Nigeria @66: What Happened To The Nigeria We Inherited

By Dr. Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu

Nigeria is 66.

Sixty-six years after independence, I find myself asking a question that is both painful and unavoidable:

What happened to the Nigeria we inherited?

I remember October 1, 1960. I was a child in primary school, but I remember the euphoria. I remember the excitement of a young nation stepping into freedom, full of promise and possibility. We believed Nigeria would become a great country. We believed that our children would inherit a nation better than the one our parents handed to us.

Today, at 66, that optimism is difficult to reconcile with the reality before us.

The state of the nation is heart-wrenching.

Development has remained painfully uneven. Poverty persists alongside enormous human and natural resources. Insecurity has become an everyday concern. Infrastructure deficits remain glaring. Young people struggle for opportunities that should ordinarily be available in a country of Nigeria’s enormous potential. Institutions that should provide stability, accountability and direction often appear unable to meet the demands placed upon them.

And leadership matters.

A country cannot continuously drift without asking hard questions about those entrusted with its leadership. When governance loses direction, when public institutions weaken, when competence is undervalued and when accountability becomes negotiable, the consequences are paid for by ordinary citizens.

How did we get here?

I ask this question not as a detached observer, but as a Nigerian who has lived through different chapters of this country’s history.

I graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1977. I was a beneficiary of a Nigeria that believed in investing in its young people.

I was a University of Nigeria scholar. My education was supported. I later benefited from government-sponsored in-service training at the University of the Philippines, Iloilo, where I obtained my Master’s degree in Fisheries and Aquaculture.

There was a philosophy behind those investments: train Nigerians, build capacity, strengthen the public service and deploy knowledge for national development.

The objective was not merely to produce certificates. It was to create a pool of competent professionals who would contribute to the transformation of the economy, strengthen institutions, reduce poverty and expand opportunities.

That Nigeria existed.

It may not have been perfect. Far from it. We had the devastating experience of the civil war. We had political instability, military interventions and many other setbacks. Yet, despite these difficulties, there was an unmistakable belief that the Nigerian project was worth investing in.

My generation benefited from that belief.

And therein lies my discomfort.

What have we done with the Nigeria that invested in us?

Many members of my generation went on to occupy positions of responsibility in government, business, academia and public life. Some served with distinction. Others did not.

But collectively, we must confront an uncomfortable truth:

A generation cannot keep blaming the past forever. At some point, it must accept responsibility for the country it is leaving behind.

We cannot complain endlessly about the Nigeria we have today while pretending that we had no role in creating it.

We must ask ourselves whether we have adequately protected the institutions we inherited.

Whether we invested sufficiently in the next generation.

Whether we demanded accountability from those who governed us.

Whether we rewarded competence or merely tolerated connections.

Whether we built systems or simply built careers.

Whether we left our children a stronger country—or merely stories about the country Nigeria could have been.

For me, this reflection is deeply personal.

As the clock of my own lifetime continues to tick, I am increasingly conscious that time is not infinite.

I have lived long enough to remember a Nigeria that gave a young girl an opportunity.

I have lived long enough to see that opportunity become increasingly difficult for today’s young Nigerians to access.

I have lived long enough to witness enormous talent wasted, communities neglected and generations of young people forced to navigate obstacles that should not exist.

And I have reached a point where simply lamenting the situation is no longer enough.

We must fix it.

Not with slogans.

Not with empty promises.

Not by waiting for another generation to come and rescue us.

We must begin the difficult work of rebuilding institutions, investing in people, restoring confidence in public service, creating opportunities and insisting that public office must once again be about service.

Politics must not be treated as a retirement benefit, a personal entitlement or an avenue for self-enrichment.

Public office is a trust.

Leadership is a responsibility.

And governance must ultimately be measured by its impact on the lives of ordinary people.

That is one reason I have chosen, at this stage of my life, to offer myself for public service.

I am not entering the arena because I believe I can single-handedly repair Nigeria.

No individual can.

I am entering because I believe that doing nothing is no longer an acceptable option.

I want to be counted among those who made an effort to repair what has been damaged.

I want to contribute what I have learnt from a lifetime of education, public service, advocacy, community development and experience.

I want to do my part for the children who deserve a country in which their dreams are not determined by the circumstances of their birth.

For our grandchildren.

For the generations yet unborn.

At 66, Nigeria does not need another birthday speech filled with empty patriotism.

Nigeria needs honest reflection.

It needs us to look in the mirror.

It needs us to ask the difficult question:

If the Nigeria we inherited was good enough to invest in us, why have we failed to build a Nigeria good enough to invest in our children?

That is the question my generation must answer.

And we cannot answer it by pointing fingers at everyone except ourselves.

Nigeria is 66.

There is still time to change the story—but only if we have the courage to confront the truth about how we got here and the determination to do something about it.

For me, that is what this birthday means.

Not celebration without reflection.

Not nostalgia without responsibility.

But reflection, responsibility and action.

Happy Independence, Nigeria.

May the Nigeria we leave behind finally become worthy of the sacrifices of those who built the Nigeria we inherited.

Dr. Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu (Ada Owere 1)
Labour Party Candidate for House of Representatives, Owerri Federal Constituency