Awakened Courage vs. Sedated Citizenry: Serbia’s Lesson for a Fractured Nigeria

Awakened Courage vs. Sedated Citizenry:

 Serbia’s Lesson for a Fractured Nigeria

 

In the annals of modern history, Serbia’s citizens stand as a testament to the power of collective awakening. Emerging from the shadows of authoritarianism and ethnic strife in the early 2000s, Serbians united to dismantle a regime that thrived on division. Their story is one of courage, agency, and transcendence. Nigeria, however, presents a grim counter-narrative: a nation of citizens sedated by ethnic hatred and bigotry, tribal loyalties, and disunity so profound it renders them powerless against glaring systemic decay. The contrast between these two societies raises a piercing question: Can Nigeria’s artificial unity ever produce a mentally liberated citizenry—or is dissolution the only viable path to awakening? 

 

Serbia’s Awakening: The Triumph of Collective Will

Serbia’s revolution was not born of luck but of resolve. After a decade of wars, sanctions, and the toxic nationalism of Slobodan Milošević, ordinary Serbians—students, teachers, farmers, and artists—refused to be defined by their differences. Movements like Otpor! (Resistance) became symbols of defiance, uniting people across ethnic and ideological lines. Their weapon? A shared vision of freedom and simple human dignity. In 2000, this coalition toppled Milošević through mass protests, proving that even in fractured societies, unity of purpose can dismantle tyranny. 

 

Serbians awakened because they recognized a universal truth: Regimes that survive by stoking division collapse when citizens choose solidarity over sectarianism.

 

Nigeria’s Sedation: The Toxin and Opium of Ethnic Division:

Nigeria, by contrast, is a case study in civic sedation. Nigeria remains trapped in a colonial-era nightmare. The 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern protectorates created a nation without a soul, its people bound by geography but fractured by over 250 ethnic groups, devolved into a weaponized fragmentation and a political elite addicted to divide-and-rule tactics. Today, tribalism functions as a narcotic: it dulls the pain of corruption, poverty, and insecurity by redirecting rage toward “the other.” A Fulani-subdued Hausa man blames an Igbo trader for his poverty; a Yoruba politician incites hatred against Igbo to mask his own graft, and a Fulani herder blames the indigenous famer of the north and other parts of the contraption to justify his religious-inspired orchestrated ethnic cleansing. The result is a citizenry too sedated, too disoriented, to confront the real enemies: Kleptocracy, bad governance, and ethnic-cum-value incompatibility.

 

Nigeria’s sedation is not passive—it is engineered. Political and economic elites weaponize ethnicity to fragment resistance. The #EndSARS protests of 2020, which briefly united Nigerian youth across tribal lines, were crushed not just by bullets but by a resurgence of ethnic rhetoric. “Stay in your lane,” the powerful whispered. “Your enemy is not us—it’s them.”  This engineered disunity stifles collective action: corruption flourishes, infrastructure crumbles, and security collapses, yet citizens remain too fractured to seek the painful solution which is going our separate ways. 

The Serbian protests and the Nigerian Lekki Toll Gate incident demonstrate the difference in public response and government accountability and make the case for division. In Serbia, the collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station led to widespread anti-corruption protests, resulting in the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic. In contrast, the Lekki Toll Gate incident in Nigeria saw soldiers opening fire on unarmed protesters during the #EndSARS movement, resulting in multiple deaths. Despite the tragic loss of life, the response from the Nigerian citizenry was marked by ethnic tensions and mutual blame (bigotry) rather than sustained activism.

 

The Case for Dissolution: Breaking the Spell

Nigeria’s existential crisis lies in its refusal to confront a brutal truth: IT IS NOT A NATION. It is a colonial contraption, held together by inertia and the greed of those who profit from its dysfunction. Serbia’s awakening came through unity, but Nigeria’s paradoxically required disintegration. Balkanization, often feared as a descent into chaos, is in reality, the antidote to its sedation. 

Imagine a post-Nigeria landscape: 

- A Yoruba Nation rooted in its historic emphasis on education and commerce, free to innovate without the drag of a parasitic central government. 

- A Biafran Republic leveraging its entrepreneurial spirit to build a Singapore-like economic hub and channeling its oil wealth directly into environmental and social justice in its coastal regions.

- A Middle Belt Federation prioritizing agrarian reform and tourism potentials.

 

In these smaller, culturally cohesive states, citizens would eliminate the friction of competing identities. Freed from the toxic rhetoric of a “national unity” that benefits only the elite could shed the mental chains of “Nigerianness”—an identity synonymous with wasted potential—and forge new social contracts. In such states, the opioid of ethnic hatred loses potency, leaders would face sharper scrutiny; accountability would become unavoidable. Ethnicity, no longer a tool for manipulation, would evolve into a cultural asset rather than a political weapon.  

Critics will warn of Yugoslavia-style violence. But Nigeria is already a warzone—Boko Haram insurgencies, banditry, communal clashes kill thousands annually, security agents’ k*lling of peaceful protesters, and those exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to self-determination. The difference? These conflicts are fuelled by a centralized system that ignores local realities. The division would allow regions to address their unique crises without the bottleneck of a biased federal structure. 

 

Awakening Through Sovereignty 

Serbia’s citizens awakened by rejecting division. However, Nigeria needs to embrace division to reject sedation. The illusion of unity has stifled progress, perpetuating a cycle in which citizens blame one another while elites loot in plain sight. 

 

Balkanization is not a guarantee of utopia, but it is an acknowledgment of reality: Nigeria, as it stands, is a prison of the mind. Its citizens, like sedated patients, cling to the familiar pain of tribal hatred because the cure—true nationhood—requires courage they’ve been conditioned to fear. 

To awaken, the “peoples” trapped in Nigeria must first be free—free to fail, free to fight, free to govern themselves. Smaller nations may stumble, but in their struggle, citizens will rediscover agency.

Conclusion: 

The path forward is clear: dissolve the artifice. Let new nations emerge, not as fragments of failure, but as laboratories of renewal. The sedation will lift when the spell of “One Nigeria” breaks—and in its place, a thousand awakenings SHALL bloom.

 

By: ~S. C. Obasi~