IS THERE ANYTHING TO CELEBRATE?

Is there anything tangible to celebrate in Nigeria? Celebrating our inability to curtail the menace of Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen? Or celebrating the inability of average Nigerians who couldn’t afford three square meals daily? am a Nigerian, but I have chosen to be sober on this day rather than celebrate the unseen and unfelt. At 57, all we hear is the cry of marginalisation and the horror of war drums. At 57, terror is walking freely in the street of Nigeria, and chooses whoever will be the next victim.

At 57, Nigeria is stratified into first class citizens, second class citizens, third class citizens, and some classless survivingbeings.

At 57, Nigeria has failed woefully in the hands of visionless and missionless mediocres who parade themselves as leaders; and under a failed system that makes a politician a billionaire overnight of joining politics and winning an election in the same country where civil servants and professionals work all through their life without being able to afford a decent home.

At 57, the nation is polarised, the economy is somersaulted, the education sector is in a shambles, justice is costlier than gold; free flow of blood with the military, paramilitaries and all security agencies politicised and doing the bidding of government.

At 57, Yoruba’s would say, “When you use 20 years to prepare for madness, when actually are you going to do the madness properly?”

A nation founded on lies, modern slavery, deceptiveness, marginalisation, weak and faulty foundations can never stand focused on development and growth.

It is so pathetic that in Nigeria at 57, there is nothing to celebrate for an average Nigerian, except that we are alive, which is a privilege from Almighty God.