FROM CHAINS TO CHAINS: THE TRAGEDY OF AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE? – PART TWO ~ Favour Adéwọyin

FROM CHAINS TO CHAINS: THE TRAGEDY OF AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE? – PART TWO 

Favour Adéwọyin

October 3, 2025

The question raised in the first part of this article was simple yet piercing: Did Nigeria truly gain independence on October 1, 1960? The answer remains sobering — our independence was more illusion than

reality. Colonialism robbed us of freedom, but neocolonialism has gone further: it has robbed us of hope.

Today, Nigerians are left helpless, hopeless, and disillusioned. Life for the majority has become unbearably difficult, not for lack of resources, but for lack of justice, good governance, and equity. Poverty, want, and deprivation stalk the land, denying millions the most basic necessities of life.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provides a painful mirror to our reality. Food, water, shelter, clothing — these elementary essentials, which ought to be readily available to every citizen, remain a daily struggle. As the Yorùbá wisely say: “B’ébi bá kúrò nínú ìṣẹ́, ìṣẹ́ kù fẹ́fẹ́” — when hunger is removed from poverty, what remains is light.

What Nigerians demand of government is neither excessive nor unattainable. They ask for food on their tables, clean water to drink, affordable shelter over their heads, roads that are motorable, electricity to power their homes, schools to educate their children, hospitals to heal their sick, and a system that upholds justice. Yet, while these remain scarce, billions and trillions of naira are brazenly looted and squandered by a privileged few. Clearly, Nigeria is not poor by nature — it is impoverished by corruption.

And corruption in Nigeria is a many-headed monster. It mutates, rebrands, and resurfaces in countless forms: kickbacks, ten percent deals, embezzlement, misappropriation, laundering, “stealing with biro,” budget padding, ẹ̀gúnjẹ, scams, chop-I-chop, carry-go, awuf money, “dividends of democracy,” brown envelopes, long legs, settlements, runs, yahoo-yahoo, yahoo plus — the list is endless. More contagious than cholera, it infects the polity and corrodes the moral fabric of society.

The tragedy is that many who thunder against corruption are restrained not by virtue, but by lack of opportunity. Late Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, a Nigeria renowned Fuji Musician, captured this hypocrisy well when he sang: “Kálukú ló ní tiẹ̀ l’ára, níbi tó ti wá; òfò èèyàn ò ní ṣ'ẹlòmíì, l' áyé ń bí; gbogbo wa pátá ni mála...; ẹni t’ílẹ̀ bá mọ́ ni bàráu, kí la ń pọ́n lé?” — everyone has their tendencies, but it is only when a thief is caught that he becomes a thief.

We have reached a dangerous point where the abnormal has become normal, and the normal now seems strange. Once upon a time, when communal parenting still flourished in our culture, parents frowned upon unexplained wealth among youths. A proverb used to rebuke extravagance: “Ọmọ yín ò ṣ’àgbàfọ̀ ó ń k’áṣọ wá ‘lé, ẹ r’ójú olè ẹ ò mu” — when your child brings home unexplained riches and you smile instead of questioning, you encourage theft.

But today, many parents not only condone but encourage their children to “make it” by any means — licit or illicit — so long as the family benefits. This moral collapse has fueled a surge in armed robbery, kidnapping, ritual killings, substance abuse, human trafficking, internet fraud, banditry, insurgency, and terrorism. Young people are sacrificing their future — and their souls — just to look big in the eyes of their parents, peers, and society.

The late President Muhammadu Buhari once warned: “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us.” The question now is not whether, but how soon, corruption’s poison will consume us if nothing changes.

In 1968, Ayi Kwei Armah wrote The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, exposing the rot of post-independence Africa: disillusionment, greed, moral decay, and the struggle for integrity in a corrupt society. If the “beautiful ones” were not yet born in 1968 — when life was far better than today — when, then, shall they be born? Who will rise with clean hands and pure motives to lead Nigeria, and Africa at large, out of this darkness into the dawn of true freedom?

*Pst. Favour Adéwọyin,*

Public Affairs Analyst & Community Leader