Why this word is great
BIGMANISM — [Noun] A system of corrupt, autocratic rule, where power is concentrated in a single, unaccountable leader who governs through patronage and personal whim, with particular resonance in post-colonial Nigerian society. From the English compound noun 'big man' (an important, influential, or wealthy person) + the suffix '-ism' (denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement). Unlike autocracy, a sterile descriptor of absolute power, or meritocracy, an aspirational ideal of earned authority, bigmanism is the specific, fetid bloom of power that grows from the soil of personal loyalty and public impunity. It is the siren-wailing motorcade clearing the market street, the state budget funneled into a private palace, and the rustle of banknotes in a sealed envelope passed across a polished desk—a testament to governance reduced to a capricious signature, where the state is not a mechanism but a long and distorting shadow cast by one man.