Make Nigeria Great Again: A Patriotic Plea To Our Leaders -By Isaac Asabor

There was a time when the mere mention of “Nigeria” commanded respect across the African continent and beyond. In the 1970s and early 1980s, we were not just a nation; we were a symbol of black prosperity, intellectual might, and economic promise. We were collectively the “Giant of Africa”, a title earned not by size alone, but by influence, agricultural abundance, industrial drive, and a currency (the Naira) that rivaled the US dollar. Today, that giant lies on life support, gasping under the weight of debt, dilapidated infrastructure, mass poverty, and a brain drain that has seen our brightest minds flee to London, Toronto, and Houston.

The painful question every Nigerian asks at the fuel queue, in the dark during a grid collapse, or while counting hyperinflated banknotes is this: “Where did we go wrong?” The answer, while complex, circles back to a single, bitter truth, a pervasive lack of patriotism among our political and economic leadership. We do not need new miracles or foreign saviors. We need Nigerian leaders to be patriotic, for once, to salvage the economy and make Nigeria great again.

To understand the urgency, we must first confront the corpse of our former glory. In 1970, Nigeria was a net exporter of food, producing groundnuts, palm oil, cocoa, and rubber for the world. We built the first skyscraper in West Africa, the Cocoa House in Ibadan, with agricultural proceeds. Our manufacturing sector was the envy of the region, with assembly plants in Kaduna, Lagos, and Enugu. Today, we are the poverty capital of the world, having overtaken India in extreme poverty rates. We spend over 90% of our foreign exchange on importing everything, from rice to toothpicks to fuel.

What happened? The discovery of oil did not curse us; the “attitude” of our leaders cursed us. When petrodollars flowed, rather than invest in diversification, our elites abandoned agriculture and industry for the easy rent-seeking of crude. The patriotism that built the Ajaokuta Steel Mill (still comatose) and the Niger Dam was replaced by a parasitic “national cake” mentality. Leadership ceased to be about service and became about sharing spoils. Consequently, when oil prices crashed in 2016 and again post-COVID-19, the entire economy convulsed like a patient without a spine.

What does patriotism mean in an economic context? It is not flag-waving on Independence Day or singing “Arise, O Compatriots” with clenched fists. Economic patriotism is the quiet, deliberate, and often painful choice to prioritize national interest over personal or factional gain.

For Nigerian leaders, this would manifest in three radical shifts.

First, there is an urgent need for our leakers to  kill the monster of import dependency. Nigeria and Nigerians need a patriotic leader who would wake up and ask: “Why should Nigeria, with 84 million hectares of arable land, spend $5 billion annually importing wheat from Russia and Canada?” True patriotism would mandate policies that force local production, even if it means short-term pain for importers. It would mean subsidizing farmers, not fuel. It would mean that ministers, governors, and their families must eat, wear, and build only Nigerian-made goods. Imagine if every government official’s vehicle was a product of the moribund National Vehicle Council? They would fix the factories within a month.

Second, there is also the urgency for our leaders to eschew the vampire calamaries of the tendency to enmesh themselves into the quagmire of corruption. There is nothing patriotic about dd 5% to a  contract award, This is because it is not just the act of stealing money; it is the act of stealing compound interest, jobs, and futures. Patriotism means transparency. It means leaders should be the first to submit to lifestyle audits. If we truly want to salvage the economy, we must treat public office as solemn trust, not a lottery win. The billions recovered from corrupt officials, often stashed in foreign banks, must be reinvested into power generation and railway lines, not shared among political cronies.

Third, our leaders must desist from getting involved in the merry-go-round of policy inconsistency. Nothing kills an economy faster than a leader who changes the rules every six months. One administration builds refineries; the next cancels them for pipelines. One government promotes a 5% interest rate for manufacturers; the next introduces a currency float that bankrupts them. Patriotism would require a long-term vision that transcends election cycles. We need leaders who love Nigeria more than they love their reelection. We need a national development compact that a president from the North and a president from the South both refuse to break, because the nation matters more than the party.

We often speak of the economy in abstract terms: GDP, inflation, debt-to-GDP ratio. But the disloyalty of our leaders has a brutal, tangible face. It is the face of a mother in Kano who boils “zogale” (moringa) leaves for her children because she cannot afford rice. It is the face of a graduate in Benin City who holds a BSc but drives a rickety okada because there are no jobs. It is the face of a doctor in Lagos who spends 12 hours stuck in traffic because a patriotic government failed to build a functional transportation system.

We are losing an entire generation. Young Nigerians are no longer asking, “How do I build my country?” They are asking, “What is the quickest visa to Canada?” The lack of patriotism at the top has bred cynicism at the bottom. And yet, the resilience of the ordinary Nigerian is unmatched. We are the most entrepreneurial people on earth, we fix our generators, we drill our own boreholes, we build private universities, and we create mobile money solutions when banks fail. Imagine what we could achieve if our leaders showed half that grit.

The world is watching. In 2023, when Nigeria’s new president announced the removal of fuel subsidies and the unification of exchange rates, there was a flicker of hope. But hope is not a strategy. What we need now is follow-through, not backtracking under pressure from vested interests.

To the President, state governors, National Assembly members, and all political appointees: You have been given a trust that belongs to over 200 million souls. For once, please, be patriotic. Not the patriotism of photo-ops or jingoistic speeches, but the patriotism of sacrifice. Do not spend our oil money on foreign hospitals when our own clinics have no gloves. Do not send your children to Harvard while you starve our universities of funds. Do not award yourself jumbo pay while pensioners die on queues.

Make Nigeria great again. It is not a slogan; it is a destiny we can still reclaim. We have the human capital, our youth are the most educated and tech-savvy in Africa. We have the natural resources, from lithium for EV batteries to gas for clean energy. We have the market, a population of 200 million consumers. The only thing missing is you, our leaders, acting like Nigerians first and politicians second.

The rest of Africa is racing ahead: Rwanda on digital governance, Ghana on ease of doing business, South Africa on industrial output. The Giant of Africa is not dead; it is sleeping under the weight of selfish leadership. Pull the blanket off. Show some guts, some love, some patriotism. Salvage this economy, and history will not just remember your name, it will carve it in gold. If you fail, you will be remembered as the generation that presided over the final fall. The choice, honorable leaders, is yours. Arise, O compatriots. It is not too late.