Everyone needs a Kwam 1

Okay, let's start with the independence celebration of Nigeria.

So Nigeria presently has turned 66 years old.

So let me put it that way.

And I mean, it's a good time for us to reflect on the journey so far for the country.

I mean, it has gone through quite a number of political regimes.

Now we are in the Fourth Republic, and now we are presently in the Tinubu administration.

Um, as Nigeria turns 66, what do you think Nigeria has achieved? I mean, what has been the successes we've had so far? Where do you think that we've fallen short? And what do you think Nigeria as a nation should focus on for the next decade, um, to be able to move the country forward?

Uh, yeah, I think, um, the, the country's greatest achievement since 1966 has been the preservation of the borders.

Um, even though that is, even though that is an abstract con- uh, concept, the preservation of the borders in the sense that the country has not broken up into multiple independent states.

Uh, it's tried to do that seven years after independence.

Uh, it didn't work.

It fought a long, brutal civil war to keep the countries together.

Um, prior to that in 1961, um, a peaceful, a peaceful breakup led to, I think, the northern and southern Cameroons to join Cameroon, um, after a UN-conducted referendum.

And 66 years later, most of the problems that bedeviled it at indepen- at independence still exist.

So for some people, it is largely debatable whether or not Nigeria has made progress.

Um, from my expertise as a security analyst, it is what bothers me most.

Um, looking into the crystal ball into the future, it is very tenuous for one to have the belief that a creterian Nigeria at the moment where the best way to describe it, especially its internal cohesion, is about to stem some source where different disparate non-state actors, uh, control vast territories and are daily, daily taking large chunk of territories away from the Nigerian state, um, you know, into their own control.

It just gives one a sense of foreboding that the experiment that is known as, uh, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it's, it's...

At this, going on this rate in the next couple of decades, its existence would really, really largely be questionable.

I mean, I do agree with you as well that, you know, the preservation of our borders, because, I mean, we face things where we have, like, ethnic tensions.

There have been several calls by several regions for kind of like a referendum, if I may say, to kind of like- Have their own independence.

I mean, those cracks have been there for a while.

But just to, I mean, push on that, what do you think Nigeria needs to do as a nation to move forward, um, in terms of issues like focusing on not only, I mean, not only infrastructure, peace, development, but in the terms of rebuilding our identity as well and kind of building, um, national-- nation building, kind of bringing that back and that, you know, that patriotism back, you know, to kind of like the f- the kind of like the spirit we had, I feel, or our founding fathers had when Nigeria got their independence.

Do you think that what can we do to bring that spirit back, that patriotism to our country, that hope and that sacrifice that Nigerians will be ready to make in order for the progress of the country, as opposed to having ethnic rifts, religious rifts as well, and saying, you know, we want to ensure our country is great?

For Nige- for people to feel patriotic whenever you have this kind of independence celebrations, that if indeed people are celebrating, is that Nigeria has to work not for the minority, but for the majority.