Nigerian coat of armBy Chris Curtis Okolo
Email: chrisokolowrites@gmail.com
There is a dangerous silence settling over Nigeria—heavy, suffocating, and deeply dishonest.
We have been told for too long that silence is golden. But in today’s Nigeria, silence no longer glitters; it corrodes. It eats into the fabric of our collective conscience and leaves behind something far worse than fear—cowardice disguised as civility.
We greet each other with forced smiles. We exchange pleasantries in markets, on buses, in offices, in churches and mosques, as though everything is intact. As though the ground beneath us is not cracking. As though the air itself is not thick with anxiety. But beneath those greetings lies a shared, unspoken truth: we are not okay.
And yet, we pretend.
We cloak our helplessness in religion, repeating “let God have His way” not always out of faith, but sometimes out of fatigue—mental, psychological, and social exhaustion. We ask the divine to intervene in problems that are painfully man-made: corruption, failed leadership, institutional decay, and the weaponization of poverty.
This is not spirituality. It is surrender.
Every day, the ordinary Nigerian loses something—purchasing power, safety, dignity, hope. Inflation continues to bite deeper into already empty pockets. A bag of rice becomes a luxury. Transportation becomes a daily gamble. Survival itself has become a full-time occupation.
Meanwhile, citizens continue to die—at the hands of bandits, terrorists, and criminal networks that operate with a boldness that suggests not just organization, but protection. Entire communities are displaced. Ancestral lands are seized. Fear has become a language we all understand.
Yet somehow, we carry on as if this is normal.
We normalize the abnormal.
We call terrorists “repentant” and reintegrate them into society without adequate psychological evaluation, without structured rehabilitation, without accountability. We expect victims—those who have lost loved ones, homes, identities—to simply move on. And when they cry out, we silence them. We label their pain as propaganda. We dismiss their trauma as exaggeration.
What kind of nation demands silence from its wounded?
What kind of people defend their oppressors because they share the same tribe, religion, or language?
This is the tragedy of our time: we have reduced citizenship to sentiment, and governance to loyalty tests. We no longer ask, “Are they competent?” We ask, “Are they one of us?”
And so, the cycle continues.
We complain about a powerless power sector while running an economy dependent on imported generators and imported fuel. We lament the cost of living but hesitate to demand structural accountability. We question elections, yet wait passively for courts to decide our fate—outsourcing our sovereignty to institutions that many no longer trust.
Are we truly helpless? Or have we simply convinced ourselves that we are?
Nigeria is not a small country. We are over 230 million people. Yet, the destiny of this vast population rests in the hands of a tiny fraction—less than one percent—while the rest of us watch, argue, defend, and endure.
Why?
Why do we pretend we do not see the cracks?
Why do we act surprised at outcomes we have consistently tolerated?
Why do we defend systems that do not defend us?
Walk through the streets—Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Asaba. Look into the eyes of the people. There is a quiet bitterness there. A tired resilience. A hope that refuses to die, but also a frustration that refuses to be ignored.
You see it in the trader who recalculates prices every morning.
In the graduate who sends out applications into silence.
In the mother who skips meals so her children can eat.
In the youth who dreams of leaving, not because he hates his country, but because staying feels like slow suffocation.
Nigeria is not well.
Our economy is strained. Our security is fragile. Our institutions are weakened. And perhaps most dangerously, our collective spirit is under siege.
But even in this darkness, something remains.
We are not powerless—only paused. Not broken—only bent. Not voiceless—only restrained by fear, habit, and division.
The question is not whether Nigeria can be better. It is whether Nigerians are ready to stop pretending long enough to demand that it must be.
Because change does not begin with leaders. It begins with people who are no longer willing to accept what diminishes them.
It begins with questions.
With accountability.
With courage.
It begins the moment we stop whispering our frustrations and start speaking them—clearly, collectively, and without apology.
Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the road ahead is uncertain. But history has never been shaped by those who chose comfort over confrontation.
So, we must ask ourselves:
Can there ever be better days again for Nigeria?
Or will we continue to pretend… until pretending becomes all that is left of us?
