Today is Children’s Day, your day. Growing up in the 70s in Nigeria, it used to be a day wrapped in laughter, celebration, and the limitless dreams of our young minds. I am not sure if that is still the case with you. From where I sit, far away in the Diaspora, I think of you, beloved and beautiful children across our great nation. This, with a heart heavy with empathy but also glowing with unwavering hope.
I was once a child in Nigeria too. In some place called Igbuzo, in Delta State.
We played under the rain with the sun shining at the same time. Without fear. We roamed our wallless and gateless neighbourhoods freely. We went to public schools that fed both our minds and our bodies. Our textbooks may have been worn, but our teachers were driven. We recited our national anthem and pledge with meaning. Not as a ritual, but as a promise to a country that, for all its flaws, still gave us the gift of hope.
But I know, the Nigeria you’re growing up in is not the Nigeria I knew. Your childhood has been clouded by fear, scarcity, and a leadership class that seems too often to forget its duty to protect your dreams. The roads to your schools may be unsafe. Electricity is a privilege, not a right. And many of your schools are shadows of what they should be. They lack books, desks, even teachers sometimes. That reality breaks my heart. And yet, my dear children, I refuse to give up on you or on Nigeria.
