Sixty-five years after the Union Jack came down, Nigeria marks Independence Day in an atmosphere of fatigue rather than fulfillment. We are long on anniversaries and short on achievements that are felt in homes, markets, and on our highways. If independence means the power to set our own course, then the honest question is simple: whose course are we actually sailing, the people’s, or the networked interests that have captured the state?
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s first two years have been defined by shock-therapy reforms. Fuel subsidy removal and foreign-exchange liberalization were sold as the bitter pill that would cure decades of economic anemia. The theory was sound: stop hemorrhaging trillions on subsidies, end the arbitrage that enriched a few, float the naira to attract capital, expand revenue, and then reinvest in people and infrastructure. The lived reality was harsher. Prices leapt, wages lagged, transport costs exploded, and inflation soared to multi-decade highs. While government points to “long-term gains” on paper, real households are navigating a permanent emergency: food is dear, fuel is volatile, and the distance between salary day and dignity is widening. Reform without shock absorbers breeds resentment; reform without transparency breeds distrust.
The security ledger is just as sobering. Banditry in the North West, insurgency aftershocks in the North East, farmer–herder conflict across the Middle Belt, kidnapping corridors on federal highways, oil theft and piracy in the Delta, and separatist-linked violence in parts of the South East have hardened into a national map of fear. Government communiqués cite “neutralized” terrorists and procured hardware; citizens count abducted schoolchildren, closed farms, and routes they can no longer drive after sunset. A country where inter-state road travel has become a lottery of ransom or safe arrival cannot, with a straight face, speak of independence in any meaningful sense.
Fuel remains the country’s political litmus test. The promise was “market pricing” to attract investment and end scarcity. What we have instead is a “fuel war” people feel at the pump: a dance of price spikes, supply squeeze, and rumors of cartels, all while Nigeria still imports most of its petrol and struggles to translate new refining capacity into predictable local supply. Critics allege that networks close to power have outsized influence in the oil value chain, from crude access to import quotas and swap deals, and that competition is more theater than reality. Even if every allegation were false, the optics are damning: when a reform enriches the well-connected faster than it stabilizes the lives of the disconnected, legitimacy evaporates. The antidote is not press releases; it is a full competition audit of upstream and downstream, transparent crude allocation rules, clear timelines for domestic supply obligations, and pricing that ordinary Nigerians can understand, not just endure.
How does the APC era stack up against the PDP years? The PDP (1999–2015) delivered the telecoms revolution, banking consolidation, debt relief, GDP rebasing, and years of respectable growth, but also entrenched corruption, crude dependence, and under-investment in power and productivity. The APC inheritance (2015 to date) brought two recessions in five years, a dramatic deterioration in security under Buhari, and then the Tinubu jolt of macro reforms with painful short-term costs and still-uncertain dividends. Across both parties, one constant binds the narrative: Nigeria still generates only a fraction of the power it should, still spends too much to service debt relative to revenue, and still cannot guarantee safety on its roads. If multiparty democracy means anything, it should mean that failure is not recycled with fresh slogans.
This is where infrastructure choices become a moral question. A coastal super-highway makes for glossy renderings and ribbon-cutting politics, but the soul of a republic is in its trunk routes: Enugu–Onitsha, Enugu-Portharcourt, Owerri Onitsha, that should be swift and safe, Benin–Onitsha, Benin-Abuja that should be smooth, Lokoja–Benue corridors that should move food without fear. Independence is not a beach road. Independence is a mother who can send produce by truck and sleep that night without praying against bandits and potholes. Until our arteries work, cosmetic mega-projects will look like vanity in asphalt.
And what of justice? The continued detention and prosecution of Nnamdi Kanu, contrasted with the spectacle of “de-radicalized” terrorists and negotiated amnesties for violent actors elsewhere, has become a symbol of unequal scales. This is not to excuse any illegality; it is to insist that constitutionalism must look like itself. If law is a net cast only where it is convenient, it ceases to be law and becomes a weapon. Reckon honestly with grievances in the South East, prosecute crimes wherever they occur, and stop governing by double standard.
Now to the Igbo question the federation keeps postponing. Since 1999, the arithmetic at the top tells its own story. Presidents: Obasanjo (South West, 1999–2007), Yar’Adua (North West, 2007–2010), Jonathan (South South, 2010–2015), Buhari (North West, 2015–2023), Tinubu (South West, 2023–). Vice Presidents: Atiku (North East, 1999–2007), Jonathan (South South, 2007–2010), Sambo (North West, 2010–2015), Osinbajo (South West, 2015–2023), Shettima (North East, 2023–). In twenty-six years of the Fourth Republic, the South East has held neither the presidency nor the vice presidency. If Tinubu completes eight years in 2031, the political logic of rotation suggests the North will claim the next turn. Where, then, is the space for Ndigbo in a system that sermonizes “equity” but practices expediency?
No region is entitled to power by ancestry. Yet no union survives when a major constituent is permanently excluded. “What is the plan?” is not a lament; it is an instruction. Build a single, cross-party Igbo Compact that is bigger than any aspirant, a negotiated policy slate on security, infrastructure, industrial corridors, and constitutional reform, and take it to every party’s convention as the price of support, not as a plea for favors. Cultivate a slate of disciplined, nationally sellable candidates early, and build real alliances in the North, Middle Belt and South-South around shared development interests, not just rotation arithmetic. Professionalize fundraising at home and in the diaspora to free candidates from godfathers. Invest in data teams, message discipline, and voter-protection operations. And at home, prove capacity in state governance so that “Igbo presidency” reads like a promise of competence to the rest of the country, not just the pursuit of symbolism.
What, exactly, are we really celebrating at 65? Do we have power that powers industry and homes? Do we have food security that lowers prices and raises farmer incomes? Do we have security of life and property that lets a young woman travel the night bus without fear? Do we have a predictable climate for local and foreign business, or is the rule still “know someone or suffer”? If the answers are no, then the parades are for our nostalgia, not our reality.
Independence will remain a date on a calendar until it becomes a contract the state keeps with its citizens. Fix security so farmers can farm and traders can trade. Stabilize fuel and FX with transparent rules, not opaque discretion. Put money where it multiplies productivity, power, trunk roads, rail, ports, not where it multiplies headlines. Audit the oil market for real competition, not captured cartels. End selective justice so law can heal rather than harden resentments. And for Ndigbo: organize, bargain, and build, because power is not given, it is negotiated.
Sixty-five years after the British left, our greatest indictment would be to keep asking London why Lagos cannot fix Lokoja. The only empire standing between Nigeria and progress is the empire of excuses. Break it.
I am Duruebube Uzii na Abosi, Chima “Oblong” Nnadi-Oforgu, and i’m just restating our reality and wondering what we are celebrating.
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