The Silence of the Complicit: A Nation’s Soul at the Crossroads

By Dr Alaba Fawole

They say a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. But what of a nation that has grown numb to the suffering of all—the poor, the middle class, and even its most celebrated sons and daughters? What do you call people who have been conditioned to see tragedy as routine, and systemic failure as fate?

We have reached a moment of profound, collective reckoning.

When a world heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua, a man who has faced the fiercest opponents in the ring, is brought to his knees not by a rival’s punch, but by tragedy on a Nigerian road—a road that claimed two lives and highlighted our nonexistent emergency response—we must pause. 

This was not just a private tragedy. It was a glaring, international spotlight on the rotten infrastructure that every single one of us endures daily. If it can halt a global icon, what chance do the millions of anonymous citizens traversing those same roads have?

When the young, beloved child of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a voice that has carried the story of Nigeria to the farthest corners of the earth, is lost in one of our “best” hospitals due to shoddy treatment and a collapsed healthcare system, we must shudder. 

This is not merely a family’s unspeakable grief. It is a damning indictment of a system that has failed every parent who has ever prayed over a sick child in a dilapidated ward, or watched helplessly for a doctor who never comes, or for medication that is never in stock.

And when a foreign power, under its own directives, suddenly shows “interest” in the kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism that have become our daily bread—menaces that have killed and displaced millions in our own land—we should feel not relief, but a scalding shame. Have we become so broken that we wait for outsiders to name the monsters in our own house?

These high-profile tragedies are not exceptions. They are the logical, brutal endpoint of a system built on selfish greed and a pathological disregard for the common good. They are merely the ones that make the headlines. For every Joshua, for every Adichie, there are ten thousand unnamed Nigerians swallowed by the same voids: bad roads, terrible hospitals, insecurity, and hopelessness.

A few have hijacked the patrimony of an entire nation. They live in indescribable, gilded opulence behind high walls, while beyond those walls lies a landscape of abject poverty, frustration, and despair. They have divided us by tribe, religion, and region, whispering lies that our neighbor is the enemy, while they, the real architects of our misery, feast together in backroom deals.

 Their strategy is simple: keep us divided, keep us fighting amongst ourselves, so we never unite to ask the one fundamental question—“Why is this wealth not working for us all?”

To be silent now because you are not directly involved is the height of myopia and unconscionable complicity. Your silence is a vote for the status quo. Your shrug of “God dey” or “Na Nigeria” is an acceptance of the unacceptable. Do not think your time is not coming. 

The collapsing bridge does not ask for your party card. The failing hospital does not check your ethnicity. The kidnappers on the road do not care about your social status. In our shared vulnerability, we find our shared power.

This is not the crusade of high-profile victims. It is OUR collective battle for a nation that works.

It is a clarion call to unity in purpose and in one accord. We must rise above the manufactured divisions. We must channel our anger, our grief, and our frustration not at each other, but at the systemic rot that enslaves us all. We must demand better—not just for the privileged few who make the news when tragedy strikes, but for the generality of our people.

Enough is enough.

It is time to rise and be counted. In our workplaces, in our communities, at the ballot box, and in our unwavering demand for accountability.

Let us support organizations that hold power to account. Let us speak up against corruption, however small. Let us recognize that the mechanic, the teacher, the farmer, and the executive are all trapped in the same failing system, and our liberation is intertwined.

Our nation’s soul is at a crossroads. One path leads to continued decay, accepted with a weary sigh. The other leads to the rebirth we know is possible, built on justice, equity, and shared prosperity. The choice is not in the hands of the elite. It is in ours.

United we stand, divided we fall. Let us choose to stand. Let us choose to fight. Let us choose to build the Nigeria we deserve.

The time is now. Rise!