Many things defined 2025. Wars and rumours of war were writ large. Russia-Ukraine war assumed full life with massive mortality. There was Israel versus Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, the triad Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ in the Middle East famed for their extremism that sometimes seems to balance the excesses of some Western powers.

The earth witnessed its variant of convulsion: Fire, wind (cyclone, hurricane), flash floods, drought, earthquake. It was the year of ‘arrangee’ peace deals that never brought peace. Above all, 2025 was King Trump year. Yes, of all the human and even extra-terrestrial elements that defined 2025, no event matched, power for power, influence for influence, the emergence of United States President, Donald Trump. He was the denominator of all powers and influences.

Right from that fateful Monday, January 20, 2025, when Trump was inaugurated as the 47^th President of the United States (POTUS), the world was put on a pause at his behest. The earth trembled at his command. Trump moved quickly and changed the algorithm of geo-politics. He was intentional, decisive and commanding. Tariff, trade and war cluttered his menu. A fresh menu, the type never before seen in decades. Trump literally moved the world. He travelled round the world. Met world leaders. Promised peace. Made vows to end wars but only just prolonged the wars. A ready ally he found in a man of his exact plume. The set-for-war Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu. A combination if well managed can heal the world; but if badly managed can sink the earth. Both had a special epiphany in 2025.

Back home in Nigeria, there were pockets of good governance, and oases of bad governance. Political beefs, like governors lording it over their deputies and deputies slinging mud at their bosses. It was the perfect year of political defections and economic deification. Think Aliko Dangote. His wealth multiplied in 2025; in his year of multiple battles and multiple victories. Dangote was blackmailed. He was insulted by proxy traducers working and fighting for some economic mandarins who preferred to cover their faces like Lagbaja to evade public glare. Yet, their shadows gave them away. As the proverb goes: When the wind blows, the hidden rump of the fowl shall be revealed. The year 2025 revealed Dangote’s enemies who had been hiding behind a finger.

Many more socio-political stunts stunned Nigerians. Like local government chairmen blowing the whistle on their governors to alert anti-crime agencies to perceived economic heists; like politicians defecting from opposition parties to the ruling party to evade investigation; like political god-sons drawing the dagger at their god-fathers. A year of Emergency Rule in a democracy; and other ironies.

Year 2025 also witnessed a resurgence in insecurity and brought the reality home that the real enemies of Nigeria are in the military, the paramilitary, among religious leaders, in government, in Tinubu’s cabinet and in odd places never before imagined. It was the year of curious revelations, to wit, that some Nigerians would prefer the kidnappings, banditry and all the gory vices that come with terrorism to continue, rather than a breath of peace. They would rather be part of the negotiation with terrorists to release abducted Nigerians than have the terrorists and their sponsors and supporters exterminated. Rather than eliminate the terrorists, we should close down schools; rather than push back the invading merchants of pain despoiling our farms, we should abandon our farms, our property, our investments and run for dear life. So much was revealed in 2025. Some comical, some serio-comic and some outrightly cynical.

One major highpoint of 2025 was the crude shock that some Nigerians expressed more outrage when a terrorist (s) is killed than when hundreds of innocent Nigerians are abducted, some killed in the process. Yet in some way, 2025 was remarkable. It was the year that a sitting American President would deliver ‘Christmas Gift’ to Nigeria in the form of precision lethal bombs targeted at terrorist cells in the country. It was the year Nigeria was designated Country of Particular Concern (CPC), a derogatory tag that speaks to the low estimation of the nation in the eyes of America and Trump.

Of a truth, 2025 presented a cocktail of trouble and pain for Nigerians. Economic pain. Stress on the highways and byways. Some commuters spent days on the road travelling for Christmas and end-of-year holiday. In the midst of the turbulence, Nigerians showed a rare absorbent capacity, bestriding the landscape with all its pains and pitfalls and still waving a banner of hope that after the rambling through the dark tunnel of 2025, light beckons in 2026. Such patriotism, resilience and capacity to persevere make the average Nigerian a rare breed. Nigerians truly deserve global honour and recognition for their inelastic absorbency. Bruised on many fronts, battered by the treacherous wind of bad governance, they keep trudging on the hallway of hope. Nigerians are incurable optimists, a redoubtable breed of humans gifted with the capacity to endure all bad seasons, bad leaders, terrible infrastructure, zero government support.

Only Nigerians have the knack to lament the rapacious looting of their tomorrow by their leaders and still turn around to garland such evil leaders with awards and laurels. It’s a paradox that defies logic. Now fully into 2026, optimism still runs in the streets. The energy is not in any way dimmed. The Nigerian spirit is a special spirit. Irrepressible. Indestructible.

Nigerian economy is projected to grow by 4.49% in 2026, with inflation expected to ease, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). While this looks positive with pleasant auguries, the mood among the citizenry does not reflect this, especially with the National Revenue Service (NRS) waiting to collect tax off the same struggling businesses and individuals. And here’s the challenge: Governments at all levels must innovate ways to mitigate the weight of economic burden bearing down on the people. This 2026, government must pragmatically connect the dots between macroeconomic growth and standard of living of the 130 million Nigerians stuck in the mud of multi-dimensional poverty. Let’s not conflate growth (GDP and other quantitative indices) with development. Make 2026 the year of development.