Independence? From What Exactly?

Every year on the 1st of October, we celebrate Nigerian independence.

But today I ask – from what exactly? Is it that independence from the white man that we are still celebrating? That’s not worth celebrating anymore. It’s becoming too boring to keep celebrating that.

It’s not even an achievement.

How many times do people celebrate graduation from the university? You celebrate it once and look on to other things because you know that graduation from a school of higher learning is just the beginning.

As a nation, we should start seeing this Independence Day of 1960 as just a beginning, the foundation. It is not an achievement. When we sought independence from the white man what we meant was:

“You guys should get off our land because we’ve got this!”

But year after year, we prove to the white men we kicked out that we do not have a clue about running our own country. So why did we kick them out in the first place?

We need to start celebrating our achievements since we gained our independence from the colonial masters. If there are no achievements to celebrate then we need to strive to achieve something worth celebrating!

I want to see the celebration of freedom from hunger. A situation where no one goes hungry in Nigeria. A situation where there is abundance of food. We are blessed with natural resources to grow more than enough food that we need. Yet … we can’t do that. But food becomes more and more expensive in Nigeria by the day. We even import food! Wow, what an achievement!

Lots of countries that do not have these natural resources simulate them from nothing and outdo us in the area of food production. But instead of simply “copying and pasting” what they do, we live in a country where a 50kg bag of rice costs N25,000 (Twenty Five Thousand Naira). And this is a country that has a minimum wage of N18,000. Somebody please tell me why we should be having any celebrations in this country because I do not get it.

Abeg, enjoy the Nigerian colours inspired Tuwo Shinkafa and Salad with Beef Skewers. This is a throwback from last year because I cannot come and be preparing something new for an unworthy celebration. We are in recession, remember? 😉

So are you celebrating today? What exactly?

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