Nigerians are everywhere on global stages, in Ivy League classrooms, in Silicon Valley start-ups, in film studios, and in scientific laboratories. Yet at home, the nation itself often feels absent. Nigeria, the so-called giant of Africa, lies flat, trampled underfoot by dwarfs. It is a country brimming with talent, yet curiously excelling in dysfunction.
As an idea, Nigeria looms large. As a lived reality, it stumbles. Everyone seems to know what is right, yet too many remain invested in doing what is wrong. Failure is recycled like an heirloom. Decay is dressed up as development. Each failed government somehow makes its predecessor look like a missed opportunity. We idolise the past, mourn the present, and dread the future. This is not just a leadership crisis but a structural, and philosophical disintegration, gradually becoming cultural too. Politics is not alien to culture; it is culture made visible.
Nigeria’s decline is no secret. It is written in its human development rankings, in grim statistics of poverty, insecurity, and underdevelopment. The country suffers from chronic underperformance on nearly every front. It operates with an informal, unregulated economy that is largely pre-industrial. Infrastructure is crumbling and basic services becoming luxuries. Corruption has become the operating system. Instead of building bridges, division is codified such that citizens are classified as “indigenes” and “settlers,” which legitimises exclusion and resentment. Governance is less about capability and more about identity and control.
From corruption among the elite to secessionist agitations, from kidnappings to vandalism, dysfunction is no longer an anomaly, it is the norm. Sabotage becomes strategy, with citizens trapped in the redistribution of failure, not pursuit of progress. How then do we manage scarcity amid a growing population? How do we mediate diversity in a country riddled with contested territories? How do we close the widening trust gap between government and citizens?
Governance today at federal, state, and local levels is marked by disorientation. Nigeria risks building strategic institutions without blueprints, spend without investment, and generate outputs without meaningful outcomes. Winning elections, on its own, is no solution. Without a deep restructuring of the national mindset, electoral victories will simply replace one version of dysfunction with another. What Nigeria needs is not just new leadership but new thinking.
Nigeria’s rise will not be automatic but, instead, intentional. The future must be designed around systems that reward excellence, build trust, and channel human potential toward collective progress. Institutions must be built around ethics and service, not individuals. Development must be grounded in real productivity, not reckless ambition.
Nigeria’s democracy must value dissent and innovation, not conformity. Funding must be policy-driven, not a political souvenir. At the heart of all this lies a revolution of consciousness, a complete rethink of how Nigerians view leadership, governance, and nationhood. Today, politics chokes every other space, economic, intellectual, cultural, and artistic. Public office is treated as the only pathway to success. This obsession explains the desperation at every election, the do-or-die politics, the zero-sum contests. Even activism mistakes noise for change. Social media becomes a strategy, when in truth it is only a tool. To change Nigeria, we cannot simply play the game; we must rewrite its rules.
Governance must be human-centred. Yet Nigerians are too often treated as obstacles to be managed or resources to be extracted. From birth certificates to healthcare access, from acquiring travel passport to job application, citizens are forced to pay bribes for what should be rights. But governance rooted in care is not a sentiment, but rather a strategy. A government that protects the vulnerable and guarantees access to education, health, and housing earns trust. Public services must respect human dignity, not just process paperwork. Civil servants must be trained in empathy as much as administration.
If the next elections are truly about the people, we must rethink how we campaign, how we govern, and why we govern. Systems do not change themselves; they must be disrupted thoughtfully. Strategy, not slogans, must guide action. Leadership must be judged not by propaganda but by results, not by rhetoric but by integrity.
Our politics must move beyond personality cults and regional loyalties. Policies must inspire belief, and leadership must earn legitimacy. As a nation, Nigeria must cultivate four critical forms of visions – -insight for grounded understanding of our problems; hindsight for anticipation of disruptions and extraction of lessons from history; oversight for accountability and quality control and lastly, clear sightedness for coherence across systems and strategy.
Trust cannot be built by propaganda. Nigerians are exhausted by empty words. Citizens demand meaning, not marketing. A new national narrative must invite participation, not apathy. Competence must outweigh connections; dignity must replace dependency. At 65, Nigeria is not a failed state, but a fighting one. The problems are real, but so is the possibility of a rebirth. The rise of Nigeria will not happen by accident. It must be designed, demanded, and delivered. Nigeria’s 65th anniversary should be more than a commemoration but a moment of renewed purpose and a call to leaders and citizens alike to pursue the kind of Nigeria that reflects the greatness of its people.
