What Nigerians Truly Want With Nigeria.

George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by SaharaWeeklyNG.com

“Not charity. Not chaos. Real jobs, honest leaders and a country that works for its people.”

For over six decades, Nigerians have endured cycles of hope and heartbreak, promises and betrayal, progress and regression. Yet amid the noise of politics and propaganda, one fundamental question still echoes from the streets of Lagos to the creeks of the Niger Delta, from the classrooms of Ibadan to the dusty markets of Sokoto: What do Nigerians truly want with Nigeria?

The answer is neither mystical nor complex. Nigerians are not asking for miracles or charity. They are asking for a country that works, a nation that rewards effort, protects life, upholds justice and gives its citizens dignity. They want a nation where leadership serves the people, not itself. They want, in essence, the Nigeria that was promised but never delivered.

1. Nigerians Want Jobs and Economic Dignity.
Unemployment is not just a statistic; it is a national tragedy. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment and underemployment rates remain disturbingly high, especially among young people. Over 40% of Nigeria’s youth are either unemployed or underemployed, despite being the most educated generation in history.
Every year, Nigerian universities produce over 500,000 graduates, yet less than a fraction find gainful employment. Many resort to driving ride-hailing services, selling data bundles or migrating to countries that value their talent. As Professor Pat Utomi aptly puts it, “a country that cannot convert its youthful population into productive citizens is sitting on a social time bomb.”

What Nigerians want is clear, a government that prioritizes job creation through industrialization, digital economy development and investment in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). They want a Nigeria that empowers its people to create wealth, not one that frustrates them into exile.

2. Nigerians Want the End of Poverty.
The World Bank estimates that over 100 million Nigerians now live below the poverty line. Poverty in Nigeria is not theoretical, it is a woman walking ten kilometers to fetch dirty water; it is a child going to bed hungry; it is a farmer watching crops rot because of bad roads.

While politicians boast about GDP figures, ordinary Nigerians measure the economy by what’s on their plates. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once said, “You cannot eat democracy.” Nigerians want leadership that translates political freedom into economic reality.

A government that allows its people to live in such destitution, while billions vanish through corruption, has lost its moral compass. Nigerians want a social contract that delivers prosperity to all, not privileges to a few.

3. Nigerians Want Power; Real Electricity, Not Excuses.
Electricity is the bloodstream of development, yet Nigeria still generates less than 5,000 megawatts for a population exceeding 220 million. South Africa, with one-third of Nigeria’s population, generates over 45,000 megawatts, even amid its power crises.
The result is predictable: industries shut down, small businesses crumble and unemployment deepens. Citizens spend more on generators than on food, while leaders boast about “POWER REFORMS” that never light up homes.

Nigerians want light not just in their bulbs, but in their future. They want investments in renewable energy, transparency in the power sector and a government that ends the decades-long conspiracy of darkness that benefits generator importers and corrupt contractors.

4. Nigerians Want Security and the Rule of Law.
A nation where citizens sleep with one eye open is a nation at war with itself. From Boko Haram in the northeast to bandits in Zamfara, kidnappers in the south and cultists in the cities, insecurity has turned Nigeria into a human battlefield.

According to Global Terrorism Index reports, Nigeria remains among the top 10 countries most affected by terrorism, despite trillions spent on defense. The average Nigerian no longer trusts the police or the army to protect them.

Nigerians want a government that values life, that reforms security agencies, pays soldiers living wages, equips them adequately and holds them accountable. They want justice that works not a judiciary that auctions verdicts to the highest bidder.

As Nelson Mandela once said, “Safety and security do not just happen; they are the result of collective consensus and public investment.” Nigerians crave that consensus; a nation where safety is not a privilege but a right.

5. Nigerians Want Leadership That Cares.
In his timeless book The Trouble with Nigeria, Chinua Achebe declared: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” Four decades later, nothing has changed. Leadership remains Nigeria’s most chronic disease.
The Nigerian elite class has perfected the art of deception; promising heaven during campaigns and delivering hell in governance. From inflated contracts to stolen budgets, corruption has become an institution. According to Transparency International, Nigeria consistently ranks among the world’s most corrupt nations, with billions looted yearly.
Nigerians want leaders with conscience, men and women who see public office not as a jackpot but as a sacred trust. They want accountability, transparency and empathy. They want a president who stays in Nigeria to solve Nigeria’s problems, not one who spends half his tenure abroad seeking legitimacy.

6. Nigerians Want Quality Healthcare and Education.

It is shameful that the same politicians who cannot fund public hospitals fly abroad for headaches. Nigeria has lost thousands of doctors to the UK, Canada and the U.S., leaving a doctor-patient ratio of 1:10,000 far below the WHO’s recommended 1:600.
The education sector fares no better. Teachers are underpaid, universities are chronically on strike and libraries are outdated. The UNESCO benchmark for education funding is 15–20% of national budgets, yet Nigeria barely allocates 6–8%.

Nigerians want their leaders to prioritize brains over bricks. They want health insurance that works, hospitals that heal and schools that prepare children for the digital age. They want a government that values human capital, because nations rise not by oil, but by intellect.

7. Nigerians Want a Fair Economy and a Stable Currency.
The naira’s collapse has reduced once-proud citizens to beggars in their own land. Inflation hovers around 30%, food prices have tripled since 2023 and fuel deregulation has made transportation unbearable.
Nigerians are not asking for miracles; they are asking for sense. They want fiscal policies that protect the poor not the privileged. They want a Central Bank that defends the naira not one that defends politicians.

As Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, once noted, “Economic growth without inclusiveness is a ticking time bomb.” Nigerians want inclusiveness, an economy that works for the market woman as much as it does for the billionaire.

8. Nigerians Want Justice, Not Excuses.
Every Nigerian has a story of injustice, a policeman’s slap, a bribe in court, a rigged election or a stolen contract. The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of connection. Until justice is blind to tribe, religion or wealth, Nigeria will never know peace.

Nigerians want a judiciary that is fearless and independent. They want an end to selective justice. They want equality before the law, not impunity before the people.

9. Nigerians Want Their Country Back.
Ultimately, Nigerians want ownership; a chance to reclaim the dream that their fathers fought for. They are tired of being spectators while their leaders loot the field. They are tired of tribal politics, fake reforms and recycled excuses.

As Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi II once said, “We must not let others write our history.” Nigerians want to write theirs; one of courage, innovation and rebirth. They want a government that listens, a media that speaks truth and a citizenry that refuses to give up.

The Way Forward; The Nigeria We Deserve.
Nigerians are not demanding the impossible. They are demanding the fundamental. They want light, security, fairness, opportunity and justice. They want leaders who serve not steal; who lead by example not by arrogance.
To rebuild Nigeria, leadership must rise above ethnicity, greed and propaganda. The country must return to meritocracy, discipline and vision. It must rebuild trust between citizens and the state.

As Achebe warned, “Until we have honest and patriotic leaders, Nigeria will never rise.” The time has come to prove him wrong or forever live under his prophecy.

CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE AND THE DANGERS OF MISCHARACTERISATION

There is no-one in Nigeria that has spoken up for the rights of Christians, spoken out against Christian marginalisation and persecution and warned about the reality and dangers of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamist terror more than yours truly over the last 30 years.

Whether it be the sharia debates, the debate on the secularity of the Nigerian state, the debate on the plight of Christians in Northern Nigeria or the debate on ethnic and religious hegemony and domination, I have been deeply involved and invested in these matters right from the beginning.

In each of these prolonged and often acrimonious and volatile debates I have played a leading role and held my corner.

For those that doubt this the records are clear and I suggest that they go back and read all I have written and said about these vexing issues over the last three decades.

I have also made it perfectly clear over the years that it would be an honour for me to sacrifice all, including my life, in defence of my faith and that will never change. That was my position then and that is my position today.

My knowledge about the experiences of Christians in Nigeria is extensive and my insight and understanding of the history of our country is next to none.

This places me in a unique position and gives me the ability to speak with authority about the ongoing debate on whether or not what we are witnessing in Nigeria today is indeed “Christian genocide”.

In the last three weeks I have written two widely published essays on this matter.

The first is titled ‘The Fiction Of Christian Genocide and the Conspiracy Against Nigeria’ and the second is titled ‘A Warning To Senator Ted Cruz’.

For those that have not read them already I recommend them both in order to get a clearer and deeper perspective on the matter.

This contribution is my third to this increasingly contentious and volatile debate and I sincerely hope that it brings more insight and understanding to the issues under consideration.

Permit me to get to the meat of the matter.

There is no doubt that Christians are being targetted and slaughtered in massive numbers in Nigeria.

No-one can deny that. It is a reality that we as Christians have lived with for many years.

What needs to be understood however is that in the last 15 years as many Muslims have been targetted and slaughtered by the same group of heartless terrorists as well.

To mischaracterise what is going on in our nation as “Christian genocide” is a knee jerk and emotional reaction to a very complex and profound problem.

It is an eloquent testimony to the sordid and divisive disinformation, misinformation and falsehood that those that insist on describing it in such terms have resorted to.

It is a gross, perfidious and unforgivable mischaracterisation of the facts on the ground, a Goebellian misrepresentation of reality and a perverse inversion of the truth.

It is also a specious, simplistic, shallow and flawed perspective which is deeply rooted in ignorance, mischief, malevolence, malice, deceit and intellectual dishonesty, which does not in any way define the very real problems or provide a lasting solution to the monuemental challenges that Nigerian Christians are facing and which is designed to divide us and pave the way for a well-orchestrated and carefully scripted attempt to destabilise our nation, thrust us into a volatile season and cycle of mutual suspicion, sectarian violence and calmuny and set us up for an unconstitutional regime change before or by 2027.

To insist on perpetuating and propagating this mischaracterisation and falsehood is an extreemly dangerous path to tread which, if care is not taken, will ultimately make matters far worse.

For example the frantic public call by Mr. Eric Prince (the notorious founder of the discredited American private security company of murderous and savage western mercenaries that wreaked havoc in Iraq after the American invasion known as Blackwater) to the Vatican, the Pope, prominent Christian leaders from all over the world and President Donald Trump to “fund and support” a private Christian army which he will gladly put together and lead to come to Nigeria to “protect the Christian community and kill Muslims” is not only irresponsible and unhelpful but is also fraught with many dangers.

Again the call by U.S. Congressman Chris Smith to Trump to “arm Christians in Nigeria with American weapons” and to use the American Airforce to “bomb Muslim communities in our country” will lead to a further escalation of violence and open armed conflict between hitherto law- abiding Christians and Muslims who are not only fully integrated but who have also lived peacefully together in harmony over the years. Sending arms to aide one community and U.S. war planes to bomb the other cannot possibly augur well for us.

To send arms to the Nigerian Government to assist in our fight against the terrorists is one thing and would of course be a welcome and laudable initiative and development but to send arms and private mercenary armies from the West to fight for Christians in our country and kill our Muslim brothers or for Christian communites to receive arms directly from the Americans whilst the Muslims are bombed out of existence by western jets is madness and an open invitation to chaos and fratricidal butchery in Nigeria.

It would indeed mark the end of our country as we know it and the beginning of a civil war which will last for the next 50 years and which will have cataclysmic consequences for the Nigerian people, the west African sub region, the African continent and indeed much of the world.

Such insane and provocative rhetoric from the likes of Prince and Smith must cease forthwith. They do not love our country more than we do and we must not allow them to light a fire or ignite a bomb that will consume us all.

Outside of this the mischaracteristion of our situation has an additional three obvious and immediate consequences.

Firstly it negates the idea that Muslims are being targetted by the same terrorists that are killing Christians.

Secondly it belittles and underplays the massive loss of Muslims lives and suggests that those lives count for nothing.

Finally it runs the risk of further dividing our people on religious lines by casting all Muslims as the perpetrators and only Christians as the victims.

This cannot augur well for the unity of our country and for our collective fight against terror.

The American and western leaders that are propagating and spouting it, with the help of the CIA and their local assets, obviously have an insidious hidden agenda and a sinister ulterior motive for doing so.

You do not have to be a bright bulb or a Professor of world history to appreciate that.

All you need to do is to have a little common sense, a good memory, an understanding of the times we are living in and observe what the Americans and their western allies have been doing in the Middle East, North Africa and indeed much of the world ever since 9/11.

The sad reality of Nigeria is not “Christian genocide” but the genocide of BOTH Christians and Muslims by the hands of a handful of savage and barbaric terrorist militias that falsely claim to be Muslims but that do not in actual fact represent any faith.

They represent only satan, their insatiable bloodlust and their sadistic, depraved, delusional, psychotic and psycopathic disposition.

Some of them, like Boko Haram, ISWAP, Al Qaeda and Ansaru operate mainly in the North, murdering and displacing both Christians and Muslims with impunity and no remorse whilst others, like ESN, who claim to be championing the cause of Christians and Jews, operate mainly in the South East again murdering and displacing both Christians and Muslims.

They, like the Haramites and their genocidal partners in crime, do not represent any faith other than that of the devil who has sent them.

Our duty as Christians is to foster national, religious and ethnic unity by closing ranks with our Muslim brothers and fighting our common enemy which these terrorist groups represent.

Anything less than that will only divide us further and take us down the brutal and bloody road to Kigali and, God forbid, a Rwandan-style and horrific showdown and a genocidal storm of cataclysmic carnage.

Our security agencies have worked extreemly hard over the last two years in containing the scourge of terror that has afflicted us.

This is proved by the fact that a record number of terrorists have been killed and many of their most dangerous and wanted commanders and leaders have been captured and detained.

We must commend and encourage them in their endeavours. However much more needs to be done.

We are a nation at war and the Federal Government must do far more by breaking the ranks of the terrorists with an iron fist, ripping out their hearts, killing them in even larger numbers than they are already doing and by effectively, courageously and vigorously countering the American and Zionist-sponsored “Christian genocide in Nigeria” propaganda and disinformation campaign that is spreading like wild-fire throughout the world.

This can best be done not just by continuously issuing press statements and conducting television interviews in our local media but by engaging the services of seasoned and experienced American lobbyists in Washington DC itself and more importantly by giving our very able Foreign Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, the full support that he needs and allow him to take up and lead the initiative fully without hinderance.

He is an exceptionally brilliant and incisive diplomat who is highly experienced, who knows the history of world politics inside out, who was educated in the west from an early age and therefore cannot be intimidated by them, who is a skilled negotiator, who is a diehard patriot that will never betray our national interest and cause and who has nerves of steel.

I know this because I have known him for well over 40 years!

Outside of that our Government must refuse to allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the words of middle-ranking American Governnent officials who are not members of the MAGA inner circle and who do not truly represent the very hardline and extreeme views of the right-wing Christian fundamentalist and anti-Muslim forces that Trump holds dear.

If they really want to know what Trump is thinking but has so far refused to voice about Nigeria it would be wise for our Government to consider the words of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, Congressman Riley Moore and Congressman Chris Smith far more than the soothing and encouraging words and expressions of support from “friendly faces” in the Trump administration who have deep ties with and a soft spot for Nigeria but who are not at the heart of the MAGA power configuration like Trump’s Lebanese brother in-law and Special Advisor on African Affairs, Massad Boulos.

American doublespeak and subterfuge is an art and we must never take them for their word or drink from their poisoned chalice.

As the Bible says “their speech is as smooth as butter but war is in their heart”.

A word is enough for the wise.

In an additional step to protect ourselves and secure our future we must also build stronger ties with China and Russia and enter into a defence pact with either one or both.

We should also become a full-fledged member of BRICS and join the rest of the Global South in attempting to regain our self-respect and dignity.

This would be a step in the right direction which will enable us to have a fighting chance to resist the very real threat that America and her Western allies have presented to us.

The die is cast and, as Shakespeare observed in his play titled Julius Caesar, ‘Caesar has crossed to Rubicorn’.

We need the manifestation of strength and courage as we face these complex and formidable challenges to our essence and being and not weakness and cowardice.

Rather than always going on our knees, constantly grovelling, playing the fool and attempting to secure their validation regardless of the gratuitous insults and indignities that they have regularly subjected us to it is time for us to recognise the fact that they have never wished us well and that they have NO intention of allowing us to fulfill our full potentials or achieve our manifest and God-given destiny.

This is the bitter truth that few care to admit.

Permit me to end this contribution with the following questions.

How would the Christians of Nigeria react if the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, the UAE and the OIC described what is going on in Nigeria as “Muslim genocide” and not only downplay but ignore with contempt the fact that Christians are being killed in equal, if not more, numbers?

Would such a mischaracterisation not be regarded as being rooted in ignorance and mischief and would it not be rightly deemed as being inaccurate and unacceptable?

If the answer is ‘yes’ then it would be equally inappropriate to refer to the terrible and collective plight that we, as Christians and Muslims, are jointly facing as “Christian genocide”.

What is good for the goose is surely good for the gander.

We are all victims of the terrorists, both Christian and Muslim, and we must all join our hands and collectively resist them.

That is the way forward.

Anything less will lead to catastrophy for us all and will represent a massive victory for the terrorists and the foreign hegemons that sent them and that seek to divide and destroy us.

On a final note I challenge my readers to consider the following.

When we collectively opposed the genocide in and total destruction and decimation of Gaza over the last two years no-one in the world referred to what was going on there as “Muslim genocide”.

This is because thousands of innocent and defenceless Palestinian Christians were also subjected to genocide, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, displacement and crimes against humanity and had their Churches, homes, farms and hospitals bombed into rubble and burnt to the ground by the Zionist terrorists of the Israeli Defence Force.

In the same vein when we oppose the barbarism and genocide that we are witnessing in Nigeria we must not refer to it as “Christian genocide” because hundreds of thousands of innocent and defenceless Muslims are also being subjected to mass murder, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and displacement and have had their homes, farms, Mosques and hospitals bombed into rubble and burnt to the ground by the terrorists of Boko Haram, ISWAP, Al Qaeda and Ansaru.

We cannot make reference to or condemn the genocide that is being unleashed on our Christian population without making reference to and condemning that which is also being unleashed on our Muslims.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander and we must not inflamme people’s passions with reckless and nonsensical rhetoric that seeks to place one set of victims on a higher pedestal and the other on a lower one.

The monuemental challenges that we face when it comes to this matter are grave: we must not make matters worse and allow ourselves to be plunged into an avoidable and unnecessary full scale religious war as a consequence of the reckless and unrestrained expression of uncontrollable and pent up passions, loose talk and an indulgence in extravagant and costly semantics.

The bottom line is as follows.

Do we have a terrorist problem in Nigeria? “Yes!”

Are Christians being killed by the terrorists? “Yes!”

Are Muslims being killed by the terrorists as well? “Yes!”

If that is the case let us call it what it is: the genocide of BOTH Christians and Muslims by a group of heartless beasts from hell who seek to wipe us all out and impose their barbaric ways and values on those of us that they conquer, enslave and leave alive.

The solution to the problem is for us to come together and eliminate every single one of them and to expose and target their foreign and local sponsors and supporters.

The solution is NOT to sit in the comfort of our homes, fuelling further division and joining a bunch of excitable, bellicose, intellectually challenged and low-intelligence qouta reprobates in screaming the worne-out and increasingly irritating battle-cry and mantra of “Christian genocide” at the top of their voices whilst fantasising about some far-fetched, infantile and puerile “crusade” in Nigeria to be led by a group of illusionary Christian Knights and Knight Templars galloping in on white horses from Trump’s America who, whilst singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”, will storm our shores and attempt to deliver our Christian community from evil.

Such vainglorious and delusional fantasies and masturbatory dreams are indeed profound symptoms and glaring evidence of some form of mental illness on the part of those who share them and provide a veritable source of comic relief for the rest of us.

May God heal their broken minds and grant them good health.

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba Joga Orile, the Ajagunle Otun Ekiti, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Miinister of Aviation, a former Senior Special Assistant and spokesman to President Olusegun Obasanjo and a lawyer

Carabana@10: Ogede Elevates the Standard as the Emerging King of Hospitality Business in Nigeria

The 10th anniversary celebration of Carabana, a leading hospitality brand in Nigeria, has officially kicked off with a week-long extravaganza. The festivities, which started on Tuesday, October 21st, have been marked by a series of exciting events that have left fans and patrons in awe.

The first day of the celebration saw Ogede, the founder of Carabana, visiting the Isolo General Hospital, where he helped offset the hospital bills of dozens of patients who couldn’t afford to pay. He also donated gift items to the hospital management and patients. This act of kindness has been met with appreciation from the hospital’s management and patients.

Ogede and his team also paid a courtesy visit to the Oba of Isolo at his palace on that same Tuesday, where the king praised him for being a great ambassador of the area and for his contributions to the development of Isolo. The Oba also commended Ogede for his entrepreneurial spirit and wished him continued success. The king recalled how Carabana Lounge started small.

On Wednesday, October 22nd, Carabana hosted a novelty football match between its staff and loyal customers. The match, which was played at the Isolo Estate Open Field, ended in a stalemate after regulation time, with Carabana’s team emerging victorious in the penalty shootout.

The same night, Carabana hosted an all-white party at its lounge, which was another huge success. The party was attended by friends, family, and patrons of the brand, who came out to celebrate Carabana’s 10-year milestone.

On Thursday, October 23rd, Carabana hosted an award and dinner night to recognize the contributions of its staff and loyal customers. The event, which was attended by the Isolo LCDA Chairman, was a grand affair that showcased the brand’s commitment to excellence.

The fourth day of the celebration saw Carabana hosting a heritage night, where Nigeria’s cultural heritage was on display. Yoruba and Igbo cultural dancers and masquerades entertained the guests, showcasing the country’s rich cultural diversity.

On Saturday, October 25th, Carabana will host a live performance by Ayaka of Uzubulu and Pyno, which was another huge success. The event was attended by fans and patrons of the brand, who came out to enjoy the music and celebrate Carabana’s 10-year milestone.

The grand finale of the celebration will take place on Sunday, October 26th, with a thanksgiving service in church and other activities.

The 10th anniversary celebration of Carabana has been a huge success, with each day’s event surpassing the previous one in terms of excitement and entertainment. Ogede’s vision for Carabana has been to create a brand that not only provides excellent hospitality services but also gives back to the community.

As Carabana looks to the future, it is clear that the brand will continue to thrive and remain a leader in the hospitality industry. With its commitment to excellence and community development, Carabana is poised for even greater success in the years to come.