Nigeria: An Independent Nation in Need of Liberation

Nigeria has celebrated yet another Independence Day. As everyone and every organisation sent out their flyers with pictures of the green and white flag flying high and proud, I sat and imagined the perspective of a seventy-year-old man on all of this.

He must have been there, a starry-eyed young lad, as the nation officially gained independence from the British colonisers. He must have witnessed the birth of a country with its name, its flag, its coat of arms, and its freedom.

As a teenager, he must have lived through the country’s golden age. He must have marvelled at Cocoa House, built from the revenue of Nigeria’s thriving agricultural exports. He must have watched as the discovery of oil toppled everything over.

He must have seen the time when a good income, a house, and a nice car were almost guaranteed for every graduate; when people stood tall and proud and happily called themselves citizens of this nation.

He must have witnessed the transfer of power from military rulers to elected politicians. He must have been there when Nigerians almost unanimously elected MKO Abiola as president. He must have seen the oppression that followed.

He has witnessed what the lust for power and greed for wealth has done to this country. He has watched as what was once a promised land almost tore itself apart in the Biafran war.

He has seen generation after generation fall for empty promises by politicians. He has seen how the populace has been disappointed time and again.

He has watched as parents went from allowing their children to play outside until dusk to guarding them ferociously and praying endlessly for their safety from kidnappers, child molesters, and ritualists.

He heard, decades ago, parents advising their children to study medicine, law, or engineering because they were keys to wealth. Today, he watches everyone scramble for any opportunity to leave the country and work abroad.

He has seen youths go from honest labour, tilling farmlands, to demanding outrageous ransoms for the release of kidnapped victims.

He has seen a future that once shone so bright grow dimmer and dimmer.

Now, in his twilight years, he sits in his chair, rocking back and forth. He wonders if there is any light left to see.

And to that I say: yes. This country is not beyond saving. But we must all play our part to be better citizens and better people.

Allah says in the Qur’an: 

“Verily, Allah will not change the (good) condition of a people as long as they do not change their state (of goodness) themselves (by committing sins and by being ungrateful and disobedient to Allah).” 

[Al-Ra’d 13:11]

May Allah make Nigeria a land of peace and security, and bless us all.

by Zaynab Boladale