dignity, and the future of ordinary people around the world.
By Bola Babarinde, South Africa
