By Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma, AI-KO

I am not the social media celebrity news-consuming and gossip type. But when periodically the news about Diddy, R. Kelly, and other high-profile personalities erupts with revelations of heinous crimes and their aftermaths, I slow down and look. Any of these victims could have been my daughter, sister, cousin, or a stranger whose humanity binds us all.
The sickness lies not only in the acts themselves but in our complicity—how we consume their music, films, and products, funneling wealth into empires that fund further abuses. We dance to beats produced by traffickers, stream albums curated by predators, and wear brands endorsed by moral vacuums, all while feigning ignorance of the bloodstains on their dollar bills. To paraphrase the Igbo proverb, “There are various leaves in the forest, but people go in to look for okazi leaves”. We choose what to see, what to monetize, what to erase.
When federal agents raided Sean “Diddy” Combs’ homes in March 2024, the world finally paid attention. The allegations—sex trafficking, racketeering, physical abuse spanning decades—were horrifying, yet familiar.
For years, whispers of his violent behaviour swirled in the shadows. Cassie Ventura’s 2023 lawsuit, settled in a day for $20 million, was a tremor before the earthquake. But it took grainy surveillance footage of Combs assaulting Ventura in a hotel hallway for the public to erupt in outrage. This pattern is not unique. Society thrives on scandal, not prevention. We feast on the carcass of morality only after it has been devoured by greed and power. The Diddy case is a microcosm of a global sickness: a world where wealth insulates the elite, silence is transactional, and justice is a performance.
Consider the testimonies: Kid Cudi described Combs breaking into his home, unwrapping Christmas gifts, and later firebombing his Porsche in a jealous rage. Cassie Ventura’s mother testified to paying Combs $20,000 under threat of leaked sex tapes, a transaction masked as “expenses.” Dawn Richard, a Danity Kane singer, recounted Combs dragging Ventura by her hair after a trivial argument over eggs—a scene later smoothed over with flowers and threats. These acts were not anomalies but systemic. Combs’ lawyers weaponized procedural technicalities to dismiss lawsuits, arguing that abuses in the 1990s were “not illegal at the time.” The message is clear: morality bends to money.
But the rot isn’t confined to individual actions. While Diddy’s trial unfolds, another form of exploitation thrives: environmental hypocrisy. Celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Leonardo DiCaprio lecture on climate change while their private jets emit 3,376 tons of CO₂ annually—700 times the global average. During the 2025 L.A. wildfires, elites hired private firefighters to protect their estates while ordinary residents fled. Their GoFundMe campaigns for victims rang hollow; their carbon footprints drowned out their prayers. This duality is not incidental but intentional. As the Bible warns, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Wealth becomes an idol, and its worshippers—celebrities, CEOs, politicians—sacrifice integrity at its altar.
Our complicity is engineered. Social media algorithms trap us in filter bubbles, where outrage is selective and accountability rare. A 2016 study found fake news spreads as quickly as truth, fueled by confirmation bias. We share headlines without reading, donate to crises only when they trend, and ignore abuses until they’re packaged as entertainment. Take the #MeToo movement: it took decades for survivors to be heard, yet predators like Harvey Weinstein operated openly, shielded by NDAs and collective silence. Similarly, Diddy’s victims were bribed, threatened, or gaslit into submission while the industry looked away.
When Howard University rescinded Diddy’s honorary degree or New York Mayor Eric Adams reclaimed his city key, it was theater. These gestures absolve institutions of their prior complicity. Revolt TV, Combs’ network, only distanced itself after raids made headlines. Justice delayed is justice denied—and in a capitalist framework, it’s also profitable. The legal system, too, is rigged. Statutes of limitations protect abusers; procedural loopholes dismiss survivors. Cassie’s assault video emerged years too late for criminal charges, yet it fueled a federal indictment. The system moves not for truth, but for optics.
This rot is not confined to Hollywood or New York. In Nigeria, where I write from, the same moral decay festers beneath the glitter of Nollywood and the bravado of Afrobeats. Wealthy politicians and business moguls weaponize poverty to groom vulnerable girls into “side chicks” or trafficking victims, their crimes buried under stacks of naira. Take the case of a Lagos billionaire who hosted parties where underage girls were paraded like commodities, their trauma dismissed as “transactional.” Survivors are silenced with threats, bribes, or societal shame—“Poverty makes a free man become a slave”.
Meanwhile, we stream Burna Boy’s anthems about resilience, oblivious to the producers who exploit backup dancers with contracts that demand sexual favors. We applaud our celebrity philanthropies while their inner circles perpetuates a nauseating culture of impunity, where abuse is the price of access to fame. What does this do to us? How many psychological fractures must accumulate before we admit that our collective conscience is necrotic?
The victims, too, are ensnared in this web. The Apostle Paul’s warning—“The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10)—cuts both ways. Many survivors, lured by promises of stardom or financial security, become complicit in their own exploitation. A young actress endures a director’s advances, rationalising this pop phrase, “Though you are hungry, you do not eat with both hands”. She trades dignity for a role, her desperation monetized by an industry that profits from her degradation. Yet to blame her alone is to ignore the ecosystem that normalizes this predation: parents who pressure daughters to “marry rich,” pastors who preach prosperity over integrity, and a society that equates wealth with worth.
We have created a world where the ocean now swallows “whom it doesn’t see its leg”—a twisted feat of unmaking the Abiriba Proverb “That the ocean doesn’t drown who it doesn’t see it’s leg”. We turn away from the drowning, pretending not to see the limbs thrashing beneath the surface, because to acknowledge them would force us to confront our own reflection.

What does it mean when a society’s moral compass is calibrated by bank accounts? In Lagos, a mother sells her daughter’s virginity to a politician or musician to pay rent, justifying it as “When gold comes near to you, it listens, so take it”.
In Abuja, religious leaders—pastors and Imams—have turned faith into a marketplace, offering “miracle blessings” to the highest bidders. In doing so, they’ve transformed spirituality into something resembling a Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription. Just like SaaS companies charge users a recurring fee to access their cloud-based software, these religious figures have monetized divine favor, making blessings available only to those who can afford them.
To break this cycle, we must demand preemptive accountability by boycotting enablers—labels, studios, brands—that profit from abuse. We must amplify marginalized voices before trauma becomes a hashtag. We must redefine wealth: tax excessive carbon emissions and private jet use; reinvest in communities. We must combat digital complacency by regulating algorithms that prioritize engagement over ethics. Above all, we must reclaim morality, replacing hollow “thoughts and prayers” with actionable solidarity.
Once upon a time, communities were guided by shared values, mutual support, and a sense of collective morality. But today, these sacred spaces operate more like survival-of-the-fittest businesses, where wealth dictates access to spiritual benefits. What was once a pillar of communal ethics has become an arena for financial competition, driven by a harsh, capitalist mindset.

We have normalized a culture where the wealthy set traps that inevitably harm us all. When power is unchecked, and influence turns toxic, everyone—willingly or not—feels its effects.
The danger lies not just in their actions but in our passive participation: the silence we maintain, the content we consume, the attention we give. In this way, we become both witnesses and enablers, slowly absorbing the very poison we once ignored.
To excavate this decay is to confront an uncomfortable truth: we are all implicated. Every time we excuse a celebrity’s crimes as “personal matters,” every time we mock a victim’s trauma as “bad luck,” we become accomplices. The moral crisis is not out there—it is in here, in the marrow of our collective rationalizations. As the market’s tentacles tighten around our ethics, we must ask: What gods have we worshipped into existence? And what sacrifices will they yet demand?
T.S. Eliot’s words haunt us:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

…

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.
Our world ends not in fire but in silence—the silence of bystanders, the silence of greed. Let this be a match struck in the dark. Speak now, or forever drown in the echo of your complacency.