Thought for the Week, April 12, 2026

 

There is need for a new Nigeria, and the need is extremely urgent.  Nigeria is currently afflicted with acute privation of security.  She is overrun by terrorists and bandits, occupied and menaced by separatists, insurgents and insurrectionists.  Her sons and daughters are abducted from their homes and schools, attacked in their places of worship by persons chanting religious slogans, losing their farmlands to herders, turned into refugees in their land. 

Nigeria is debilitated by a constitution that recipe for sharing offices and wealth among the political elite, a constitution that has set up government to be unaccountable to and more powerful than the people.  In what is touted as representative democracy, there is no conversation between the citizen and his or her representative in the various tiers of government—federal, state and local. 

Despite vows and assurances after every terrorist attack, government has spectacularly failed to reenkindle confidence in the citizen.  Nigerians perceive government and its functionaries as indifferent and uncaring.  Government, either because of failure of potency or failure of volition, has not protected the citizen.  That failure to secure the land and its people, which is the primary duty of government, has become a weapon in the hands of foreign actors who have no regard for international law, no regard for sovereignty of nations.  And as they wield the weapon and issue threats of invasion, they are being urged on, probably invited in the first instance by some who are aggrieved.  

Nigeria is enveloped in thick darkness.  There are neighborhoods where electricity peeps, and there are places where electricity has gone into hiding, where power outage has lasted up to twelve calendar months, if not more.  It is such that some cynical detractors label Nigeria the “Generator Republic”. 

The darkness that covers our richly endowed land of abundant energy resources is itself symptom of more serious darkness.  It is not just technical darkness, that is, darkness that comes from outage of electricity.  It is, fundamentally, a psychic darkness, that is, darkness that inhabits our souls. 

A nation is an association of cities, a city is an association of homes, and a home is an association of individuals, often of consanguinity.   Members of these associations constitute a nation.  But where there is an epidemic of moral depravity the land knows no tranquility.  A country can only live in the light if the souls of its inhabitants are liberated from intellectual darkness and moral depravity.  An enlightened intellect is prerequisite for liberation from moral depravity.  Nigeria is in dire need of liberation from spiritual, intellectual and moral darkness.

Enlightened leadership leads a land out of the darkness of the cave, to use Plato’s famous allegory.  Leaders are the eyes of a nation.  But if visual faculty is absent or deficient, the nation wanders in the wrong direction.  A nation therefore has an ineluctable obligation to interrogate herself about the credibility of her leadership selection process and make necessary amends.  A nation has to constantly interrogate her leaders.  And the leaders must not assume the toga of ‘kabiyesi’, of a monarch above interrogation and allergic to conversation.

Leadership enables the people to flourish.  But it is no longer news that we in Nigeria suffer from acute leadership deficiency syndrome.  Rather than enable, our leadership disables.   Supporters of politicians across party lines resort to ethnic and religious bigotry, with deafening noise in social media, while the politicians fail to restrain them.    Our diversity is weaponized by political actors to divide and conquer us.  Ours is a land held in the hands of political actors whose ultimate concern is not the common good but power for the sake of pleasure that goes with affluence.  Decades of sale of crude oil have not changed the quality of life of the average citizen.  But political actors are getting richer.  While the average Nigerian cannot afford to procure a ‘keke’ for mobility, political actors traverse highways of our towns and cities in cars that intimidate other cars.   Since common good is not their concern, conduct of our political actors falls way below standard of patriotism.

During the dark days of military dictatorship, Nigerians clamoured for democratic governance.  Military intervention in 1966 and in 1983 destroyed institutions, treated due process and civil liberties with disdain, and led us into a thoroughly avoidable civil war in which the ego of young military officers was a major factor, and possession of oil fields was a major bone of contention. 

Nigerians laid down their lives for democracy. But if we are to be candid, what has obtained, and what currently obtains since May 29, 1999, date of the second and hopefully definitive departure of the military, is a lot less than democratic.  Political actors’ desire to conquer and dominate the citizen is quite high.  Nigeria is in the hands of a political elite whose ultimate concern is not the common good but power for the sake of riches and pleasure of affluence.  Despite decades of sale of crude oil, quality of life of the average citizen has not seen an upward difference, while political actors are getting richer.  The average Nigerian cannot afford to procure a ‘keke’, while political actors, in their long convoys, traverse highways of our towns and cities in cars that intimidate other cars.  

Since common good is not their concern, conduct of our political actors falls way below standard of patriotism. The electoral law commands no confidence.  Institutions critical to sanctity of the electoral process, of the leadership selection process—the electoral commission, security agencies and judiciary—are not persuasive in demonstrating their independence.  In what is euphemistically referred to as power of incumbency, outcome of the political process is not dependent on the people but on the section of the political oligarchy that holds the reins of state.   Nigerian political parties are abjectly lacking in philosophy, vision and internal democracy.  Their membership is afflicted with abysmally immoral fluidity, and determined by politicians’ search for “greener pastures”, not by any noble philosophy.  In a setback for democracy, Nigeria, a vast land, a multiethnic, multireligious land of diverse political views has commenced a disturbing descent into a one-party state, a state where political pluralism is shown the exit door by unprincipled politicians.  But there is good news. 

We and our leaders have the capacity to build a better Nigeria, a Nigeria where no one is deprived of opportunities to flourish.  We are industrious and talented citizens.  Nigerians and persons of Nigerian descent excel in various spheres of human endeavor.  What we lack is not the capacity but the volition, the political and moral will to rise out of the dubious distinction of a richly endowed land inhabited by impoverished citizens.  This country has no business with darkness, insecurity and poverty.

This is no lamentation but a plea that we recoil from the cliff.  We have no choice but to make a choice about the type of Nigeria we need.  And that choice is before every Nigerian.  Each of us, leaders and people of Nigeria, must reflect on the type of country he or she would like to bequeath to posterity: a land posterity will look at and bless our memory, or a land posterity will look at and curse our memory. 

Father Anthony Akinwale, OP