PASSIONATE PLEA TO FELLOW NIGERIANS

As 2026 gets underway, citizens should step up to own their country through active, unrelenting participation, writes MONDAY PHILIPS EKPE

A new year has just begun. With the fast-changing world choosing its own courses at a dizzying pace, it’s hard to know whether people still make annual resolutions. To stop procrastinating. To end smoking. To read at least one novel a week. To overcome their known or secret shortcomings. To face their future squarely. To register tangible achievements. To be better husbands, wives, children, workers or neighbours. And, ultimately, to be well improved versions of themselves. It never really matters if the makers of such idealistic pledges know instinctively that the decisions would likely be breached as early as few hours into January. They are religiously made all the same, sometimes to God privately.

This appeal to my compatriots is a bit different both in scope and character: asking us all to love and be seen to love our country some more, against the seemingly justifiable proofs to embrace the contrary. Even as a natural optimist, I’ve come close to exasperation a couple of times on this subject. Some other Nigerians who have devoted much of their adult lives to the service of their country in several areas have also either succumbed or come close to doing so. But simply condemning those who appear to hate their fatherland because of its ever-increasing problems would be simplistic.

For, the challenges confronting our faith in Nigeria and wanting to go the extra mile for it to survive and thrive are mushrooming fast and getting complicated. A country that boasts of revered founding fathers and mothers is now treated like an orphan, unfortunately. The political leaders are often fingered as culprits – for good measure – but the rest of the citizenry can’t easily claim absolution here. What’s our attitude towards government property and jobs? Usually that of nobody’s, sadly. This impersonal, noncommittal approach contributes immensely to the underperformance of the public sector in comparison to its private counterpart. We’ve arrived at a juncture where the former has surrendered its moral leadership to the latter.

Nothing demonstrates this embarrassing irony than the remarkable successes of Dangote Refinery within its short period of establishment. For long, the memories of most Nigerians about the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPCL), a publicly owned institution, are those of a bogus, over-pampered and ill-managed entity which presides over epileptic services. In the current festivities, for instance, Dangote is largely responsible for the availability and relatively low prices of petrol nationwide. That’s after wrestling with antagonistic trade unions and regulatory bodies. As it is with energy, so with other aspects of national life.

The citizens are left to their own devices; made to fend for themselves with little or no succour from the government(s). From electricity to education, health, transportation, subsistence, jobs, general welfare and security, Nigerians are compelled to actualise their needs individually or jointly in most cases. Telling people who feel government’s impact less and less to wait still and swallow incredible official explanations and excuses would be to further offend their already bruised sensibilities.

The implementation of the tax reforms of this administration exemplifies the factors which can go wrong in the government’s relationship with the long-suffering populace. Only last month, a member of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Abdussamad Ibrahim Dasuki, drew the attention of his colleagues to the discrepancies between the tax law that was passed by the National Assembly and what was eventually signed and gazetted by the executive arm of government. Since then, heated debates have sprung up across the federation on the issue. Yet, without resolving the conflict for the common good, President Bola Tinubu has reportedly declared that nothing would stop its execution as earlier planned. Holding the people’s frustrations, doubts, fears and reservations in contempt!

This attempt to soften the minds of Nigerians towards the nation isn’t in denial of the excesses of its leaders at the various tiers of government. I’ve not been hired to deodorise their many anti-people moves; and I won’t do it. I can say for free though, as I constantly do, that there is hardly any new predicament on the block. Most of the crises bedevilling Nigeria today have been kicked down the road by previous administrations, strengthening the blame game of successive governments. Some of the troubles have become impregnable in the process. Others now fit that popular Nigerian saying, “jungle don mature”.

Like what obtains in wildlife, our serially mismanaged hot spots have conspired to railroad this once globally respected country into the company of less fancied nations. The other day, President Donald Trump added Nigeria to the list of countries that had their visa applications to the United States suspended. Some commentators have dismissed Trump as erratic and discriminating. Others even think that going to America is no big deal. But the exercise has sobered me a bit. Time was when this African giant could hold its own at any international forum with respect. Falling from that height of dignity to its present profile mustn’t be trivialised.

The political class hasn’t helped matters. Since the commencement of the current Republic over 26 years ago, most of its members have carried on as if in total disdain for their role as the prime guardians of our democracy. Their bellies have become their gods – insatiable ones at that. For many of them, 2027 means their election or re-election bids, which implies that proper governance, if anything of that description truly existed before now, will be off the table in a couple of weeks. That would further jeopardise any hope of attending to legitimate needs.

Loving our country in the midst of these mostly self-inflicted injuries can indeed be Herculean but we don’t have reasonable alternatives. I have seized different chances to remind fellow Nigerians that majority of us will live, die and be buried here, the sustained pressure to relocate abroad notwithstanding. This sobering fact should make every Nigerian dig in and exercise the rights and privileges of citizenship. Let’s get ready to hold politicians accountable. Let’s mentally separate them from the country which many of them are only programmed to rape. We seriously have no other location to call home. Naturalising elsewhere can’t be the same thing. Nigeria wasn’t always this crooked. Some living Nigerians can recall great things about it which can be restored through concerted, participatory efforts. Let’s vow that 2026 will be the turning point in our socio-political engineering which in turn would galvanise the economy. We must never succumb to the twin forces of lethargy and despair.

Dr Ekpe is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board