At 56, unfortunately Nigeria, our country, remains a failed state. To dispute this simply means we lack the capacity of telling ourselves the truth. Our country still can not provide life essentials for its people – things that are needed to differentiate us from our animal cousins. What is heartbreaking about it all is that Nigeria at 52 is everything it should not have been.
And it could have been everything that it is not. Bad, small-minded and self-centred leadership and depraved corruption changed the Nigerian narrative and kept away from the people the benefits of the country’s natural and human endowments.
I’m still traumatised till this day by the sad memories of those who lived and died in my village without getting a taste of what life is – simply because they had the misfortune of being born citizens of a country cursed with bad leadership.
The state of our nation is frustrating to Nigerians who wish the best for their country. More frustrating is the fact that we are still not on the right track to getting it right – let fools talk about the path to greatness.
Despite the promise of change, things have not gotten better under the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari. The feeling is widespread that things are worse. But that is not what troubles me. What worries me is that the locusts are still tearing down the fabrics of our country.
The wealth of the nation remains a bounty for goons who pose as leaders. In a country were at least 100 children die daily due to hunger and preventable diseases, governors get millions of Naira as security votes, yet security remains one of Nigeria’s cancerous problems. While the gladiators at the National Assembly, who should not have been there on a full time basis, squander about 35% of the national income.
Nothing touches them. Not even the fact that those they pretend to be representing are going to bed on empty stomach.
For how long will this madness go on? When will leaders see leadership as a call to uplift the ordinary man and not as an opportunity to amass insane wealth they and their children would hardly need? This is why politicians see elections as a do or die affair.
At 56, I am sad about the fate that has befallen my country. I had a dream of a different country, growing up. Unfortunately the greed and wickedness of a ravenous elite shattered that dream and twisted the destiny of my people.
At independence, I wish my fellow downtrodden Nigerians happy anniversary. And no matter how long it took, good has always triumphed over evil. If you are in doubt, check history. We will definitely take back our country one day from the iron claws of crooked leaders.
But the passiveness has to stop. That is why the madness continues.
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