Nigeria has reasonable cause to celebrate her 66th Independence anniversary today, but it is undoubtedly a celebration interlaced with deep nostalgia for a country burdened by missed opportunities. In 1960, hope was high for a country brimming with energy, natural resources waiting to be harnessed, and strong national enthusiasm. Indeed, the country took many giant strides that positioned it as a potential world leader. However, many of those strides were quickly reversed by leadership that was successively more inept and inconsistent. The result is that, amidst her potential and rich resources, the country is home to the world’s poorest people; a situation that poses a big challenge to her present rulers, headed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Every modern state often celebrates its founding day, particularly colonised nations that fought and won their independence from the colonisers. It is often done with pomp and pageantry, depending on the country’s mood at every turn. It is also fundamentally a time for stock-taking and noble projections for the country’s present and future.

Independence in 1960 brought hope as well as foreboding. The colonisers, in Nigeria’s case, the British, envisaged a great nation that would play a big role in global affairs. At the same time, some observers feared that the multi-ethnic country might be consumed by its diversity.

Yes, like everything in human affairs, it was a Nietzschean duality, good and bad. In the first half-decade of independence, the regional governments built a strong economy based on agricultural produce and laid a strong foundation for literacy and infrastructure. Despite palpable irredentism in controlling the centre and undermining regional autonomy, they were competitive.

Nigerians look back to those years with nostalgic envy. However, the inability of the politicians in the First Republic to tame their inordinate ambition for power, self-aggrandisement and quest for domination ended the dispensation on a tragic note. In what, in hindsight, validates Samuel Huntington’s theorisation on the role of the military in unstable polities, the political indiscretion led the military to intervene, ostensibly to restore law and order.

The military intervened, a process that was bloody and further unleashed on the country a gruelling thirty-month civil war that ended on a note of “no victor, no vanquished”. The greater consequence of truncating the First Republic was the entrenchment of the military in power and the atomisation of the federal essence of the Nigerian state. Although the military regarded its intervention as an aberration, it largely became a dominant actor, terminating the second and third republics, respectively.

Despite the litany of woes, the country could still point to some vital achievements. Heeding the clarion call from Kwame Nkrumah, Nigeria pursued the decolonisation of the rest of the continent with sovereign might; it became a frontline state in the struggle against settler-colonial rule in southern Africa. It convened the Second World African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77) and assumed its destiny as the voice of the black race. As a regional hegemon in West Africa, it restored peace and democratic governance to sister countries in the sub-region.

At home, it expanded infrastructure and educational institutions.  The stupendous oil wealth spawned some development programmes. The country built refineries for refining crude oil. It built a brand new capital city. Its road networks were expanded. Today, Nigeria has about 328 universities, including state and private. Its potential is underutilised, thereby diminishing its global ranking.

Nevertheless, the country has its downsides. They are poor leadership, a monoculture economy, infrastructure decay, a waning civil service, pervading corruption and rising insecurity. After the epic struggle against military rule that birthed the Fourth Republic, Nigeria is struggling to produce leadership that would prioritise the nation above self. The elite recruitment process is highly compromised, resulting in low-quality leadership.

Public office holders treat the population as low-intensity citizens. Their rights are egregiously violated, while popular sovereignty that resides in them is grossly undermined through blatant electoral heist. Despite several efforts to diversify the economy, the country remains largely reliant on crude exports. The oil sector itself is shrouded in opacity, which is counterproductive to the national economy.

Infrastructure decay is a common sight. The country’s four refineries, which processed 450,000 barrels per day at their peak, are comatose, while resources are wasted on so-called maintenance. Many roads are not motorable despite a ritual of annual budgetary allocation. The looting and leakages in the system are so mind-boggling that the nation’s stolen wealth is exhibited in offshore property owned by Nigerian public officials.

The civil service, the institutional memory of the state, has become a shadow of its former self. Civil servants who are supposed to guide elected public officials on fidelity to administrative rules are subordinated to politicians in trouncing those rules and misapplication of the commonwealth. Above all, insecurity has been added to the problems of the country with Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, banditry and kidnapping in the North-west and South-West (in varying degrees) and separatist agitations in the South-East.

What is to be done? This is not an indication of total abdication of responsibility by state elites. Successive leaderships have contributed their quota to address the problems of the country in various ways. But what is being done is not far-reaching enough to address the structural and constitutional crises of the state. Government must eliminate waste and focus on the well-being of the people. It must reinforce institutional autonomy to allow for horizontal accountability; the sinews of the country’s federalism must be reinforced and hallowed.

Electoral rules must be respected to allow for the sanctity of the thumb. Security forces must respect human rights by observing due diligence in the exercise of their duties and avoid being used by self-serving political office holders. Anti-corruption institutions must be allowed to work without executive meddling, and there should be no sacred cows. The judiciary must live up to its responsibility by being incorruptible in the exercise of its duty as the third realm of the estate.

On the economic front, the telecommunication and fintech sectors have contributed to the economy, but actual diversification lies in the manufacturing and agro-allied sector in order to reduce the country’s import bill, provide employment opportunities, and achieve food security. The redundant refinery should be run in line with the NLNG joint venture model to halt the waste of resources on the never-ending maintenance. The price of petroleum products must be affordable to the common man.

Since 2009, Nigeria has been beset by low-intensity warfare in the North-East; it is high time the insurgents are routed, and the country avoids the mercenary trap of a never-ending crisis for pecuniary gains. The recent FGN-ASUU agreement is to be applauded; the government must be faithful. The education sector, in particular the tertiary institutions and academic staff sustaining the sector, should be accorded a place as in other countries that value education highly.

In foreign policy, the country has lost the dynamism that was witnessed under the Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo administration and partly under the Ibrahim Babangida administration. The country needs to rise to its responsibility as the continent’s voice. President Bola Tinubu and the state governors must work harder to galvanise all Nigerians towards making the dreams of the country’s forbearers come true.