A Birthday Like No Other – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

Birthdays remind me of time. They remind me of journeys taken and roads still ahead. I have lived long enough to see many birthdays come and go. I have also lived long enough to know that I do not need a date on a calendar to celebrate life. I learned early that each morning is a gift. Each dawn that breaks the hold of night is a quiet miracle. That has always been enough for me. I have never been one to mark or celebrate birthdays. My 50th was the rare exception. My wife gathered friends and family for a surprise dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Slough, United Kingdom. The meals were sumptuous. The laughter was rich. The warmth in that room stayed with me long after the plates were cleared. Four years later, at 54, friends and comrades surprised me with a webinar lecture delivered by my dependable friend and long-time confidant, Professor Chidi Odinkalu. It was thoughtful. It was reflective. It was the kind of gift that speaks to the mind. These moments remain precious, not because they were grand, but because they broke a lifelong habit of quiet birthdays shaped by the belief that the grace of daily breath is celebration enough.

This year follows the same quiet tradition. No party. No fanfare. No noise. The country around me makes celebration feel out of place. Nigeria has become a landscape of anxieties. The air feels heavy. The roads feel unsafe. The nights are filled with the sounds of mourning. It is hard to raise a glass when the country sinks deeper into chaos. I went to bed on the eve of my birthday with news of bloodletting. Another village attacked. More families displaced. More bodies counted. More children orphaned. This has become the new rhythm of our nights. Violence arrives without warning. It enters homes. It stalks highways. It hunts communities. Terror has become a neighbour. Morning of my birthday has not brought good news.

I woke up today to reports of young graduates from Ondo State who had been mobilised for national service. They were full of hope. They were headed to a future they believed was waiting for them. They died in a road accident near Abuja. Their journey ended on the same soil they wished to serve. There is no pain greater than a dream cut short. Their parents will never recover. Their state will remember them only as statistics. This country is cruel in its forgetfulness.
As I tried to make sense of this grief, another tragedy unfolded. In neighbourhoods near Abuja, the caterpillars of Governor Sule of Nasarawa State roared to life. They moved through poor settlements with ruthless energy. They brought down stalls. They shattered the small hopes of people who live from hand to mouth. Those traders were guilty of nothing. Their only offence was being born in a country where leaders treat the poor as disposable. They lost the little they had in the blink of an eye. Power displayed itself in the loud crash of metal. Governance showed itself in the dust rising behind bulldozers. This is the story of Nigeria today.

A country that has gone to the dogs. A country where life is fragile. A country where tragedy has become a daily companion. We have become a nation accustomed to sorrow. We mourn with a strange numbness. We bury victims with a kind of quiet acceptance. We protest less. We pray more. We hope for change but watch things fall apart faster than our voices can rise.

Governance has collapsed. Institutions that should protect us now watch helplessly. Security agencies are overwhelmed. Leaders speak in circles. Policies are announced with no impact on the lives of ordinary people. The poor continue to carry the weight of bad decisions. The rich continue to float above the consequences. The gap widens. The despair deepens. Fear rules our highways. Hunger stalks our cities. Inflation turns salaries to dust. Hospitals struggle to save lives with empty shelves. Schools operate like relics of a forgotten era. The youths dream of leaving. The elders worry about staying. Everything feels unstable. Everything looks dim.

There is a growing silence in our public life. It is the silence of resignation. People no longer expect anything from the state. They no longer believe promises. They no longer trust institutions. They simply find ways to survive each day. That is what this country has reduced its citizens to. Survivors. Not participants in a democracy. Not beneficiaries of development. Just survivors.
It is in this climate that my birthday arrives. It feels strange to speak of gratitude in times like these. But I remain grateful for life. I remain grateful for breath. I remain grateful for the strength to witness another year. I remain grateful for the gift of reflection. Birthdays are milestones, whether celebrated or not. They allow us to pause. They allow us to take stock. They allow us to think about the country we live in and the one we wish to see.

Nigeria can still change. It can still reclaim its soul. It can still rise from this wreckage. But it needs leadership with empathy. Leadership with courage. Leadership that treats human life as sacred. Leadership that understands that development is not measured in demolished stalls or inflated contracts. It is measured in the dignity of citizens. It is measured in the safety of children. It is measured in the freedom of people to dream without fear.

As I mark this birthday in silence, I hold on to hope. Hope is not a sentimental refuge. It is the force that steadies the mind when the country feels like a collapsing house. In times like these, surrender tempts even the strongest souls. It whispers that nothing will change. It urges people to retreat into private corners and abandon the idea of a common good. The danger is that surrender does not only weaken individuals. It weakens societies. Once a people accept their fate as permanent, injustice becomes normal. Corruption becomes routine. Violence becomes background noise. Hope prevents that slide. It keeps the door open to the idea that this country can still rise from its brokenness. Hope must be protected because it fuels resistance. Resistance is the refusal to let darkness define us. It is the decision to speak when silence is safer. It is the courage to demand accountability in a landscape where leaders prefer obedience.

A nation dies when its people stop resisting the things that destroy them. Hope keeps that death at bay. It gives citizens the strength to confront power. It gives the poor the will to stand after each blow. It gives the grieving the resolve to seek justice. As long as hope lives, the possibility of change lives with it. That is why we must guard it. That is why we must keep it alive, even in this long night.

A birthday like no other. A country like no other. A people carrying burdens they did not create. They wake each day to uncertainty. They bear the weight of leaders who fail them and institutions that no longer protect them. They navigate streets that threaten them and an economy that mocks their efforts. Yet they stand. They keep moving. They hold families together with little more than grit. Their resilience is not born of comfort but of necessity. It is the quiet determination of a people who refuse to let despair swallow them.

Still they breathe. Still they hope. Still they wait for the dawn that will break this darkness. They wait for a moment when security is no longer a luxury and when dignity is restored to public life. They wait for leaders who understand service. They wait for a country that cares for its weakest. They wait, not in passive silence, but in the stubborn belief that nights, however long, give way to morning. That belief sustains them. That belief must keep our country from collapsing under its own weight.

For now, that stubborn endurance is enough.

That, for now, is enough.