By Mohmood Tunde Hassan. Today, Nigeria as a country, turns 65. The journey of nationhood had started off, full of hope, full of promise...b...
By Mohmood Tunde Hassan..jpg)
Today, Nigeria as a country, turns 65. The journey of nationhood had started off, full of hope, full of promise...big dreams. Looking back and sizing up the present, the dreams of 1960 flicker like a dying flame in the wind.
At 65, Nigeria stands at a crossroads and a classic case of contrasts, contradictions and paradox—rich in potential, yet impoverished in outcome. It is Africa's largest economy, yet home to over 133 point 4 million multi-dimentionaly poor people, (63%) of the population.
A land of oil wealth and mineral riches, arable agricultural land and large human resources, yet marred by huge deficits in all areas of human development indices.
Economic disparity, infrastructure decay and failing institutions, weakened or politicized, are now permanent fixtures. A struggling naira, mounting debt, and a skyrocketing cost of living crisis, have made life unbearably hard for the average Nigerian.
Young people, though bold, creative, and full of ideas, are desperate for jobs or looking for a way to go out. Nigeria has the 2nd worse unemployment bracket in Africa.
Those who can flee, do. It's a case of anywhere but Nigeria. Others find refuge in online scams, crime, or desperation. The informal economy thrives not as a badge of innovation, but as a symptom of systemic exclusion.
Insecurity has become a way of life. From the savannas of the North to the creeks of the Niger Delta, the challenges are palpable. Security has become a national trauma.
Terrorism, banditry, separatist agitations, and communal clashes cast shadows over everyday life. Farmers abandon fields. Children learn, if at all, under constant threat of being attacked, kidnapped or killed.
Travelling is an unmitigated risk. Safety, a basic expectation of citizenship, remains elusive for millions, many of whom, live in constant fear in ungoverned spaces.
The political landscape, too, bears scars of betrayal. Democracy, ideally a beacon of hope, now fans a theatre of corruption, vote-buying, and elite impunity.
Leadership, rather than being a platform for service, has become entitlement-oriented, transactional and appears to have devolved into a struggle for power, patronage and state capture.
Governance, feels distant from the needs of the people and the gap between leadership and the people keeps growing.Fault lines run deep. Ethnic and religious divisions pose a threat to national identity.
Policies and institutions are frequently shaped not by what is just, but by who is in power. Merit, is drowned by mediocrity. National planning is sacrificed on the altar of expediency and short-term political gain.
Governance remains knee-jerk impulsive and reactive, rarely strategic. The Nigerian State, seems to survive by inertia—not design. Governance is loud on rhetoric, weak on delivery.
We must however a,ppreciate and salute the fact that amidst the dysfunction, Nigerians endure. They hustle. They innovate with little or no support. Nigeria remains Africa’s largest economy.We are creators… innovators… We are fighters.
Our music moves the world.Our tech powers global platforms.Our resilience? Unmatched.The Nigerian spirit is bruised, but not broken. The spirit, is strong, but the system is weak.
It is this resilience that continues to challenge the idea that the nation is irredeemable. But, it is this same resilience that should NOT be over stretched, abused or taken for granted.Let's face it.
At 65, the time for excuses, is over. The notion that Nigeria is still a young nation, is pretentious, worn out, and a self-deception
This is not a new nation. It is an ageing one—still searching for its soul. That is the uncomfortable truth. So we ask; why are things the way they are. What happened to the big dreams?
Why have the promises of independence and the years that followed, turned into daily struggles for survival.We are forced to ask hard questions. Is Nigeria a nation that has failed its people—by offering them broken systems, stunted dreams, and hollow promises and robbing them of security, dignity, and hope?
Or is it a nation, failed by its people—citizens who tolerate injustice, glorify bad leadership, corruption, and abandon civic duty, glorifying wealth without scrutiny, and normalizing silence in the face of injustice?
Is it a crisis of governance alone, or also a crisis of citizenship? Or perhaps, a bit of both? Or maybe…this is a nation, still struggling to find itself? Is there still time to rescue the soul of the Republic, or are we witnesses to the slow unraveling of a national myth?
These are the uncomfortable questions we must now confront.The issue is not about blamesit is also not a celebration, just for its sake neither. No. It is about coming to terms with reality...hard inescapable reality.
Today's 65th independence day should be a mirror the nation holds up to itself as it still searches for a path...It is a need to generate to the urgency of action; real, strategic, intentional action to reset Nigeria.
It is a chance to engage in conversations; hard, raw, blunt, honest and necessary conversation and to reflect, interrogate and confront the truth about where we stand, and where we’re headed.The path ahead will not be paved by nostalgia, nor grumbling but by truth.
By courage. By accountability and by resolute determination to retrace from decades of mis-steps, some deliberate and mischievous I and others, circumstantial or incidentalCurrent voices and faces of frustration, despair and diminished hope, must give way to something better.
Beyond recycled leadership rhetorics, Nigeria 65 should be NOT just what Nigeria is, but what it could still become.
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