Nigeria @ 56: Entertainers call for true change

Basorge Tari: The entertainment industry seems to be the only aspect of our national life that has experienced a steady and fruitful growth. However, our usual suspect is the absence of understanding of the relevance of this development and the cogent resources it offers as a platform for youth engagement, expression and employment opportunities; as a way of curbing the rising unrest amongst young people. This lack of empathy and refusal to build our social and cultural vision through entertain and art is our country’s hubris. Art should be the means to building a sustainable and acceptable national character; promoting unity and patriotism must be a conscious National plan.

Usifoh Victor, Comic Artist/ Publisher: To an extent the showbiz is largely independent. In showbiz,directors and artist are churning out concepts with little or no assistance from monetary bodies. Content isn’t so restricted but guided.

Olu Jacobs: Our leaders are talking to us as if we are school children. I 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. The change 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 a mess 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 struggling to 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 for is that I don’t think they are publicizing their achievements. They are not telling us enough about what they have done.

They are talking to us 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 the problems 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 more. Nigeria 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 do more. 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 hard. The 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 one another to make this nation great again.

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Emeka Ike: The country is not stable. The country is not in a stable condition, it’s like a 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 country now. To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I don’t see a future, I mean, I don’t even know. Nothing is working in the country now, a lot of people are jobless 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 conglomeration 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 you cannot agree that one out of the three arms of government is calm and we can work from there, what kind of future are we expecting for our children then? I saw the war and it is my prayer that my children don’t see another war. See Fulani People moving around and their killing people and destroying their farms and the government is not saying anything……honestly, I don’t know.

Femi Kuti: Nigeria is a country where leaders give excuses for their failure. Nigeria is a country where leaders give excuses for themselves. After 50 years, No electricity, no equal education, no good healthcare service, some people are planning to sell our assets. Yet they give excuses for their failure. Education is only for the rich in this country, and after 50 years, when the president is sick he doesn’t trust the Nigerian doctors, so he has to be flown abroad, and the budget is there to take our hard earned money for themselves. If they were not leaders, what will they do? All this is just for them to have a good time and enjoy themselves with our money.

Victor Olaotan: We are getting somewhere as a country. Well, I think we are going somewhere as a country, we might not know exactly where. We are now leaving the reality of what we are worth. But I believe that with time, we will get results.