Opinion
By Chukwudi George Ozalla
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
– Alice Walker
Over the years, I have observed that Nigerians are very good at identifying what is wrong with the country. Almost everywhere you go, people have one complaint or another about the state of the nation. Some complain about the shortage of electricity supply, others about bad roads, insecurity, unemployment, the cost of living, poor healthcare, education, corruption and the general quality of leadership. On social media, the complaints are even more pronounced, with Nigerians dissecting government policies and public officials every day. Many of these complaints are justified. The problems are real and they affect people directly. Nevertheless, what I find most disturbing is that we have not been able to translate much of this public anger and frustration into sustained collective action capable of producing the changes we constantly demand.
Little wonder the quote by Alice Walker, the American novelist, poet and activist, with which I began this piece comes to mind: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” The moment it becomes necessary for citizens to come together, organise themselves and make personal sacrifices for a common cause, the story often changes. Some people withdraw because they are afraid of the consequences or being marked as voices of dissidents. Some become interested in what they can personally gain from the situation. Others introduce ethnic, religious, political or family sentiments into what should be a common national concern. There are also those who will openly support a collective effort until they are offered something that serves their personal interest, after which they become part of the problem they were previously complaining about. Unfortunately, this is one of the contradictions that has kept Nigeria where it is today.
I have also wondered whether a good number of our complainants and agitators are actually opposed to bad leadership or are simply unhappy that they are not the ones occupying the positions of authority. This observation of mine may sound harsh, but our political history provides enough examples to make the question worth asking. Someone can actually spend years criticising those in government, demanding accountability and promising a different approach, only to become part of the same system and begin defending the same practices they once condemned. This does not mean that those in government should be excused. We need to have it as a norm for public officials to readily answer for their decisions, and citizens have every right to demand accountability from them. But we also need to examine ourselves as a people. If the same attitudes that we criticise in public officials are reproduced whenever ordinary citizens get an opportunity to control resources, influence decisions or gain access to power, then the problem is deeper than the people occupying political offices at any particular time. Therefore, the simple act of replacing one set of people with another will not solve the problem if the same behaviour follows them into office.
Nigeria is falling apart in several areas, and pretending otherwise will not solve the problem. What is particularly disturbing is the way the electorate has gradually lowered its expectations of democratic government. We now hear citizens saying that if a government can provide stable electricity during its tenure, that alone will be enough. Another government can then come and fix the roads. Another one can improve healthcare and another education and so on. The expectations have become so low that basic responsibilities are now presented as major achievements. This is not what should happen in a country that has spent decades parading itself as the giant of Africa. Huge population alone does not make a country a giant. If a country has a huge population but cannot govern responsibly by providing basic infrastructure, quality education, functional healthcare, reliable electricity, security and decent opportunities for its citizens, then the huge population figure itself cannot be used as evidence of development. Nigerians should not have to choose which basic service they are prepared to receive during a four-year tenure.
What we have experienced over the years is a pattern of successive administrations that often fail to build sufficiently on whatever has been achieved before them, that is, if any. We often have a new government that comes with promises, starts new programmes and announces new projects, while many unfinished projects of the previous administration are abandoned or forgotten. Inherited policies are changed, priorities shift and citizens are once again asked to wait. By the time another government comes, the same process begins all over again. This is what I would describe as successive retrogressive administrations, where instead of each government taking the country a step forward from where it found it, we sometimes find ourselves spending years trying to recover what was lost during the previous administration. The explanations keep changing, but the experience of the ordinary citizen is often the same: another delay, another promise and another reason why something that should have been done has not been done. When this becomes the pattern for decades, the explanations themselves begin to lose meaning. I have always believed that one sure thing a mountain of excuses does is to pin a person down. The same applies to a country.
The issue of Nigeria’s refineries is one example that continues to bother me. For years, the country had refineries that were expected to contribute to domestic refining, yet successive governments spent public money on Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) and other interventions while the facilities struggled to perform as expected. Workers of those non-functioning refineries still had to be paid and money continued to be committed to the facilities, while Nigeria remained heavily dependent on imported refined petroleum products. Then one man built a major private refinery. The significance of this is not that government and private business operate under exactly the same circumstances. They do not. Government has wider responsibilities and has to deal with several layers of regulation, public accountability and other considerations. But the development nevertheless raises a legitimate question: why did something that appeared so difficult for government to accomplish for decades eventually become possible through private investment? That question should not be dismissed. It should make us examine how decisions are made, how public projects are managed and why projects that receive public funding sometimes remain unresolved for years.
There is a mentality that has developed around Nigeria’s problems which I find particularly dangerous. We have become accustomed to explaining why something cannot be done instead of concentrating on how it can be done. Once that mentality becomes established, every problem begins to have an excuse attached to it. Before long, failure becomes normal and citizens begin adjusting their expectations to accommodate it. That is why a Nigerian can complain bitterly about electricity today and still accept that having a few hours of power is normal. A community can live for years with a bad road and eventually regard repairing the road as a favour rather than a responsibility of government. People raise money among themselves for medical treatment because the public health system cannot meet their needs, while those responsible for improving the system continue to receive public resources. We cannot continue this way, but the responsibility does not belong to government alone. Government carries the greater responsibility because it controls public resources and institutions, but citizens also have a responsibility to demand better and remain consistent in demanding it. We cannot demand accountability only when the person in office is somebody we dislike and become silent when the same conduct is exhibited by somebody we support.
Our sentiments have done considerable damage to our public life. Ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, friendship and personal interest should not determine whether we condemn or defend wrongdoing. If a person from our own side performs badly, we should be able to say so. If somebody we disagree with does something that benefits the public, we should also be able to acknowledge it. Until we develop that kind of honesty, our complaints will continue to produce very little. Democracy is also bigger than voting during elections. Citizens should be interested in what their representatives are doing, what public money is being spent on, which projects have been promised, which ones have been completed and what happened to those that were abandoned. Professional bodies, civil society organisations, the media and community groups all have roles to play in keeping public officials accountable. But these efforts will not achieve much if citizens disappear whenever the initial anger has passed. We need a culture of sustained civic engagement rather than periodic outrage.
Nigeria has enough people who understand our problems. What has been missing is the willingness to remain united around solutions after the initial anger has fizzled out. People are quick to gather when there is a crisis, but sustaining that pressure after the excitement has passed is where we often fail. Perhaps this is the point at which we need to ask ourselves a more serious question: do we genuinely want Nigeria to change, or do we simply want the people currently in power to be replaced with people who will give us our own opportunity? Nigeria cannot keep moving from one administration to another, each raising new hopes while many old problems remain unresolved. We cannot continue lowering our expectations until the survival of citizens becomes the only measure of success. A country should not have to celebrate what ought to be routine government responsibility as though it were an extraordinary favour. We have complained for long enough. The greater challenge now is whether we can develop the discipline to act together, reject personal and sectional interests when the larger public interest is at stake, especially as the 2027 general election approaches, demand results consistently and hold every administration to account, regardless of who occupies the office. Otherwise, we will continue to have plenty of complaints, plenty of explanations and plenty of new promises, while the country remains in the same position. At some point, Nigerians have to decide that getting the country to work is not somebody else’s responsibility. It is a responsibility that must be shared by those who govern and those who are governed.
