By SUNDAY DARE

“It is easy to write from the sidelines. To critique without consequence. To moralize without responsibility. But governance is not a column—it is a burden. One that requires decisions, trade-offs, and the courage to be unpopular in the short term to secure the long term”.

There is a peculiar contempt in your letter—the kind that mistakes sophistry for insight, and grandstanding for substance.

But this type of quackery only elevates the author into the realms of pseudo- intellectualism.

You write as though Nigeria began yesterday. As though decades of fiscal vandalism, subsidy rackets, institutional decay, and security neglect simply materialized under one administration. It is a convenient fiction—one that absolves yesterday’s actors while condemning today’s reform.

You lament fuel prices, but say nothing of the fraud that sustained the subsidy regime—an open hemorrhage of public funds that enriched a cartel while impoverishing a nation. You mourn the consequences, yet remain silent on the cause. That is not analysis; it is intellectual evasion.

You invoke insecurity with the solemnity of a eulogy, yet with the depth of a slogan. Terrorism did not arrive with this government; it was cultivated—watered by years of indecision, politicization, and strategic drift. To now weaponize its existence in a birthday message is not just tasteless—it is profoundly unserious.

Then comes the predictable sermon on hardship. As though reform is a dinner party. As though correcting years of economic distortion comes without discomfort. Every serious nation that has confronted structural rot has passed through this phase. The difference is that serious observers understand this. Casual critics write letters.

And your closing flourish—this tired warning about a “one-party state”—is perhaps the weakest note of all. Political migration is not tyranny; it is gravity. When platforms collapse under the weight of their own emptiness, people move. That is not democracy dying—it is relevance shifting.

But let us be honest: your letter is not about governance. It is about posture. A performance of outrage, carefully worded, conveniently timed, and entirely devoid of solutions. Not a single pathway offered. Not one alternative proposed. Just indignation—polished and published.

It is easy to write from the sidelines. To critique without consequence. To moralize without responsibility. But governance is not a column—it is a burden. One that requires decisions, trade-offs, and the courage to be unpopular in the short term to secure the long term.

You suggest others are not “taking governance seriously.” Yet seriousness is not measured by the sharpness of one’s pen, but by the weight one is willing to carry.

On that measure, your letter is light—painfully light.

Nigeria deserves more than rehearsed cynicism disguised as critique. It deserves clarity. It deserves honesty. It deserves people who, at the very least, understand the problem before attempting to narrate it.

Until then, you may wish to pause—and, perhaps for once stop playing the ostrich.

•Sunday Dare is Special Adviser (Media and Public Communications) to the President.

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