NIGERIA IN PERFECT IMBALANCE: A CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM OF CHAOS.
Aare Amerijoye DOT .B
As Nigerians prepare to mark their 64th Independence Day, the nation’s pride has been overshadowed by a devastating economic reality: the Naira has plummeted to an unprecedented low, trading at N1705 to a single US dollar. This catastrophic decline underscores the grim struggles of a country grappling with soaring inflation, deepening poverty, and crumbling economic policies. While citizens look to celebrate their national heritage, the weakening Naira paints a bleak future, raising urgent questions about leadership and the desperate need for a turnaround before the currency—and the hopes of millions—completely unravel.
Nigeria, our beloved country, is undergoing what can only be described as the most perfectly imperfect equilibrium—a sublime balance of chaos and order, progress and regression, vision and blindness. Like a chemical reaction, where forward and reverse processes are in a constant dance of uncertainty, our nation finds itself locked in this delicate tug-of-war, where stability seems just as elusive as peace.
Imagine, if you will, Nigeria as a giant test tube in some cosmic laboratory. On one side, the chemical agents of progress are injected—hope, economic reform, youth activism, and unity. On the other side, a potent mixture of corruption, inefficiency, tribalism, and disillusionment is stirred in. And what do we get from this mixture? A perfect reaction of stagnation, the type of equilibrium where nothing happens, but everything feels like it’s about to explode. This paradox could only be described as “stability through perpetual instability.”
As the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, once noted, “The children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children have peace.” It seems that in this grand equilibrium, the Nigerian leadership has become the master of giving the people just enough suffering to keep them complacent, but not quite enough relief to encourage real change. Poverty is balanced by promises, and hardship is stabilized by hollow reassurances of a brighter future.
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, with his characteristic wisdom, declared, “The success of a government should be gauged by the contentment of the masses.” Ironically, it appears that our government has mastered the art of contenting us with discontent, delivering governance that is neither successful nor completely disastrous, just hovering in that magical space where nothing ever improves, but everything seems to linger in an endless state of “we’re getting there.”
The chemistry of our political system could be likened to an absurdly complex equilibrium reaction—power constantly shifts between those who are determined to change the country and those who are determined to keep it exactly where it is. “No condition is permanent,” Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe once said, but one wonders if even he could have foreseen how this statement would come to embody Nigeria’s perpetual condition of nothing-changing-permanently.
As we observe this remarkable equilibrium, we see an economy fluctuating between recession and recovery, an education system oscillating between neglect and crisis, and an electorate swinging between apathy and fleeting hope. The reaction continues: push, pull, stagnate. Rinse, repeat. From time to time, a spark of optimism ignites—perhaps a new political figure emerges, or a brief economic policy catches the public’s eye—but just as quickly, the reverse reaction kicks in, and everything settles back into that predictable groove of mediocrity. Such is the elegant simplicity of Nigerian equilibrium.
In truth, Nigeria’s equilibrium is less about stability and more about survival. We have become experts at balancing on the edge of disaster, teetering between collapse and endurance, managing just enough dysfunction to keep going without ever truly advancing. This might explain why our leaders seem so comfortable in this state of affairs—after all, in chemistry, equilibrium doesn’t require progress, only balance. As long as the misery is equally distributed, and the suffering shared in equal measure, perhaps they believe the system will never collapse completely.
But the real question, the one we must all ask, is this: how long can a nation survive in such perfect imbalance? Will the equilibrium of chaos eventually give way to a reaction of real change, or will we continue this delicate dance of dysfunction indefinitely? Nigeria remains a country in waiting—waiting for equilibrium to either break or finally settle in a way that delivers on its long-promised potential.
Until then, we continue to live in the marvelous absurdity of a country in equilibrium—a state where everything happens, but nothing changes; where progress and decay meet to form the perfect Nigerian blend of “just enough.”
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Chairman,The Narrative Force.
