In commemoration of Nigeriaâs 56th anniversary today, October 1st, Nigerian celebrities have voiced out on the situation of things in the country. While some remained optimistic, some opined that Nigeria is on a steady road to nowhere. Joan Omionawele speaks to some of them on Nigeria at 56.Olu Jacobs: Our leaders are talking to us as if we are school childrenI think it will be most unfair to say the government is folding its arms and doing nothing while the country is burning. Here is a country that was almost run to the ground. Thechange was real. Have you ever seen Nigeria so united? That was a cry for help from Nigerians. Let our leaders lead us and lead us right. They need to know the extent to which the damage had been done. The country is in amess and unfortunately, the Americans and the Europeans have helped us to mess it up a bit more. Have you ever seen anything like what happened to our currency? The value of our money has dropped, now we are strugglingto survive because the value of our money is low, we cannot buy as confidently as we used to and it’s going to take us a while to fight back.The only thing I can blame the government foris that I don’t think they are publicising their achievements. They are not telling us enough about what they have done. They are talking tous as if they are talking to civil servants. When they wanted our votes, they came to us and now they need to go round on television and radio and tell us the situation of things and theproblems they are having, they just talk to us as if we are school children. We are all groaning in pain, and we need to know why we are suffering so much and they are not telling us as clearly as they should. This, they must do.Mercy Johnson: Government needs to do moreNigeria has come a long way. We are not where we are supposed to be but we are not where we used to be. Government needs to domore. We cannot elect people in positions of leadership and they are not stepping into it. However, we must all bear in mind that Nigeria is a collective project.Fathia Balogun: Things are really hardThe economy right now, to be frank, is in a deplorable level. Things are really hard. As a result of this, crime rate is relatively high. Something needs to be done. We are in dire need of resurgence. Through these trying times, I beseech every Nigerian to be united. We need unity to overcome. We also need oneanother to make this nation great again.Emeka Ike: The country is not stableThe country is not in a stable condition, it’s likea pendulum, we moved forward a bit during former president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration but corruption dragged us backward. Then, this administration came with a promise to look at the corruption factor. If what they said has integrity and sincerity, it might be difficult for us at the moment, but we have a future, because integrity is the bottom-line and sincerity is the platform for development. So, if we can structure properly, I think Nigeria will head forward.Pete Edochie: Nothing is working in the countrynowTo tell you the truth, I don’t know. I don’t see afuture, I mean, I don’t even know. Nothing is working in the country now, a lot of people arejobless and crime is on the increase, I don’t see anything I can call a future.We are all depending on oil, we have militants who expect their share of all these now that the country is going down economically. I heard that there are some assets that they want to sell and it is meeting the resistance of very meaning Nigerians and I read in the papers that there is a lot of discord in the APC camp, I had always known that it is a conglomera tion of strange bird fellows.I knew that such a thing was going to happen but I didn’t know that it was going to be so soon. Look at the National Assembly, Saraki and Ekweremadu are in Court…. One cannot really say that a government is going on. If youcannot agree that one out of the three arms ofgovernment is calm and we can work from there, what kind of future are we looking unto.
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