By Chris Curtis Okolie
There is a dangerous silence settling over Nigeria—heavy, exhausting, and increasingly dishonest.
For too long, we have been told that silence is golden. But in today’s Nigeria, silence no longer feels like wisdom; it feels like surrender. It feels less like maturity and more like fear dressed as patience.
Every day, we greet one another with smiles that do not reach our eyes. We exchange pleasantries in markets, offices, buses, churches, mosques, and public spaces as though everything is normal.
But beneath those greetings lies a truth many Nigerians already know:
We are not okay.
And perhaps the most painful part is that we have become comfortable pretending that we are.
Too often, we say, “Let God have His way.” Sometimes it is faith. But sometimes, if we are honest with ourselves, it is exhaustion—mental exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, social exhaustion.
We ask heaven to intervene in problems created by men.
Problems of failed leadership.
Problems of corruption.
Problems of injustice.
Problems of institutions that no longer inspire confidence.
Problems created by people who derive power and comfort from the suffering of those they govern.
This is not a rejection of faith. Faith matters.
But faith was never meant to replace responsibility.
Every day, ordinary Nigerians lose something.
Purchasing power.
Security.
Dignity.
Opportunity.
Hope.
Prices rise faster than incomes. Survival has become a daily project. Families calculate meals. Workers calculate transport. Parents calculate school fees. Young people calculate whether staying in Nigeria still makes sense.
Meanwhile, insecurity continues to stretch beyond headlines.
Communities mourn. Families are displaced. Farmers abandon ancestral lands. Citizens live with uncertainty and fear while criminality continues to adapt and evolve.
Yet somehow, we continue as though this is normal.
We normalize what should never become normal.
We celebrate temporary relief while avoiding permanent solutions.
We speak of reintegration and rehabilitation, yet too often ignore accountability, psychological support for victims, long-term monitoring, and justice systems that inspire trust. We expect people who suffered unimaginable violence to simply move on.
But trauma does not disappear because society grows tired of hearing about it.
Victims deserve to be heard.
Communities deserve healing.
Justice deserves seriousness.
Another painful reality is how quickly we defend those who fail us simply because they speak our language, share our ethnicity, belong to our religion, or come from our region.
When did citizenship become secondary to identity?
When did competence become less important than affiliation?
We complain about governance but excuse failure depending on who delivers it.
That culture is costing us.
Our power sector struggles, yet households and businesses continue to depend heavily on alternatives to generate electricity.
Our economy strains under pressure, yet too many people have accepted hardship as destiny rather than demanding reform.
Our elections continue to generate distrust, yet citizens often withdraw instead of becoming more engaged.
And so, frustration grows.
But frustration alone changes nothing.
We must begin asking difficult questions—not violently, not destructively, but intelligently, consistently, and collectively.
Questions to elected officials.
Questions to institutions.
Questions to traditional and customary leaders.
Questions to ourselves.
What promises were made?
What has been achieved?
What timelines exist?
Who is accountable?
Who benefits?
Nigeria is not helpless.
Nigeria is a nation of over 230 million people.
No country of that size and potential should feel permanently trapped.
But no nation changes when citizens surrender their voices and leave public responsibility to a small group while the majority remain spectators.
We need civic participation.
We need stronger local accountability.
We need citizens who understand policy beyond campaign slogans.
We need leaders who see public office as service, not entitlement.
We need communities that stop rewarding division and start rewarding results.
And above all, we need honesty.
Because healing never begins with pretending.
Walk through our streets and you will see something difficult to describe.
A quiet frustration.
A tired resilience.
People still laughing, still showing up, still trying—but carrying questions they no longer know how to ask.
You see it in the trader adjusting prices again.
In the graduate refreshing job portals.
In the mother stretching one meal into two.
In the father calculating expenses he can no longer meet.
In the youth who wants to stay and build, but increasingly wonders if staying means sacrificing the future.
Nigeria is not well.
But acknowledging that is not a weakness.
Pretending has never healed a nation.
Truth has.
And perhaps that is where hope still lives—not in pretending things are fine, but in finally admitting they are not.
Because once a people recognise their condition, they can begin to change it.
So maybe the question is no longer:
Can Nigeria become better again?
Maybe the harder question is:
When Nigerians finally stop pretending, what kind of country will we decide to build—and will we still recognise ourselves when that day comes?
The author, Chris Curtis Okolo, lives in Asaba, and can be reached on
Email: chrisokolowrites@gmail.com
