Nigeria on Monday marked its 41st Independence Day still mired in poverty and conflict, to be dubbed a "nation of survivors" by one paper as the head of state admitted his team had not yet achieved much.
In the commercial capital and largest city, Lagos, millions of people took the day off work, staying at home or heading for the beach.
But in the often ebullient country, celebrations were dampened both by gloomy rainy season weather and the depressed climate produced by years of economic decline or stagnation and misrule.
In a speech broadcast nationwide at dawn, President Olusegun Obasanjo said hope for a better future was rising but admitted his administration has failed so far to lift most Nigerians out of poverty and end violence.
More than two years after taking power in May 1999, following more than 15 years of military misrule, Obasanjo said his government was working hard to improve security and uplift the economy for the 120 million Nigerians.
But he acknowledged that "enormous" challenges remain.
"What still remains to be done is vast and enormous, eclipsing the modest achievements we have recorded so far," Obasanjo said.
"Far too many of our citizens still remain poor," the president added, industry was still weak and inflation was a problem.
"I acknowledge that the response of the economy, especially the manufacturing sector, to our determined efforts at revitalization has been slower than expected," he said.
The president blamed in large part the "dismal reality" of Nigeria's rundown state in 1999 before he took over.
After years of bad government under the previous military regimes: "Everything, it seemed, had nearly collapsed: the economy, our physical infrastructure, the system of our social organisation together with our values and morals," he said.
But Obasanjo vaunted changes he had introduced.
The government was privatising moribund state companies and improving the power and telecoms systems, investing in strengthening the feeble power network, and had liberalised the telecoms sector, allowing two foreign-owned mobile phone companies to launch services here.
However, corruption remained and violent social conflict, seen early last month in the central city of Jos, continued to erupt, he admitted.
For many, the changes introduced by the Obasanjo administration, as popular as it is internationally, are too small for the people at home.
The Guardian, generally considered Nigeria's newspaper of record, said in an editorial Monday that "the country has just enough reason to celebrate as a nation of survivors and not as one of thrivers...
"That is why the debate is still on as to whether Nigeria can exist at all as a nation. Or if it would exist, in what form."
The Vanguard newspaper had a front-page cartoon showing Africa's most populous country weighed down by foreign debt, corruption, a bad economy, communal violence and bad leadership.
A cartoon in the newspaper This Day showed the country as a sick man in a hospital bed, with its ailment identified simply as "multi-dimensional".
A new newspaper, the Daily Independent, which was launched Monday noted the problems facing the country but said "happily ours is a nation with an elastic capacity to absorb shocks and rebound."
However, generally the mood was downbeat, worsened after Nigerians woke to learn that the country's youth football team had been defeated in the early hours in Trinidad and Tobago by France in the final of the FIFA Under-17 world championship.
"What a start to the independence day," a caller to a Lagos radio station said. |
