Nigeria At 65: Celebrating Hardship, Insecurity And Hopelessness, By Buhari Olanrewaju Ahmed

As Nigeria clocks 65 years since independence, one cannot help but ask a difficult question: what exactly are we celebrating? For a nation that was once described as the “giant of Africa,” the reality on ground is a sharp contrast to the dreams and aspirations of those who fought for independence in 1960.

Instead of celebrating progress, unity, development, and prosperity, we find ourselves marking six and a half decades of hardship, insecurity, hopelessness, and broken promises.

Every new day in Nigeria begins with uncertainty. Citizens wake up to the sound of gunshots, kidnappings, and news of massacres.

Families are displaced from their ancestral lands by armed herdsmen, bandits, and terrorists. Fathers are butchered on their farms while struggling to provide food, mothers are killed in cold blood, and daughters raped in their villages.

Homes that once held laughter now stand in ruins, taken over by marauding invaders who have turned entire communities into ghost towns. What then are we celebrating, when safety—the most basic right of a citizen—has been snatched away?

While blood flows freely in villages and highways, the Nigerian political class continues to loot the nation dry. Public resources meant to provide infrastructure, healthcare, and education are siphoned abroad to acquire mansions in foreign countries, where they name estates after their children.

The irony is heartbreaking: the children of the oppressed cannot afford a single meal a day, while the children of the looters are ferried abroad for the best that money can buy.

At 65, Nigeria remains a country where poverty deepens daily, not because resources are lacking, but because corruption and greed sit at the very core of governance.

What do we celebrate when politicians themselves cannot trust the healthcare system they preside over? At the slightest ailment, they jet out to Europe or America to receive treatment in world-class hospitals, leaving our own medical facilities in a state of decay.

Doctors and nurses, who sacrifice their lives to save patients, are grossly underpaid, demoralized, and overworked. Many leave the country in droves, searching for greener pastures abroad.

The hospitals they leave behind lack electricity, drugs, and modern equipment. Patients die in darkness while leaders award themselves estacodes for medical tourism. Is this the independence we celebrate?

Education, the bedrock of any meaningful development, is in shambles. Millions of Nigerian children are out of school, roaming the streets vulnerable to crime, drug abuse, and exploitation.

Politicians who benefit from taxpayers’ money send their children abroad for quality education while abandoning public schools at home. Dilapidated classrooms, unpaid teachers, and lack of basic amenities plague the system.

What hope do we give the children left behind, who now resort to cybercrime, cultism, and prostitution to survive? Nigeria at 65 has failed to provide its youths with the tools needed to build a better tomorrow.

The hardship across the land is unbearable. Families can no longer afford food, rent, or basic necessities. Inflation has skyrocketed, salaries remain stagnant, and unemployment rises daily.

Marriages break down under the weight of economic pressure, with many women forced into prostitution to survive, while countless young men turn to internet fraud—”yahoo yahoo”—as an escape from hopelessness.

The youth, full of potential, are being destroyed by the failures of successive governments, especially under the anti-people policies of the current administration.

The naira, once a symbol of pride, has been mercilessly devalued. Taxes are multiplied daily, choking struggling businesses and pushing companies into collapse. Thousands of jobs have been lost, leaving breadwinners helpless.

Instead of creating opportunities, the APC government has pushed citizens deeper into poverty and despair.

What is even more tragic is how the state has turned its machinery against its own people. Journalists, activists, and truth-tellers are trailed, harassed, and monitored, not because they commit crimes, but because they dare to hold the government accountable.

Meanwhile, terrorists openly display their atrocities on social media platforms like TikTok, bragging about their crimes without consequence. Instead of arresting and prosecuting them, the government negotiates with killers, granting them soft landings while innocent citizens are left unprotected.

What do we celebrate when terrorists can invade communities at will, killing, kidnapping, and looting as they please? When highways have become death traps? When traveling from one state to another is an invitation to danger? When countless Nigerians are in captivity, waiting for ransom that their impoverished families can never afford?

At 65, Nigeria stands as a sad tale of wasted opportunities and recycled failures. The same politicians who ruined the nation decades ago are still in power, moving from one political party to another, deceiving the people with new promises while continuing their old ways. The dreams of independence have been shattered.

So, again, I ask: what are we really celebrating? Are we celebrating the blood of innocent citizens shed daily? Are we celebrating the corruption that has crippled our economy? Are we celebrating the hopelessness of our youths and the decay of our institutions? Or are we celebrating a cycle of failure that has become Nigeria’s identity?

Nigeria at 65 is not a story of triumph, but a story of tragedy—a tragedy of leadership failure, misplaced priorities, and betrayal of the masses. Until we confront these realities and demand real change, we have nothing to celebrate but hardship, insecurity, and hopelessness.