A country at 66 that cannot sit. Cannot crawl. Cannot walk, let alone work. A giant crippled from birth by the greed of its own midwives.
A country laden with corruption as statecraft. Corruption is no longer a crime here, it is the constitution. The budget is padded, looted, re-looted, and re-presented. For three straight years, no federal budget has been faithfully implemented. We borrow to steal, and steal to borrow.
A country whose President flees the United Nations General Assembly year in, year out. The supposed leader of Africa’s largest nation is afraid to stand before the world to account for his own people. He sends a proxy to speak, while Nigerians are left to guess why their President hides from global scrutiny. What shame must a President hide that he cannot face the UN?
Is this independence?
Nigeria is today one of the most unsafe wombs and tombs on earth. The second most dangerous place to give birth. A country where a woman goes to labour to deliver life and meets death.
A country rated among the most terrorized on earth, more terrorized than Syria, than Somalia, than countries with open wars. Bandits tax villages. Terrorists own forests. The state owns press statements.
We are the poverty capital of the world. Not in potential, in pain. Multidimensional poverty, you are poor if you are sick, poor if you seek school, poor if you drink water, poor if you breathe.
Nigeria is the only country on earth where a jerry-can of fuel mocks the minimum wage. Where 80 litres of petrol is worth more than a month’s labour of a federal worker. What kind of independence makes a worker’s sweat cheaper than fuel?
A country whose currency is now worthless than tissue paper. The Naira has collapsed. A national embarrassment printed with national pride.
Nigeria is in shambles. In dire comatose. It appears daily as an irreparable contraption coupled together by the British for profit and held together by Nigerian elites for plunder.
Is Nigeria truly independent when it cannot obey its own laws?
A country that piles political prisoners like trophies. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu held against court orders, Omoyele Sowore arrested for speaking, activists abducted for tweets, youths in Borno thrown into cells for wearing a shirt that says #BolaTinubuMustGo. Is this democracy or a decorated dictatorship?
A country where the anti-kidnapping squad is the kidnapper. Where Onwuka Chimezie and countless others are abducted by the very police unit created to protect them from abduction. When the protector becomes the predator, what is left of the state?
A country without hospitals, yet its leaders fly abroad for headache. Without water, yet billions for boreholes disappear. Without housing, without good roads, without electricity. Can a nation that cannot light a bulb claim to be independent?
A country where over 34% of its working population are jobless and underemployed graduates riding okada, masters holders selling bet slips, youths queueing to japa.
A country where dissent is hunted ten times faster than terrorism. Where the DSS tracks a journalist quicker than the Army tracks a bandit. Where critics are raided at midnight but terrorists are begged at noon.
A country without security, not physical security, not human security, not job security, not city security. You are not safe at home, on the road, in the farm, in school, mosque or in church.
A country where senior citizens who built this nation die on pension queues. Gratuity unpaid. Arrears denied. Serving workers owed months of salaries. Contractors owed after building the little that exists.
A country where the rich get richer by policy and the poor get poorer by policy. Anti-people policies institutionalized by a ruining elite. Subsidy is removed for the poor, but subsidy remains for the National Assembly, for Presidential yachts, for judicial SUVs.
A country where after trillions of naira spent on turnaround maintenance, not a single public refinery works at full capacity. We produce crude oil and import poverty.
A country drowning in over N149 trillion naira debt, debt that built no schools, no hospitals, no water, no roads, while Customs, Immigration, FIRS, NNPC declare trillions in revenue every year. Yet 20 million children are out of school. No potable water. No healthcare. No working infrastructure.
So I ask again:
Is this independence, or is it elaborate slavery?
Is this a nation, or is it a graveyard with a flag?
Is Nigeria independent, or are Nigerians merely independent to suffer?
Until the poor can eat, until the worker can live on his wage, until the child can go to school, until the sick can find a hospital, until a citizen can speak without fear of arrest, Nigeria is not independent. It is merely a flag-independent.