Nigeria at 66: Independence Day Reflection.
1 October 2026
Independence Day Reflection.
Fellow Nigerians, on this 66th Independence Day I will not speak as a politician. I speak as one who sits daily with the broken, the hungry and the grieving.
I have sat with a mother who cannot afford her child’s medication. I have sat with a farmer who cannot reach his farm because bandits own the road. I have sat with a widow whose husband went out to work and never came home. These are not statistics. They are our people, and their pain is the real state of the nation.
Hunger. A citizen who skips meals to survive is not living a free life. A nation that cannot feed its people has not truly kept the promise of independence.
Insecurity.
The Constitution says plainly, in Section 14(2)(b), that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. Not a side project, the primary purpose. Yet families sleep with one eye open, travellers pray at every checkpoint, and villages are emptied by fear.
Section 33 guarantees the right to life. A right that exists only on paper is a cruel joke to the bereaved.
Hardship. Section 34 protects human dignity. There is no dignity in begging for school fees, in watching a small business collapse under rising costs, or in a graduate selling his certificate’s worth for survival. I know the law treats Chapter II rights, such as welfare, as non-justiciable under Section 6(6)(c). But a government can be legally excused from a lawsuit and still be morally accountable to its people. And the African Charter, which Nigeria has domesticated, speaks of dignity, health and a satisfactory life as rights.
Women and girls. When food is scarce, mothers eat last. When roads are unsafe, women and girls are the first to be attacked or kept from school. When the economy shrinks, it is women traders and caregivers who carry the heaviest load.
No nation can grow while half of its people are held back by hunger, fear and neglect. Growth for Nigeria must mean growth for women.
What I ask. I ask leaders to treat these constitutional duties as obligations, not slogans. I ask for justice for victims of violence, and for an end to impunity, because a killing that goes unpunished invites the next one. I ask for transparency in public spending, since every stolen naira is a meal taken from a child. And I ask citizens to keep demanding their rights peacefully, lawfully and without fear. Silence is the friend of oppression.
Nigeria is not beyond saving. But a nation heals only when it admits it is wounded.
Happy Independence Day, to every Nigerian who woke up today still hoping.
Hon. Barr. Rita Orji PhD.
Founder, Growth for Women in Nigeria
fairness note:
Supporters of the government say its reforms are meant to stabilise the economy and that short-term pain is the price of long-term recovery. Critics reply that the pain is arriving faster than the relief. Both views deserve a hearing.