By Bola Lillian Braide

As the drums roll for another Independence Day, I wounder and ask, what six decades of self rule have truly delivered.

On Thursday, the drums will roll again. The President will appear on television with that familiar, tired cadence, urging us to keep hope alive because our founding fathers laboured for this Nation. Governors will cut cakes in their state capitals. School children will march under the scorching sun, waving little flags they barely understand. The police band will play, radio stations will scream “Happy Independence!”, and the green-white-green will dance proudly in the wind. And yet, behind all the fanfare, there is a silent cry in the heart of every ordinary Nigerian that no anthem can drown.

I write this not as a member of any political party, not as an admirer of any candidate, but as a wounded citizen. As a Nigerian who is simply tired of pretending that all is well. I write with tears in my eyes and fire in my chest, because some truths must be told before we dance. And as the music fades and you return to a kitchen with no light, to a filling station you cannot afford, to another headline of kidnapping and hunger, you will be forced to ask yourself that question which burns like pepper in the throat: Are we truly free?

Sixty five years after the Union Jack was lowered in Lagos, we must ask with brutal sincerity; What did we really gain?
The British left our shores, but did they truly leave our minds? They handed us a flag and an anthem, but they also handed power to a Nigerian Elite who learnt the art of colonisation all too well and have since perfected it against their own brothers and sisters. The exploitation is no longer carried out in an English accent; it is now done in our own languages, by our own sons and daughters. And that makes the pain cut deeper. The white master is gone, but he left behind his younger brother, and that younger brother is our ruling class.

Colonisation did not end; it only changed colour. Yesterday, it was a man in London siphoning our palm oil and groundnuts. Today, it is a man in Abuja siphoning our crude oil billions and hiding them in Dubai and London. Yesterday, the colonialist told us we were unfit to govern ourselves. Today, our own leaders tell us, through their actions, that we are unfit to enjoy good roads, decent hospitals and quality schools. What, then, is the difference? The chain remains locked on our ankle; only the hand holding it has changed.

Let us call it what it is. We have failed. Not in one sector, not in two, but in all. I say this with a heavy heart and with an anger no editor can dilute. The acclaimed Giant of Africa now limps like a dwarf, watching smaller nations sprint past us while we struggle to stand.

Begin with Education, the very foundation of any free Nation. What have we done with it?
In 1960, the University of Ibadan stood shoulder to shoulder with universities in London. Our great secondary schools such as, Barewa College, Christ the King College, Government College Ibadan, produced leaders who shook Africa and commanded respect across the world. Those same institutions that gave us Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Philip Emeagwali are now mere shadows of themselves.

Today, our public schools lie in ruins. Innnocent children sit on bare floors, writing on their laps. Our universities have been reduced to strike centres. A child gains admission at 18 and graduates at 28, not because he is dull, but because the government and ASUU are locked in endless battles over funds that politicians loot without remorse. Our children stay at home for eight months at a stretch, and in that idleness, some drift into internet fraud, some into crime, for an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Lecturers are owed salaries. Laboratories have no equipment. Libraries still parade books from 1975. Yet, the sons and daughters of ministers and the rich are in Toronto, in Manchester, in Houston, posting graduation photos on social media, while the children of the poor roast corn by the roadside after waiting eight years for a degree that may never come.
Tell me, is this what Zik and Awo fought for? We have murdered the future right inside the classroom. The privileged return with foreign accents to rule over the very children who were left at home to waste away. We have created two Nigerias, one for the rich and one for the poor, and the bridge between them is broken. The white colonialist deliberately gave us inferior education to keep us as clerks. What, then, are we giving ourselves today?

Go to our Hospitals today and see what independence has truly given us. A Nation of over 220 million people cannot boast of a single public hospital where even its president can be treated with confidence. In general hospitals in Lagos and Makurdi, a pregnant woman in labour is asked to provide her own gloves, her own disinfectant, her own blood before a doctor will attend to her. Meanwhile, our leaders, at the slightest headache, fly to London, Berlin or Washington for treatment. They spend public funds to heal themselves abroad while the hospitals they were elected to build are left to rot. Is this freedom? Under colonial rule, the University College Hospital in Ibadan was built, and Nigerians benefited even if only by accident. Sixty-five years after independence and after earning hundreds of billions from oil, our own leaders cannot build one world-class hospital for themselves and for us. If this is not a colonisation of the mind, compounded by wickedness, what then, is it?

Consider Security, the first duty of any government. How can the Giant of Africa, with an army, a navy and an air force, and with trillions budgeted for defence every year, fail to protect its own children? Nigeria is no longer safe. From Sambisa to Zamfara, from the forests of the North-West to the creeks of the South, blood flows daily. Farmers in Benue cannot go to their farms without fear of being killed. Travellers on the Abuja-Kaduna highway recite their last prayers before setting out. Students are abducted from their dormitories in the dead of night like chickens. Our freedom of movement, the most basic proof of independence, has been stolen.

And when these tragedies occur, what do we hear? “We condemn this barbaric act.” “We are on top of the situation.” Empty grammar with no solution. The blood of innocent Nigerians cries out daily, while the powerful hide behind high walls guarded by policemen. Our soldiers are brave, but they are sent to confront terrorists with inferior weapons while billions meant for arms vanish in Abuja offices. A man who cannot sleep with both eyes closed in his own country is not independent. He is a prisoner in his fatherland.

Talk of the Economy and Power, and the shame deepens. We remain among the largest producers of crude oil in OPEC, yet we import refined fuel. Our four refineries have gulped trillions of naira in a so called turn around maintenance and produce nothing. Fuel subsidy was removed and the poor were told to sacrifice, yet the rich never sacrificed their convoys, their private jets or their mansions in Dubai. A litre of fuel now sells for over one thousand naira. A bag of rice costs nearly one hundred thousand naira. The naira, once stronger than the dollar, has become a shadow of itself. A minimum wage of seventy thousand naira cannot buy a bag of rice. Is this not madness?

Our Power sector is a National joke. After privatisation and after billions spent, we still generate less than 5,000 megawatts for 220 million people. South Africa, with about 60 million people, generates over 40,000 megawatts. Even smaller Ghana enjoys more stable electricity. Our welders, hairdressers, tailors and small business owners are suffocating because there is no light. Darkness has become our National identity.

What of our roads and infrastructure? The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway took almost a decade to complete. The Abuja-Kaduna road remains a death trap. The East-West Road in the Niger Delta, the very region that produces our oil wealth, is an embarrassment. Every year, floods wash away villages in Kogi, Anambra and Borno, and government officials visit with cameras, distribute wrappers and disappear. We could not maintain what the colonialists left behind, let alone build new ones. The railways were allowed to rot for forty years before we began borrowing from China to rebuild what we once had.

Our Judiciary, our Civil service and our Electoral system have all been polluted. Justice is now for sale to the highest bidder. The poor man who steals a goat goes to prison for three years; the big man who steals three billion naira arrives in court in a private jet and secures bail within minutes. Our elections have become warfare, characterised by ballot snatching, vote buying and result falsification. The people have lost faith, which is why voter turnout continues to fall. Can you blame them?

Think about this. In 1960, Nigeria had groundnut pyramids in Kano that touched the sky. Cocoa in the West built the first university at Ibadan and the first television station in Africa. Palm oil thrived in the East. We were the pride and hope of Africa. Malaysia came to Nigeria to learn how to cultivate palm oil. Today, Malaysia is one of the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, while we import it. Is that not shameful? It is like a man who owns a river yet begs his neighbour for a cup of water. When oil was discovered in Oloibiri in 1956, it should have been a blessing. Instead, it became a curse. Oil made our leaders lazy. They abandoned the farms and the factories. They began sharing oil revenue like national cake in Abuja every month, and whoever found his way to the table ate to excess while the rest of the nation licked the plate.

The most painful part is that we have normalised suffering. We now thank God for things that should be normal. We say, “Thank God we had light for two hours today,” as if electricity were a miracle. We say, “Thank God I could buy fuel,” as if fuel should be a luxury in an oil producing nation. We celebrate a governor for constructing one road, as if building roads were not his primary duty. Our expectations have been buried. The colonial mentality persists within us; we worship those in power as if they are doing us a favour, when in fact they are our servants. We have been psychologically conditioned to accept crumbs.

Some will argue that we now have democracy and can vote. But is this democracy truly free? Every four years, politicians distribute rice and a few thousand naira to purchase our future. Thugs snatch ballot boxes. Results are written in hotel rooms. Youths who dare to speak are brutalised or dismissed as lazy. The system is designed to recycle the same leaders, from military uniform to flowing Agbada. And we, driven by hunger and ethnic sentiment, sell our votes and then lament for four years. We are not yet free from mental slavery. Until we liberate our minds from tribalism and stomach infrastructure, we shall remain slaves to politicians.

To all presidential hopefuls parading from state to state today, from the ruling party to the opposition, from familiar faces to new voices, listen and listen well. Nigeria is not a company to be looted. Nigeria is not a throne to be inherited. Nigeria is a mother weeping for her children. If you truly seek to lead, then put Nigeria first, not your ambition, not your party, not your pocket. Stop viewing the presidency as a retirement benefit or a mission of revenge. See it as a sacred trust.

To the incumbent and to those who aspire to replace him, I ask in plain language: when you promise Renewed Hope, do you feel the hopelessness of a father in Kano who cannot afford a bag of rice? When you speak of economic reforms on television, do you understand the pain of a widow in Aba whose shop has closed because she cannot afford diesel? When you boast of security achievements, have you sat with mothers in Benue who have buried their sons, or with parents in Kaduna who sold everything to pay ransom for their kidnapped children? If you have not felt our pain, you are not prepared to heal it.

We appeal to you to do better. Not as politicians, but as human beings. Do better than empty promises. Do better than distributing money during campaigns and distributing hunger after elections. Do better than seeking medical care abroad while our general hospitals become mortuaries. Do better than sending your children to Harvard and Oxford while our universities remain on strike and our children learn under trees. Do better by creating jobs for the people. If you cannot build a Nigeria where your own children can be treated in a Nigerian hospital and educated in a Nigerian university, you have no moral right to ask for our votes.

Nigeria today is a giant in chains. We are the largest economy in Africa on paper, yet the poverty capital of the world in reality. We produce crude oil but queue for petrol. We have rivers, yet our taps are dry. We have sunshine all year, yet we live in darkness. Our brightest minds, doctors, nurses and engineers, are fleeing in droves. Our airports have become places of tears, where parents wave goodbye to children they may not see for years. This is not freedom. This is a slow National burial.

I am emotional today because I remember the stories my father told me. He said in the sixties and seventies, a Nigerian student abroad was respected. Our naira had value,  We awarded scholarships to other African nations. We led peace keeping missions and the world listened when we spoke. Where is that pride today? Our green passport is now viewed with suspicion at foreign embassies. We are known more for fraud than for excellence, because the system frustrates the honest and rewards the corrupt. It is heartbreaking.

The anger of the ordinary Nigerian is not about tribe or religion. The hunger in the belly of an almajiri child in Sokoto is the same as that of a street child in Port Harcourt. The tears of a Christian mother whose child was kidnapped are the same as those of a Muslim mother in identical anguish. Our pain is one. Our enemy is not one another; our enemy is bad leadership and our own silence.

Yet, even in this profound sadness, I refuse to give up on Nigeria. I see the resilience of our people. I see the market woman who still smiles despite her losses. I see the okada rider who toils from dawn to dusk to feed his family honestly. I see young Nigerians building applications in Yaba, farming in Nasarawa, and producing films in Asaba that the world applauds. There is a spirit in us that colonisation could not kill, that military rule could not crush, and that bad governance has failed to extinguish.

To every struggling Nigerian reading this at a news stand, online, in a shop or in an office, hold on. Your suffering is seen. Your anger is valid. But let us convert this frustration into action. The next election is not far off. Let us not sell our conscience again. Let us not allow ourselves to be divided by tribe and religion again. Let us ask every candidate; what is your plan for my child’s education, for my mother’s health, for my security, for my employment? Let us vote with our hearts and our heads, not with our stomachs.

To the candidates, history is watching. Years from now, what will your children say about you? Will they say you were among those who finally liberated Nigeria, or among those who kept her in chains? Put Nigeria first. Build one nation where a child from the North and a child from the South have equal opportunity. Unite us with love, not with lies.

One day, Nigeria go better. I believe it with all my heart. But that day will not come by wishing alone. It will come when we, the people, decide that we are truly ready to be free, not only from the British, but from Corruption, Tribalism, Fear, Poverty and Hunger. Until then, our independence remains incomplete, and our celebration remains a painful reminder of what might have been.

Let this season be not just a celebration, but a meaningful reflection. Nigeria Will Rise Again.