Reflection on Nigeria at 65

By Olusegun Adeniyi

When Nigeria marked its 60th independence anniversary five years ago, I recalled how 1960 was deemed ‘The Year of Africa’. Because 16 of the 17 countries that gained independence that year were from the continent. I then x-rayed the state of those other 15 African countries that secured their independence same year with Nigeria: Niger Republic, Central African Republic (CAR), Somalia, Togo, Republic of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Cameroon, Republic of the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly known as Zaire, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Benin Republic.
In his national broadcast to mark our 65th independence anniversary yesterday, President Bola Tinubu reminded us of where Nigeria is coming from. “We fought a bitter and avoidable civil war, experienced military dictatorships, and lived through major political crises,” he said. Since almost all these other African countries have experienced a similar history of colonial subjugation, military incursions and security challenges, including insurgency and civil wars, etc., I made the point in 2020 that there are excuses to make for our failures.
However, I also contrasted the 16 African countries with the last of the nations in the ‘Class of 1960’—the only one outside the continent: The Republic of Cyprus, an Eastern Mediterranean Island country. Instructively, Cyprus and Nigeria share the same 1st October Independence Day, and the country also marked its 65th anniversary yesterday. Like Nigeria, Cyprus has faced wars, military coups and all manner of disruptions, instigated from within and without. But unlike Nigeria, Cyprus has done relatively well for itself. Today, the GDP per capita in Cyprus is projected to be $41,130 with a Purchasing Power Parity of $65,090 per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) April 2025 World Economic Outlook data. Going by the same IMF data, the 2025 GDP per capita of Nigeria is a paltry $806.84! In almost all the indicators I have looked at, except for population growth—which speaks to our irresponsible procreation—Cyprus has fared far much better than Nigeria.
Of course, we can debate why and how Nigeria has fared so dismally despite enormous potential. But the real paradox is that while we may not be doing well as a country, many Nigerians are doing well as individuals. Both at home and in the Diaspora. The elephant in the room is leadership at practically all levels and in all spheres, but that is not even my point today. Despite being blessed with abundant human and material resources, we have failed to aggregate the parts into the collective whole, essentially because the accumulation of individual greed far outweighs the collective need. And we are still waiting on God’s help “to build a nation where no man is oppressed.”
As I once wrote on this page, nothing perhaps best illustrates the Nigerian condition than the embedded message in ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ which is regarded as one of the best works of literature regarding ethics and society. Published in 1974 by Ursula K. Le Guin in her collection, ‘The Wind’s Twelve Quarters’, the short story is about a beautifully constructed utopian society called Omelas where the prosperity of the people came at the expense of one deprived child locked in a dingy small room. At the coming of age, every citizen of Omelas is confronted with the condition of the child and no matter how well the matter was explained to them, “these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations…Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendour of their lives….”
A major theme in this story, popular in leadership courses, is morality and how different people within a given society react to situations around them. While the citizens of Omelas were quite aware of the child’s deplorable condition, they did nothing. Apparently because their happiness was dependent on his deprivation. Omelas is a good metaphor for Nigeria: To every dysfunction, there are beneficiaries. Unfortunately, that is the tragedy that has bedevilled our nation repeatedly over six and a half decades.
Even though Nigeria retains all the apparatus of a functioning state, it is obvious that the system has been rigged against most of the people. The real tragedy is that Nigerians have perfected the art of detaching themselves from the nation as a shared patrimony. In what has become a culture of self-flagellation, the standard refrain is: ‘Nigeria is a useless country’. In a nation where everybody is pointing fingers and no one accepts responsibility for our failings; it is difficult to engage one another in any meaningful conversation on the way forward.
For us to develop as a society, we must come to that special place where both the government and the people meet in an honest admission of shared responsibility for lost opportunities and the challenge of national retrieval. This convergence requires responsible leadership and patriotic citizenship. But if all we can do is to mouth the self-indicting and hypocritical prayer of ‘may Nigeria not happen to you’, we are not going to build a society that works for all citizens.
Therefore, at 65 years of nationhood, we should spare a thought for our country by stopping to blame ‘Nigeria’ for our self-inflicted woes.

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com