66 YEARS OF DOING THE SAME THING AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS
An Oblong Media Independence Day Observation
Today, October 1, 2026, Nigeria is 66 years old.
Sixty six years.
And what exactly are we celebrating?
Sixty six years of repeatedly doing the same things, recycling the same systems, tolerating the same political culture, rewarding the same mediocrity and somehow expecting different results.
Nigeria has travelled through the First Republic, military governments, the Second Republic, more military governments, an aborted Third Republic and now 27 years of the Fourth Republic.
Different uniforms.
Different agbadas.
Different slogans.
Different parties.
Same country going round and round the same mountain.
At some point, Nigerians must stop pretending.
WE DID NOT START LIKE THIS
Nigeria did not begin independence as the dysfunctional state we see today.
The British left behind functioning institutions: a civil service, judiciary, railways, ports, schools, hospitals and an administrative structure capable of running the country.
More importantly, Nigeria had something we have spent decades dismantling:
A workable federal structure.
At independence, Nigeria had three great regions, Northern, Western and Eastern, under a Federal Government.
The Mid Western Region followed in 1963.
These were large, economically viable political entities with substantial autonomy, powerful identities and governments that had to think about production because they could not simply sit around waiting every month for Abuja to share oil money.
The West had cocoa.
The North had groundnuts, cotton and livestock.
The East had palm produce and a rapidly expanding commercial and industrial economy.
The regions competed.
They built.
They produced.
They developed universities, industries, infrastructure and public institutions.
Their leaders had something today’s political system has gradually suffocated:
The necessity to create wealth.
Then came the military.
And the tailspin began.
THE MILITARY BROKE THE FEDERATION
The military entered government in January 1966 and imported into civilian society the philosophy it understood best:
Command and control.
Federalism began giving way to centralisation.
The regional structure was dismantled.
Then came the multiplication of states:
12 states in 1967.
19 in 1976.
21 in 1987.
30 in 1991.
And finally:
36 states in 1996.
Look at what we created.
Thirty six governors.
Thirty six state bureaucracies.
Thirty six Houses of Assembly.
Hundreds of commissioners.
Thousands upon thousands of political appointees.
Then add 774 local governments, the Federal Government, the National Assembly, ministries, departments, agencies and an enormous political bureaucracy consuming resources that should be developing the country.
We replaced large productive regions with an ever expanding administrative machine.
And today, much of Nigeria waits every month for Abuja to distribute money.
We replaced production with allocation.
That, in my view, was one of the greatest structural disasters in Nigerian history.
THE MILITARY BUILT NIGERIA, AND ALSO HELPED DESTROY IT
Let us give the military its due.
Some of Nigeria’s most important infrastructure and institutions were created or substantially developed during military rule.
But here lies the terrible paradox.
The military developed Nigeria and destroyed Nigeria in almost equal measure.
It built infrastructure while damaging institutions.
It expanded the state while weakening federalism.
It centralised resources.
It normalised government by decree.
It interrupted democratic development again and again.
Civilian government returned in 1979.
Four years later, the soldiers returned.
Then came another merry go round of coups, military governments, economic crises, structural adjustment, destruction of the value of our currency, political repression and international isolation.
Then came the disaster of June 12, 1993.
An election was held.
The transition collapsed.
The military remained.
Eventually, in 1999, they finally handed government back to civilians.
But even as they departed, they left us their political architecture.
EVEN OUR CONSTITUTION CARRIES THE MILITARY’S FINGERPRINTS
Nigeria likes to describe itself as a constitutional democracy.
But let us confront an uncomfortable fact.
The 1999 Constitution was brought into force through Decree No. 24 of 1999 by the outgoing military government.
It became effective on May 29, 1999.
Twenty seven years later, we are still amending and patching a constitutional order handed over at the end of military rule.
Nigeria has never, in the Fourth Republic, sat down as a people, produced an entirely new constitutional settlement and directly ratified it through a national referendum.
Instead, we keep repairing the house.
Perhaps it is time to ask whether the foundation itself is the problem.
THEN CAME THE FOURTH REPUBLIC
When democracy returned in 1999, many Nigerians were sceptical.
They had watched transition programmes announced, postponed, manipulated and cancelled.
There was always the fear:
Will the military come back?
Politics therefore did not necessarily attract enough of our brightest and most accomplished people.
Political structures were captured.
Godfathers emerged.
Loyalty became more important than competence.
People were sponsored into local governments, Houses of Assembly, the House of Representatives, Senate and governors’ offices not necessarily because they represented the finest minds available, but because they were politically useful.
Drivers.
Personal assistants.
Loyalists.
Hangerson.
People who would ordinarily never have been entrusted with major public institutions suddenly found themselves exercising enormous political authority.
And then they became entrenched.
They accumulated money.
They created political structures.
They sponsored successors.
Their successors sponsored successors.
And gradually mediocrity became an institution.
That is part of the political class Nigeria is still recycling today.
NOW NIGERIA IS 66. WHAT EXACTLY HAVE WE ACHIEVED?
Look around.
Not at private wealth.
Look at the state.
If Nigeria had sustained anything approaching the ambition and developmental momentum visible in the early post independence period, where should a country of our size and resources be today?
Look at Dubai.
Look at Abu Dhabi.
Look at Qatar.
Then look at Nigeria.
Do not tell me about beautiful houses in Abuja.
Government did not build most of them.
Do not show me skyscrapers and private developments in Lagos.
Private capital built them.
Do not confuse Nigerian entrepreneurship with Nigerian government performance.
That distinction is fundamental.
Nigerians have built magnificent homes.
Nigerians have built factories.
Nigerians have established universities.
Nigerians have established hospitals.
Nigerians have created banks.
Nigerians have built hotels.
Nigerians have created technology companies.
Nigerians have constructed estates.
Nigerians have built shopping centres.
The Nigerian private sector has repeatedly demonstrated what Nigerians are capable of achieving.
Now remove private achievement from the picture and show me the Nigerian state.
WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT?
Sixty six years after independence, millions of Nigerians still cannot reliably turn on a tap and receive safe drinking water.
World Bank data put access to safely managed drinking water at only 29.9% in 2024.
Electricity?
Only 62.5% of Nigerians had access to electricity in 2024, compared with 91.4% across lower middle income countries.
And even that figure says nothing about reliability.
The World Bank reports that Nigerian households experience roughly seven electricity outages every week, with a typical duration of 12 hours.
Imagine that.
Nigeria.
One of the world’s great hydrocarbon producers.
Sixty six years after independence.
And citizens still buy generators to produce their own electricity.
We drill boreholes to provide our own water.
We employ guards to provide our own security.
We send our children to private schools because public education has deteriorated.
We use private hospitals because too many public facilities cannot provide the standard of care we expect.
We buy solar panels.
We repair roads around our homes.
We contribute money to community infrastructure.
We virtually create miniature governments around ourselves simply to live normal lives.
And then the political class turns around and tells us:
Nigeria is progressing.
Progressing to where?
WE HAVE NORMALISED ABNORMALITY
Perhaps this is Nigeria’s greatest tragedy.
We have become accustomed to dysfunction.
When electricity stays on for several hours, we celebrate.
When government builds a road, politicians erect billboards congratulating themselves.
For building a road!
With public money!
We commission boreholes.
We commission transformers.
We commission classroom blocks.
We commission streetlights.
Politicians distribute rice and call it empowerment.
They hand people motorcycles and sewing machines and call it economic development.
And citizens dance.
Supporters praise them.
Social media warriors defend them.
Traditional rulers confer titles.
Then another election comes and the same political machine returns asking for another four years.
When exactly are we going to become angry with mediocrity?
STOP SHOWING US PRIVATE NIGERIA AND CALLING IT GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT
Abuja is beautiful in places, and government has continued extending infrastructure there.
Lagos contains extraordinary private wealth and investment.
But beautiful private buildings are not evidence of an effective state.
The question is whether government infrastructure has kept pace with private investment.
Where are the mass transit systems worthy of a country of this size?
Where is reliable nationwide electricity?
Where is universal potable water?
Where are the world class public schools?
Where are the public hospitals Nigerians trust enough that political leaders themselves do not constantly seek medical treatment abroad?
Where is the integrated railway system?
Where are the modern ports serving every major economic corridor?
Where is the industrial infrastructure?
Where is the agricultural infrastructure?
Where are the functioning public institutions?
The World Bank’s Public Finance Review reported major infrastructure deficits: only about 30% of Nigerian roads were paved, compared with 50% across lower middle income countries, while only about 1% of cropland was irrigated.
This is the Nigeria we should be discussing on Independence Day.
Not flags.
Not slogans.
Results.
AND ANOTHER ELECTION IS COMING
This is where Nigerians themselves must accept responsibility.
We are approaching another election cycle.
And what are many Nigerians discussing?
Tribe.
Religion.
Party.
Who gave somebody a contract.
Who appointed somebody’s brother.
Who distributed rice.
Who knows the governor.
Who can provide access to Abuja.
Who belongs to which political camp.
Everything except the future of Nigeria.
People are preparing once again to defend mediocrity because mediocrity feeds them.
Some defend politicians because of ethnicity.
Some because of religion.
Some because of party.
Some because of appointments.
Some because of contracts.
Some because somebody occasionally sends them money.
And then we wonder why nothing changes.
THE PROBLEM IS NO LONGER JUST OUR LEADERS
Nigeria’s leaders have failed Nigeria repeatedly.
Military.
Civilian.
Past.
Present.
But after 66 years, Nigerians must confront another uncomfortable truth:
The government we get is the government we tolerate.
Politicians did not fall from the sky.
We produced them.
We vote for them.
We celebrate them.
We defend them.
We accept their money.
We attend their rallies.
We fight one another on their behalf.
We turn political leaders into ethnic champions and messiahs.
And when somebody asks questions about performance, supporters attack the person asking the questions instead of demanding answers from the politician.
That is how mediocrity survives.
NIGERIA SHOULD BE AN AFRICAN GIANT IN SUBSTANCE, NOT SLOGAN
Nigeria should possess leadership capable of speaking confidently for itself and carrying weight across Africa and beyond.
We are Africa’s most populous country.
We possess enormous oil and gas resources.
We have minerals.
We have agricultural land.
We have a huge domestic market.
We have extraordinary entrepreneurs.
We have intellectuals.
We have scientists.
We have doctors.
We have engineers.
We have globally successful professionals.
We have one of the world’s most accomplished African diasporas.
So what exactly is our excuse?
Nigeria’s problem is not an absence of human beings capable of running a successful country.
Our problem is the political and institutional system through which we choose, reward and recycle leadership.
66 YEARS IS ENOUGH
Nigeria cannot continue like this.
Changing presidents while preserving the system will not save us.
Changing parties while recycling the same political characters will not save us.
Creating more states will not save us.
Creating more ministries will not save us.
Borrowing more money will not save us.
Building another handful of roads and calling it transformation will not save us.
Distributing rice will not save us.
Political propaganda will not save us.
Nigeria needs a fundamental reset.
We must revisit our federal structure.
We must return economic responsibility to the constituent parts of this country.
We must make states or regions produce rather than merely collect.
We must rebuild public education.
We must rebuild healthcare.
We must provide electricity.
We must provide water.
We must industrialise.
We must exploit our resources intelligently.
We must build railways, ports and transport corridors capable of opening every region of Nigeria to commerce.
We must dramatically reduce the cost of government.
And above everything else:
WE MUST CHANGE THE QUALITY OF PEOPLE WE SEND INTO GOVERNMENT.
Enough of political jobbers.
Enough of godfatherism.
Enough of rewarding loyalty over intelligence.
Enough of turning poverty into an electoral weapon.
Enough of ethnic politics.
Enough of religious manipulation.
Enough of celebrating mediocrity.
Enough.
THIS INDEPENDENCE DAY SHOULD NOT BE A CELEBRATION.
IT SHOULD BE AN ALARM.
Sixty six years after independence, Nigeria still possesses everything required to become one of the great nations of the world.
What we have lacked is the political system, leadership culture, institutional discipline and collective determination to convert those advantages into national greatness.
So perhaps today we should put away the champagne.
Put away the congratulatory messages.
Put away the propaganda.
Look Nigeria squarely in the face.
Are we satisfied with this?
If the answer is no, then Independence Day must become more than an annual ritual.
It must become a day of national reckoning.
Because Nigeria cannot spend another 66 years doing the same thing and expecting different results.
The political class must change.
The structure must change.
The institutions must change.
But above all:
NIGERIANS MUST CHANGE WHAT THEY ARE PREPARED TO TOLERATE.
Nigeria did not fail in one day.
It was weakened decision by decision, coup by coup, government by government, policy by policy, election by election and compromise by compromise.
And it will not be rebuilt by another politician promising miracles.
It will be rebuilt when Nigerians decide that mediocrity is no longer acceptable.
That is the revolution Nigeria needs.
Not violence.
Not another coup.
Not destruction.
A revolution of standards.
A revolution in what we demand.
A revolution in whom we elect.
A revolution in what we refuse to tolerate.
A revolution that finally says:
SIXTY SIX YEARS IS ENOUGH.
Happy Independence Day, Nigeria.
May our 66th year finally be the year we stop celebrating our potential and start becoming the country we should have been decades ago.
Duruebube Chimazuru “Oblong” Nnadi-Oforgu
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
October 1, 2026
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