Comfortable New 12 months! The greeting on New 12 months’s Day evokes and encapsulates a want for newness. Because of this, one wouldn’t be in error to imagine that the 12 months 2025, after a 12 months of fearsome turbulence and excruciating ache in issues of politics and the financial system, evokes within the hearts of tens of millions of Nigerians a need for a brand new lease of life.
Certainly, the 12 months 2024 was tough. The price of gasoline and the price of meals, the conduct of politics, or quite, the misconduct of the political elite, all level to a 12 months of useless discomfort in a rustic that may mark 65 years of self-rule in 2025. However it’s not a 12 months that visits fortune or misfortune on human beings. It’s the conduct of human beings throughout a 12 months that largely determines their lot. By our acts of fee or omission, we human beings outline historical past by shaping a gift during which the previous and the long run are current. It’s due to this fact crucial that we see a brand new 12 months as a chance to seek out new methods of doing issues.
For us Nigerians, there is no such thing as a excuse for being within the state of affairs we’ve got discovered ourselves. We should admit with candour and sobriety that our richly endowed land has merely been misruled. And it’s tough to persuade those that rule us to fix their methods by repudiating the impunity and sense of entitlement with which they conduct the affairs of this nation. There appears to be no incentive for this much-needed metanoia. However in actual fact, there may be.
That incentive is the decision of historical past; the verdict of generations but unborn; of those that, upon trying at present technology of Nigerians, might have little or nothing good to say about us. Our numerous establishments and devices of governance—the manager, the legislature, the judiciary, the police and the electoral fee—are bedevilled by a deficit of belief. Our ethical infrastructure collapsed earlier than the dilapidation of our technical infrastructure. Our character broke down earlier than our roads and establishments broke down. However issues needn’t be this fashion. Nigeria has by no means been briefly provide of nice women and men. In sports activities and lecturers, in literature and music, within the financial system, in our ever vibrant, ever productive and ever enticing Nollywood, and certainly in each sphere of human endeavour, Nigerians are recognized to excel. But, our nation bears a doubtful distinction as a land of nice males and nice ladies missing in greatness.
If we (Nigerians) wish to be trustworthy with ourselves, we should admit that we’ve got all the time mismanaged the quite a few blessings with which the Creator has endowed our land. That’s as a result of our method of doing politics disables us. Our politics is bereft of integrity. We’ve in our palms a disaster of management. Our leaders don’t unite however divide, manipulate and exploit for his or her slender, egocentric curiosity in our ethnic and non secular variety. Nigeria bears the albatross of leaders who intone the anthem of disunity, whereas most of the individuals consent to sing the refrain of bigotry and ethnic stereotypes.
As we want one another a contented new 12 months, we should search for methods of renewing ourselves and our land. What is required to be nice is a brand new angle, a brand new mind-set, and a brand new method of doing issues. We’ve contrived a disaster that has created an setting during which this can be very tough to flourish. The duty of particular person and collective renewal can not be postponed. A brand new 12 months, for the smart, is a time of newness.
Our nation is usually derided and denigrated, handled as a byword within the comity of countries. We’ve been referred to as a land of the fantastically corrupt; we’ve got been referred to as a zoo, and recently, a haven of terrorists, a nation unfit to be related to. Our many imperfections stare us within the face. Denying that they exist can be dishonest. Our lack of political and ethical will to right them has led us to some extent the place we face an nearly irresistible temptation to imagine that the damaging phrases spoken about us outline us.
It’s painful and disappointing to see a rustic like ours, stuffed with potential, repeatedly fail to stay as much as expectations. It’s taking too lengthy for us to interrupt the chains of underachievement. On this new 12 months, due to this fact, we should resolve to conduct ourselves in such a method that those that deride us will not imagine what they’re saying about us. Those that govern our land should lead us on this regard.
Quite than assume the posture of monarchs who can’t be questioned, Nigerian leaders should, by their utterances and actions, convincingly reveal that they are often accountable and accountable to the individuals of Nigeria. We Nigerians should present those that denigrate us that our innumerable faults and failures don’t outline us. What defines us is our resilience and confidence, our boldness, and the attainment of excellence by a lot of our little kids on the world stage. Let the 12 months 2025 be a 12 months when we will attempt for excellence, demonstrating past any affordable doubt that we will grow to be an awesome nation.
On many fronts, the 12 months that has simply ended was a 12 months of ache. However the political challenges and financial adversity we face—the ache of senseless misrule, of starvation within the land of abundance, of thirst in a land surrounded by waters, of darkness in a land of sunshine, of prosperous leaders of impoverished individuals—these should grow to be issues of the previous.
On this New 12 months, in our ache and our discouragement, we might discover inspiration within the phrases of one among our most illustrious compatriots, Ademola Lookman, not too long ago topped African Footballer of the 12 months, phrases addressed to Nigerians, younger and previous: “Don’t let your failures weigh you right down to the purpose they break your wings however battle. Flip your ache into your energy and proceed to fly.”
Let the leaders and the individuals battle for a brand new lease of life, for a Nigeria that works for all and never only for a privileged few, not only for the elite, not only for politicians, but additionally, and most significantly for the plebe.
Let or not it’s recognized to compatriots, buddies and foes, deriders and despisers that, regardless of her quite a few flaws, flaws she will and should right for the sake of this technology and generations but unborn, Nigeria shouldn’t be past redemption.
