By Prince Jerry Amaukwu
Nigeria is not leaving enough for the generation coming behind us, and for the unborn babies on the way. To the older generation, government worked.
At Federal, State, and Local levels, there were schools, hospitals, water, electricity, and public services that both the rich and the poor could lay their hands on. Those were not luxuries. They were the foundation. They gave every child, regardless of background, a chance to stand.
Today, that foundation has been sold off, piece by piece, to a few individuals and their families. What once belonged to the people has become private property for the privileged. The new generation wakes up to fewer options and fewer safety nets.
Subsidies that once eased hardship are gone. Public services that once held communities together have collapsed. The alternative is struggle. What we now have is a “winner takes all” system. The rich get richer, and they do not look back to see the neighbor next door.
Worse still, many are now quietly handing over leadership and access to their own children, to continue after them. It is a cycle designed to keep power and resources within a few families, while shutting out everyone else.
If this attitude does not change, Nigeria is heading straight for a crossroads. A crossroads where the unborn will inherit debt instead of opportunity. A crossroads where talent will leave because there is nothing left to hold on to.
A crossroads where inequality will harden into permanent division. This is not the Nigeria our fathers envisioned. And it must not be the Nigeria we hand to our children. We must demand accountability.
We must rebuild public institutions. We must return government to the people — at all levels. Because a nation that eats its future to feed its present will not survive.
The time to choose is now. Will we continue on the path of exclusion, or will we build a Nigeria where every generation, born and unborn, has something to hold on to? The choice will define us.
