A Year of Civic Awakening and National Rebirth; Transformation of Our Political Apathy to Political Anger.

Fellow Nigerians,
As we step into the year 2026, we must do so with clear eyes, collective memory, and renewed determination. A new year should not merely mark the passage of time; it must mark a reflective turning point. To move forward meaningfully, we must first look back at 2025 in honest retrospect. A year that exposed deep cracks in our leadership, governance systems, and national priorities.

2025: A Year Nigerians Must Not Forget

The year 2025 confronted Nigerians with a troubling pattern of government shenanigans, policy gaffes, and leadership connivance against the people.

• Nigerians were forced to grapple with credible allegations and public revelations involving senior government officials, including controversies surrounding the Minister of Defense, Bello Matawalle and others, where calls were made for transparent investigations into alleged links between state actors and banditry/terror financing. Rather than clear answers, Nigerians were met with silence, denial or deflection.
• The petroleum sector, once again, laid bare the contradictions of governance. While citizens paid crushing fuel prices, emerging reports highlighted that, stakeholders within the industry including PENGASSAN, downstream sector executives and some unidentified top government/non government actors are actually behind the problems. We are all witnesses to the recent arm twisting of Dangote Refineries by PENGASSAN on the issues of underserved royalties being collected by the latter from Dangote Refineries coupled with the alleged spending of millions of dollars on private luxuries by the downstream executives that are also enabling the issuance of fuel import licenses; widely perceived as attempts to extort as well as frustrate the growth of local refining capacity, including the Dangote Refineries. How do we as a people explain the huge difference between #320/ltr inclusive of all taxes which Dangote Refineries recently claimed is selling its fuel to the marketers to the over #800/ltr pump price? Isn’t that scandalous?
• Nigerians watched in disbelief as anti-people fiscal policies multiplied: weaponized poverty stricken taxation proposals, increased levies, and plans to outsource tax collection to a foreign (French) company, raising serious questions about sovereignty, transparency, and national interest.
• The economy sank deeper under the weight of serial borrowings by the Tinubu administration, with little to show in terms of commensurate economic growth, low percentage budget performance index, insignificant infrastructure expansion, negative industrialization index, or improved living standards.
• Our National Assembly, constitutionally empowered to act as a check on executive excesses/recklessness, largely abdicated this responsibility. Instead of robust oversight, Nigerians witnessed a rubber-stamp legislature, often appearing more loyal to executive power than to the people; memorably chanting “On your mandate we shall stand” while hardship spreads across the land.
• Budget padding scandals involving both legislators and executive officials already facing financial indictments, further eroded public trust.
• As if economic and governance failures were not enough, our nation suffered avoidable international embarrassment in the appointment of some alleged scandalous, poorly prepared, unmerited and untrained ambassadors to further diminish our diplomatic standing and international image.
• Meanwhile, contracts and key appointments continued to flow disproportionately to cronies, political loyalists and patrons which often are at the expense of merit, competence, and national cohesion.

The Cost to Nigerians
The cumulative effect of these avoidable actions has been devastating:

• Rising poverty and unemployment
• Crushing inflation and food insecurity
• Economic strangulation and diminished standard of living
• Total disintegration and disorientation of people’s security
• A shrinking middle class
• Loss of hope among the youth
• Increasing disrespect/neglect within the diplomatic circles coupled with zero integrity on the global stage and non recognition on the international level.

This absolutely is not the Nigeria we deserve.

2026: What Must Nigerians Do?
If 2025 exposed the problems, 2026 must become the year of solutions through civic actions, national renewal with the transformation of our overall political apathy to an overall unified national political anger. We must all stand within a unified resolve to:

1. Reject Apathy & Be Angry in Embracing Civic Responsibility

Nigerians must move beyond anger on social media to organized, peaceful, and sustained civic engagement through town halls, community forums, policy debates and purposefully envisioned lawful protests.

2. Demand Accountability & Reject Promises

We must insist on:

• Transparent investigations into all allegations of corruption and orchestrated insecurity financing links
• Public disclosure of borrowings, spending and debt utilizations
• Clear timelines and performance benchmarks for government policies

3. Strengthen Citizen Oversight
Civil society groups, professional unions, labour organizations, students and faith based bodies must unite to coordinating budgets’ monitoring, award of contracts, appointments while equally indicating failures without fear.

4. Reclaim the National Assembly
Constituents must pressure lawmakers to:

• Conduct real oversight
• Reject budget padding
• End blind loyalty to the executive
• Remember that their mandate comes from the people and not the presidency

5. Prioritize Economic Justice
Nigerians must in unison demand:

• Pro-people fiscal policies
• Protection of local industries, manufactures and refineries
• Affordable energy, power and transportation systems
• Jobs provision not excuses

6. Restore Integrity to Governance
Appointments whether ambassadors, ministers or agency heads must be based on competence, training, and integrity not patronage.

7. Prepare for Electoral Consequences
2026 must also be a year of political education, enlightenment and preparation. Leaders must know that poor governance has consequences at the ballot box.

A Call to Hope and Action
Fellow Nigerians, nations do not collapse in one day neither do they recover in one day. But history has shown that when citizens awake, organize and persist, even the most entrenched systems will yield. Invariably, a people that has refused to emancipate itself from the claws of the wicked, heist and Machiavellian oligarchs will be perpetually emaciated by such leopard skinned shepherds.

Let 2026 be the year we:

• Force leadership to govern with conscience
• Restore dignity to public service
• Demand socioeconomic respite for the people
• Rebuild Nigeria’s integrity at home and abroad

The responsibility is togetherness. The future is still ours but, only if we fight for it peacefully, lawfully, resiliently and relentlessly………Nigerians, awake into year 2026 with that required political anger for the emancipation of our national dignity, integrity, socioeconomic and political freedom with the envisioned rippling effect on Africa to emerge with its vast potentials.

Happy New Year Nigeria & Nigerians
May 2026 mark the beginning of our national reawakening.

Still your lonely voice in the wilderness,

Dayo Kayode Ph.D
Convener & National Chairman
The Unifiers Movement TUM