Nigeria at 66: How Long Can Structural Failures Be Excused as Growing Pains?

The useful part

Password recovery Recover your password your email Search NewsWeek PRO NewsWeek PRO September 30, 2026. Our Stand Entertainment Gossip Literary Corner Books Reviews Story Interviews Shows Poem Author Profiles Advertise With Us Advert Rates September 30, 2026. 4:01 PM NewsWeek PRO Home News Politics Business Health Community Celebs Africa Technology Environment Crime World News Sports TNC TV Columns Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Opinions Editorial:

How it works

• Another Independence Day will arrive with the familiar flags, speeches, and reminders of how far the country has come and how much further it still has to go.
• There will be the usual invocation of Nigeria's enormous potential, the sacrifices of those who fought for independence, and the reassurance that the country remains a work in progress.
• Nobody expects a person of that age to be excused for every mistake on the grounds that they are still learning how life works.
• Yet it raises a question Nigeria has become increasingly reluctant to confront.After 66 years, how long can a country continue to describe its structural failures as the difficulties of a nation still...
• The country did not choose to have oil beneath its soil, but it chose how to manage the extraordinary revenues petroleum generated.

What to take from it

The comparison cannot be applied mechanically to a country, because nations are not people and history is rarely neat. Why should a citizen wait for Abuja to solve a problem that exists in a state or local government whose officials also control substantial public resources? A problem that might have been manageable ten years ago rarely remains the same problem after a decade of neglect.

Example or evidence

• A digitally native, globally minded youth population is being asked to navigate an institutional architecture still operating on mid-20th-century administrative instincts.
• It inherits institutions and either insists on their integrity or builds private workarounds.
• Shaakaa Stephanie Sewuese — 4:43 PM September 27, 2026 Stephanie Sewuese Shaakaa Nigeria turns 66 on October 1.
• But 66 is an age that should make us pause over the language we use to describe ourselves.

Details worth keeping

4:01 PM Search Search NewsWeek PRO My account Get into your account. A person may reach 66 with unfinished business and still have much to learn, but six and a half decades of experience carry an expectation of responsibility. Nigeria inherited a difficult country in 1960, but it did not inherit an empty one.

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• Dailypost: Lagos State governor, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu has urged Nigerians to set aside ethnic, religious and other differences and work collectively towards building a peaceful, stronger and more prosperous country.
• Pmnewsnigeria: The coups began in 1966.