Some people crumble under a whisper of crisis. What about Nigerians? We have stared down hurricanes at high noon and kept walking as though, it was only harmattan dust in our eyes. From the marble corridors of Aso Rock to the cracked pavements of forgotten villages, leadership has come and gone like a revolving door. Yet, here we stand scarred but upright.
We have worn the crown of economic hardship for so long that it has begun to feel like an aged inheritance. The naira, our child, is rationed to us like contraband. Still, we line up at the banks, hats in hand, and leave with a shrug. What about Food scarcity? The market woman now counts each tomato like a jeweller weighing diamonds, but somehow, the stew finds its taste.
Insecurity stalks our highways, markets and farmlands like a shadow that will not lift. Yet the buses still load passengers, the markets still supply all items for human survival, and the farmers still sow seed in the ground and harvest their crops in due season against all odds. We have seen the subsidy removed, pumps run dry, and the price of fuel leap like a startled gazelle. Nonetheless, the Danfos still roar through the city with their ever-buzzing horn challenging the very air we breathe to stop them.
Some nations collapse under one burden. We have carried a dozen and still find the strength to dance at weddings, cheer at football goals, and trade jokes over roasted corn. I salute all the hawkers manoeuvring and struggling through gridlock, the nurses on a night shift with fuel bought at black-market prices, the farmer planting with faith that his harvest will survive the road home and all the legit hustlers.
Nigerians, I tip my hat to you. You have proven that only giants can endure such gigantic trials. But perseverance is not the same as progress. We cannot make a national religion of suffering. If we treat hardship like heritage, our children will inherit the same pain. If we have endured storms that would sink vessels, imagine what we could achieve under leaders with vision.
To escape this cycle, we must stop voting with anger or nostalgia alone. Instead, we should demand competence louder than we demand slogans, and we have to question every sweet-tongued saviour: Where were you when the ship was sinking? Our rescue lies in the obduracy to build with our own hands, and not just foreign dreams. Again, the discipline to punish all failure at the ballot box and hold our leaders liable is the way to go, moving forward.
Now, let us steer for calmer waters and vow never again to sail blind into the same storm.
✍🏽 William Z. Bozimo
Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper
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