Sixty years after independence, the unequivocal opinion was that Nigeria had done very poorly as a nation. The average Nigerian was less prosperous, less healthy and less educated than the promise of 1960 suggested, and the country had been designated the poverty capital of the world.
Our founding statement traced this to toxic rivalry among regional nationalists, a civil war whose consequences still reverberate, military misrule, and civilian administrations that served themselves. It ended with a call that still defines us: the time for cheap talk is over; the time to work for the common good is here.