By Franklin Onoben

As Nigeria marks her 66th Independence Anniversary, there is perhaps no more important question for us as a people than this: What kind of Nigeria do we want, and what kind of people are we willing to become to build it?

Nigerians want Nigeria to change, but too often we do not want to change ourselves. We desire a better country, yet we are not always prepared to mirror or reflect the change we demand. We want better leaders, better institutions, better roads, better schools, better systems and better governance, but the transformation we seek cannot be sustained if the people themselves remain unchanged.

There is therefore a compelling need for a cultural adjustment, a change of heart, and a change of attitude.

We need to discard:

• The culture of impunity, particularly the belief that the powerful and well-connected are above the law.
• The culture of silence, where we see things going wrong but choose to look away because speaking up may be inconvenient or costly.
• The culture of disregard for human life and dignity, reflected in the way we treat ourselves and others as though human life is cheap and disposable.
• The culture of putting money and financial gain above everything else, sacrificing integrity, relationships, health, values and even human lives for what the Bible calls “filthy lucre.”
• The culture of tribalism and ethnic exceptionalism, where a person’s tribe becomes more important than their character, competence and integrity.
• The culture of religious hypocrisy, where we profess faith but excuse dishonesty, corruption, injustice and exploitation when they serve our interests.
• The culture of celebrating wealth without questioning its source, where being wealthy is enough to earn admiration, regardless of how the wealth was acquired.
• The culture of connections over competence, where who you know matters more than what you know, what you can do or what you have legitimately earned.
• The culture of entitlement, where people expect preferential treatment because of their age, position, status, family, wealth, religion or connections.
• The culture of mediocrity, where “manage it” becomes an acceptable substitute for excellence, professionalism and continuous improvement.
• The culture of corruption disguised as survival, where bribery, cheating, falsification and other unethical practices are justified with “Everybody does it” or “How else can I survive?”
• The culture of lawlessness, where rules are obeyed only when someone is watching or when enforcement is unavoidable.
• The culture of blame-shifting, where we are quick to identify who caused a problem but reluctant to ask what part we can play in solving it.
• The culture of victimhood without responsibility, where genuine systemic problems become excuses for refusing to take personal responsibility for our choices and actions.
• The culture of intellectual laziness and misinformation, where we form strong opinions without seeking facts, verifying information or thinking critically.
• The culture of hero-worship and sycophancy, where people in positions of authority are surrounded by those who tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.
• The culture of queue-jumping and preferential treatment, where rules are considered binding on everyone else but negotiable when we believe we deserve a shortcut.
• The culture of short-term gratification, where immediate personal benefit is preferred over long-term national interest.
• The culture of poor maintenance, where we are enthusiastic about building and acquiring things but careless about preserving and maintaining them.
• The culture of disrespect for time and responsibility, where lateness, negligence and failure to keep commitments are treated as normal.
• The culture of treating public property as nobody’s property, resulting in the destruction and misuse of what belongs to all of us.
• The culture of passing the problem to the next person, where we avoid responsibility today while knowingly creating bigger problems for those who come after us.
• The culture of rewarding the wrong behaviour, where dishonest, aggressive, corrupt or incompetent behaviour can attract more recognition and influence than integrity, competence and responsibility.
• The culture of accepting dysfunction as normal, where we repeatedly say “That is Nigeria” about things that should instead provoke our determination to change them.

But this change is not the kind we should wait for those in political office to champion, although they certainly have an important role to play.

This is a change that every Nigerian must embrace and lead personally.

It must begin in our homes, where values are first formed; in our schools, where the next generation is shaped; in our religious and cultural institutions, where character and social values are reinforced; and in our public and private institutions, where integrity, competence and accountability must become everyday expectations.

We cannot demand honesty from government while practising dishonesty in our businesses. We cannot demand accountability from leaders while refusing to accept responsibility for our own actions. We cannot condemn corruption in public office while celebrating or participating in corruption when it benefits us personally.

The change we demand from Nigeria must first become visible in us.

When the people embrace this readiness to change, we can then demand the same standards from those who take up public office and those who serve in the civil service. Our expectations of character, competence, integrity and accountability should also influence how we exercise our civic responsibilities, including the choices we make at the polls.

As Nigerians prepare for another electoral cycle in 2027, we must remember that elections alone cannot transform a nation. Changing the occupants of political offices without changing the culture that surrounds and sustains those offices can simply reproduce the same problems under different names and faces.

If we do not make a conscious effort to change from the heart and demand the same standards from those who serve us, elections may change governments without changing the underlying culture.

I therefore do not believe that a political party or an individual political leader, by themselves, can be the true agent of the kind of enduring change Nigeria needs. Political leaders and governments have important responsibilities, but they do not remain in office forever. If the changes they initiate are not owned, embraced and sustained by the people, those changes can disappear when the people who introduced them leave office.

Sustainable change must therefore be people-based, people-initiated and people-owned.

It must become part of our culture.

It must become part of how we raise our children, conduct our businesses, practise our faith, exercise leadership, relate with one another and participate in society.

Nigeria can change for the better.

Nigeria must change for the better.

But the change we seek cannot begin and end at the ballot box. It cannot begin and end in Aso Rock. It cannot be delegated entirely to politicians.

It must begin in the heart of the Nigerian.

A new Nigeria will ultimately require not just new leaders, new policies or new institutions, but a people with a renewed culture, renewed values and a renewed attitude towards their nation and towards one another.

The change we are waiting for may begin when we become the change we are asking for.