Happy New Year! The greeting on New Year’s Day evokes and encapsulates a wish for newness. For this reason, one would not be in error to assume that the Year 2025, after a year of fearsome turbulence and excruciating pain in matters of politics and the economy, evokes in the hearts of millions of Nigerians a desire for a new lease of life.
Indeed, the Year 2024 was rough. The cost of fuel and the cost of food, the conduct of politics, or rather, the misconduct of the political elite, all point to a year of needless discomfort in a country that will mark 65 years of self-rule in 2025. But it is not a year that visits fortune or misfortune on human beings. It is the conduct of human beings during a year that largely determines their lot. By our acts of commission or omission, we human beings define history by shaping a present in which the past and the future are present. It is therefore imperative that we see a new year as an opportunity to find new ways of doing things.
For us Nigerians, there is no excuse for being in the situation we have found ourselves. We must admit with candour and sobriety that our richly endowed land has simply been misruled. And it is difficult to convince those who rule us to mend their ways by repudiating the impunity and sense of entitlement with which they conduct the affairs of this country. There seems to be no incentive for this much-needed metanoia. But in fact, there is.
That incentive is the verdict of history; the verdict of generations yet unborn; of those who, upon looking at the present generation of Nigerians, may have little or nothing good to say about us. Our various institutions and instruments of governance—the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the police and the electoral commission—are bedevilled by a deficit of trust. Our moral infrastructure collapsed before the dilapidation of our technical infrastructure. Our character broke down before our roads and institutions broke down. But things need not be this way. Nigeria has never been in short supply of great men and women. In sports and academics, in literature and music, in the economy, in our ever vibrant, ever productive and ever attractive Nollywood, and indeed in every sphere of human endeavour, Nigerians are known to excel. Yet, our country bears a dubious distinction as a land of great men and great women lacking in greatness.
If we (Nigerians) want to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that we have always mismanaged the numerous blessings with which the Creator has endowed our land. That is because our manner of doing politics disables us. Our politics is bereft of integrity. We have in our hands a crisis of leadership. Our leaders do not unite but divide, manipulate and exploit for their narrow, selfish interest in our ethnic and religious diversity. Nigeria bears the albatross of leaders who intone the anthem of disunity, while many of the people consent to sing the chorus of bigotry and ethnic stereotypes.
As we wish each other a happy new year, we must look for ways of renewing ourselves and our land. What is needed to be great is a new attitude, a new way of thinking, and a new way of doing things. We have contrived a crisis that has created an environment in which it is extremely difficult to flourish. The task of individual and collective renewal can no longer be postponed. A new year, for the wise, is a time of newness.
Our country is often derided and denigrated, treated as a byword in the comity of nations. We have been called a land of the fantastically corrupt; we have been called a zoo, and lately, a haven of terrorists, a nation unfit to be associated with. Our many imperfections stare us in the face. Denying that they exist would be dishonest. Our lack of political and moral will to correct them has led us to a point where we face an almost irresistible temptation to believe that the negative words spoken about us define us.
It is painful and disappointing to see a country like ours, full of potential, repeatedly fail to live up to expectations. It is taking too long for us to break the chains of underachievement. In this new year, therefore, we must resolve to conduct ourselves in such a way that those who deride us will no longer believe what they are saying about us. Those who govern our land must lead us in this regard.
Rather than assume the posture of monarchs who cannot be questioned, Nigerian leaders must, by their utterances and actions, convincingly demonstrate that they can be accountable and responsible to the people of Nigeria. We Nigerians must show those who denigrate us that our innumerable faults and failures do not define us. What defines us is our resilience and confidence, our boldness, and the attainment of excellence by many of our sons and daughters on the world stage. Let the Year 2025 be a year when we shall strive for excellence, demonstrating beyond any reasonable doubt that we can become a great nation.
On many fronts, the year that has just ended was a year of pain. But the political challenges and economic adversity we face—the pain of mindless misrule, of hunger in the land of abundance, of thirst in a land surrounded by waters, of darkness in a land of light, of affluent leaders of impoverished people—these must become things of the past.
In this New Year, in our pain and our discouragement, we may find inspiration in the words of one of our most illustrious compatriots, Ademola Lookman, recently crowned African Footballer of the Year, words addressed to Nigerians, young and old: “Don’t let your failures weigh you down to the point they break your wings but fight. Turn your pain into your power and continue to fly.”
Let the leaders and the people fight for a new lease of life, for a Nigeria that works for all and not just for a privileged few, not just for the elite, not just for politicians, but also, and most importantly for the plebe.
Let it be known to compatriots, friends and foes, deriders and despisers that, despite her numerous flaws, flaws she can and must correct for the sake of this generation and generations yet unborn, Nigeria is not beyond redemption.
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