To use the word ‘celebration’, in reference to the marking of the 61st Independence anniversary of this country today, is a glaring misnomer about which the Nigerian leadership should be ashamed.
Given the fact that achievement, high performance, triumphs and successes are the outcomes that right-thinking people celebrate, there is no justification for any pageantry highlighting the failure, low performance and crass ineptitude that have dogged the country in recent times, and on many ramifications. This is why in the light of the gruesome realities enveloping the country, Nigerians rightly consider as pure tokenism and a shameless act of deceit to be excited about independence, let alone celebrate this annual ritual in pomp and merrymaking.
Nigerians are not enamoured with Independence Anniversary, not just because of the country failings and steady decent into anarchy, but more because such degeneration is irreconcilable with her human and natural resources that leaders in succession desperately pretend that what is amiss is insignificant. If the years of military dictatorship were regarded as years, ' eaten by the locust' the abysmal decent of today's Nigeria, can best be described as, ' more years eaten by the locust'.
Significantly, the narratives of Nigerias transit, revisited on occasions such as today, have changed only in the deepened tragedy of state failure, leaving of course for chest beating, the fact that the country, remains miraculously as one along with sparkles of personal development and individual breakthroughs that has emerged from Nigerians who have risen above the crassness and mediocrity of state institutions.
This is not how a truly independent country carries on. To chart a course for progress, Nigeria needs big dreamers, who would not chart the path / course the usual way we are used to.
Nigeria needs big dreamers.
To justify the claim of being independent, we must ask ourselves if we truly want to be together as one country? Or do they lay claim to clannish or tribal allegiance as their fundamental form of identity?
If there is anything worth celebrating, it is the tenacity, doggedness and determination of the average Nigerians, that despite all odds, our farmers, peasants, drivers etc are determined to own Nigeria and make it succeed.
Our government should go back to the drawing board and critically, honestly look at the founding principles that gave birth to Nigeria, be determined to rebuild HONESTLY, and give us, one indivisible Nigeria we can all be very proud of.
Shall we wish ourselves happy Independence Anniversary? It is very SUBJECTIVE.
By Prince Kunle Aderemi
Publisher/ Editor-in-Chief
InvestAfrica Magazine
General Secretary
National Association of Nigerian Communities, UK
General Secretary
United Nigeria Welfare Association ( UNIWA) Birmingham, UK.
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