REFLECTION · INDEPENDENCE DAY
Fellow Nigerians, it’s easy to look at today’s cost of living, the job market and the exchange rate, and ask what exactly there is to celebrate. That reaction isn’t unpatriotic, it’s honest. But Independence Day was never a celebration of comfort. It is a marker of time: 66 years since a nation of over 250 ethnic groups was handed the keys to govern itself, and 66 years of still being here, intact, to argue about what that governance should look like. Many nations carved out of colonial borders never made it this far without fracturing entirely. Before we talk about what’s broken, it’s worth remembering everything this country has already survived just to reach this exact, imperfect, complicated day.
Nigeria has buried itself and risen more times than most nations attempt in a century. We’ve lived through military coups and counter-coups, a civil war that split families along the Niger, and decades where “government” meant men in uniform rather than ballots. We watched EndSARS in October 2020 turn a protest against police brutality into a national reckoning and a national tragedy in the same breath. We’ve read about graduates like John Arum Azi, lured out of Jos with a fake job offer in April 2026 and marched into a kidnappers’ camp in Zamfara, a reminder that even the simple act of looking for work can turn into a fight for your life. These are not footnotes. They are the scar tissue of a country that keeps getting back up.
And yet, in the same 66 years, Nigeria built a democracy that has now outlasted every military regime it once lived under. We gave the world Afrobeats, an entire genre now topping global charts with Nigerian names on the credits. We built a tech ecosystem out of nothing but data, grit and a good network connection, minting unicorns out of Lagos garages and co-working spaces. We turned Nollywood into one of the most prolific film industries on earth, fed Africa’s biggest economy, and kept showing up despite the odds; to work, to vote, to hustle, to sympathise, cry, and laugh even when every indicator said we shouldn’t still be standing. We became the country the rest of Africa, and increasingly the world watches to see what happens next, for better and for worse.
So yes, I urge you to celebrate cautiously. Celebrate with your eyes open to everything still unresolved. But celebrate. At 66, Nigeria isn’t being congratulated for being perfect; it’s being acknowledged for surviving, adapting, and still producing people who refuse to give up on it. That resilience, not the economy, not the government, is the real independence worth marking today. Happy Independence Day, Nigeria. Here’s to a country with more secure jobs, fairer pay, and a future that finally matches the size of its people’s ambition.
May Nigeria not happen to us!