A nation’s unveiling of despair By Nixon Uzoma

Something has changed since the designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act on October 31, 2025, by US President D. Trump.  The air over the country now reminds one of  “a place……having a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities”. As described by Thomas Hardy in his book “The Return of the Native”. Even neighboring Chad Republic has quickly closed their borders with Nigeria to avoid escapees sneaking into her land.

Indeed, anyone who understands the covert and overt symbolism of such designation has every reason to be worried. In the slippery world of geo politics, labeling is often a precursor to the thrashing. Lofty names are often framed to mask the intent of an end game. And when the chess is eventually played, you’ll realize that neither love nor altruism were ever meant to be key pieces in the game.

History should teach us to discern between an eagle and a vulture. Wisdom enables us to trust in a man or nation based on his or their antecedents, not utterances. The footprints America has left behind in every country they’ve entered has never been pretty.  From Somalia to Libya, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq etc all we see is war, chaos and resource capitulation.

However, the record number of ordinary Nigerians craving for an American intervention in their country, in spite of these perceived dangers, is symptomatic of a deeper level of despair and collective helplessness.

When a sovereign nation fails woefully to defend and protect the lives of its own citizens; when a sovereign nation fails to deliver justice and weaponizes it as a selective instrument of oppression; when its leaders fail to heed the cries of its people but are obsessed with self aggrandizement; and if at the end, the people are rendered incapable of changing  their status quo through fair democratic elections, they become hopeless, desperate and even begin to self destruct.

That state negates the reasons for its own existence. The nation that was supposed to bring succor now becomes a prison. The state fails. Decays. It is a natural law that the stench of decay attracts flies. When a house is therefore infested with maggots and ants, the visit of chickens and lizards becomes inevitable. They must come to feast either through the front door or back doors or any cracks in between.

Nigeria has by its own self contradiction, contracted a bitter-sweet panacea.

As our hearts tremble at these unveilings of despair, the soul of a big black nation is stripped bare for the world to stare. Nigeria stands vulnerable, in spite of its humongous endowments. Like a sick African elephant in a perilous jungle. The scavengers are hovering. The squealing of the hyenas can be heard from all sides even from western lands.

Her citizens long abandoned by decades of corrupt leadership are desperate for help. Any help. Whether it is coming from a friend or a fiend, seems irrelevant. Which in itself, is a profound statement in despair.

The law of human survival kicks in. The solution of the “now” becomes more existentially pressing than the thought of the “after now”.  Because in reality, if one is not able to survive the ‘now’, how is he even sure to be in a tomorrow (after now) to enjoy the benefits of whatever it might bring.

Think of the thousands of families already eliminated by ‘herdsmen and bandits’  in the north down to the Middle Belt. Farmlands abandoned. Communities made ghost towns while the nation’s military sits and parleys with terrorists they’re supposed to protect their citizens from. Think of the south easterners already held captive and sidelined by this same state while their gas, petroleum and other resources underneath their homelands are taken over, used to contract billions in foreign loans and to develop other parts of the country except theirs. Everyone is looking for a ‘saviour’.

This is where we are as a nation. When a man or nation hits such a crossroad in the journey of their destiny, the luxury of choice is plucked out from the menu of life. Life feeds him a single reality or what Hegel calls “the cunning of reason”. Which is why Shakespeare once said that  ….”misery indeed, acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”.

The failure of one nation, becomes an opportunity for another who is desperate to reassert their waning power grip on a continent.  And of course, on the giant of them all.