Presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has said that since the Union Jack was lowered and Nigeria's green-white-green flag was raised, the fundamental promise of independence, freedom, dignity, prosperity, justice, and equality remains unfulfilled.
In a statement, Sowore said independence cannot be celebrated while citizens are trapped in poverty, hunger, unemployment, insecurity, darkness, and hopelessness.
He said Nigerians cannot be truly independent when children are denied quality education, workers earn wages that cannot sustain their families, hospitals are collapsing, the paltry electricity that exists remains a luxury, and those entrusted with public resources loot with impunity.
"Nigeria’s problem is not its people. Nigerians are hardworking, creative, resilient, and extraordinarily resourceful. The tragedy is that successive ruling establishments have squandered our enormous human and natural wealth while demanding endless sacrifices from those who have the least," he said.
Sowore said at 66, Nigerians deserve more than ceremonies, speeches, flags, and further empty promises. He called for equal rights and revolutionary justice.
He said Nigerians deserve a country where workers earn a living wage; where education and healthcare are accessible; where electricity works; where young people can build meaningful lives; where farmers can work without fear; and where no Nigerian is arrested, brutalised, or imprisoned simply for challenging those in power.
"The task before our generation is not merely to celebrate the independence handed to us in 1960. Our historic duty is to redo it.
"We must build a Nigeria that is genuinely independent, not just from colonial rule, but from internal colonisers enmeshed in monumental corruption, oppression, poverty, injustice, ethnic manipulation, religious bigotry, divisive politics, and the political establishment that has held our people down for decades.
"Nigeria must work for everyone, not a privileged few.
"The struggle for a truly independent Nigeria continues," Sowore said.
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