Some of the most important lessons I have learnt about life were learnt from the lives of others. Growing up, my big brother would organise big weekend parties for his friends. He lodged them all in the best suites of his father’s hotel and often provided them with everything – including girls. I can’t say precisely how he funded the reveries even though I know he saw to the running of the ill fated business. But I know his looks when all the noise give way to calm and the revellers go off to their various homes. He sits in one of the major rooms that were used, he looks into space like planning a move – his hand on his chin – then utters something that often gave his big-boyness away – can I lend some bucks? That look always reminded me of the poem by Okot p’bitek – the celebration is now over. Mrs Etomi, my Junior High school English teacher had explained the import of the poem so I was quick to see it’s reality when people go on a party splurge, then sit their backsides at home waiting for where the next cash will fall from.

Nigeria had a splurge last week. From 70 million naira cakes (or was it 120 million), to multi million naira banquets, hurriedly painted roads to non-stop media adverts. The list of items and events that contributed to the money drain is not the issue. The issue is we created an excuse to line the pockets of political moochers in the name of Jubilee. A Jubilee that came, emphasized the fact that we had nothing to be jubilant about and still left us off as one of the worlds poorest countries. A celebration that boasted the loudest fireworks you’d hear with the bomb blasts killing some 8 or 18 people depending on whether your source is the Nigerian police or eye witnesses. Our sense of value of human life is virtually non-existent hence those ones are dead and gone like the numerous others that have died in the name of politics. Think the several election crises – the memories of deaths resulting from Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida’s aborted June 12 elections still linger in my mind. The Sani Abacha bombs, Obasanjo’s Odi killings, the Jos unending carnages and several others have helped to prove that human life is seen to be the least of issues when it comes to the issue of power.

If like I always thought about the year 2000s you think celebrating 50 years of nationhood would automatically translate to a better life, please think again. $8 Billion and still counting but the Ajaokuta Steel Complex looks very much like a steel museum than a place meant for steel production. $8Billion of your wealth wasted on an investment that has defied solution since the military days of Babangida and Abacha. Ever heard of the phrase ‘‘Turn Around Maintenance’’? That is the excuse that allows government to think it is operating petroleum refineries even when all the four refineries cannot produce up to 20% of our fuel needs. We import fuel despite the fact that trillions of naira have been expended on the guise of maintaining the refineries. You know where the money goes to don’t you? That we have spent some $500 million to rehabilitate our rail system since the black goggles wearing General granted a Chinese conglomerate the contract in 1994. You already know about how much was plunged from the national coffers on the guise of power generation. Some $16 Billion during Baba Obasanjo’s regime alone. Baba is yet to account for that even though he believes those folks making our laws right now are more corrupt as they earn the sort of money that’d make Mr. Bill Gates want to retire to the Nigerian law making house. The list of failures from the centre of governance is endless and monumental. It is obvious our system just cannot work. We have a faulty socio-economic political system. One man in Abuja cannot just decide the fate of 150 million people. It just cannot work because the entrenched culture of sleaze would not even allow the resources to get to their desired destinations.

We need a far smaller government size and an even lesser government involvement in the production of goods and services. Government has no business making steel if the right environment is in place for entrepreneurs to produce them. The right environment for steel and indeed other manufacturing quests cannot be available until power generation is taken off those NEPA people, who pretend to be PHCN because nothing has changed since a name change was suppose to offer a positive change in power generation and distribution. It is not even about allowing the states to generate power, it is about putting the right laws in place that’d guarantee business men the freedom to sell power like recharge cards are sold for GSM (thank you Baba OBJ for this and don’t even think I am not grateful because surely you can’t fault the fact that for 8 years he at least has the GSM phenomenon as arguably his sole legacy besides the myriad of failed, faulty and lopsided privatization efforts). People should be at liberty to choose what company they want to provide them power. We have become a nation of many governments where homes provide their power through ever screaming power generators of all sorts, where water goes for N5 per poor sachet, where high walls and street gates offer no respite from ever present armed robbers.

Now that the celebrations are over, it is time to look to the future. We failed in the past because government did everything and failed at virtually everything. We can not continue on that same path as we go on another journey of development. The people should not just be citizens of a politically independent Nigeria, they should be independent themselves to give Nigeria true independence – socio-economic independence. Economic development will remain a Nigerian illusion until Nigerians are free from the shackles of government’s economic mishaps and genial failures.

It is not a given that the next 50 years will be better than the one just gone and wasted by. If we do what we did, we will get what we got and a million prayers and foreign aids will not change this. The greatest economies and the ones on the path of greatness did not attain and are not attaining greatness through the dollars of foreign aid; they are flourishing through the power of the minds of their entrepreneurs and the strength of their citizenry. Even God’s own country was not spared the grace self determination. As a nation, as a people, as Nigeria and Nigerians, our destinies lie in our hands. Until we bring down the walls of waste, until we allow the springs of thoughts reign, the flood of change will not flow over our land. The time for that is now and there can be no transformation without a learned population. That is the challenge that holds the key to our nation’s future. 2060 is here soon enough and I hope to see my grand children celebrate our centenary without bomb blasts and post celebration bans from International football authorities. The Nigerian Centenary year will not come if we don’t iron out our nationhood. We the people of Nigeria must cease to be a military legacy; it must be the reality of our choice. The celebrations are now over; it is time to make the future better. We are Nigeria.

follow Joshua on twitter @omojuwa