Posted on 2025-10-01

History

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Written by Joypearl

65 YEARS OF FREEDOM: NIGERIA’S JOURNEY TO INDEPENDENCE

They had called it a distant dream for decades.

Generations had lived under rules they didn’t make, borders they didn’t choose, and voices that were not their own.

They had been taxed without consent, ruled without respect, and sold into trades that tore families apart.

Yet, through it all, the spirit of a people refused to be broken.

Leaders rose voices that could not be silenced. Men and women who organized, spoke, wrote, and fought, not with the intent to conquer others, but to reclaim what was theirs by birth.

Kwame, Nnamdi, Obafemi, Funmilayo, the names were many, the stories vast, but they all carried the same flame. The dream of a free land. A land of peace and love.

Independence didn’t arrive quietly. It came after protests, petitions, speeches in crowded halls, and whispers in hidden rooms.

It came after the world had profited from the suffering of Africans, after the slave trade and colonization had left scars on bodies, minds, and hearts.

And yet, the people endured. They strategized, resisted, and demanded their right to self-rule.

Then, on October 1, 1960, the chains began to fall. The Union Jack was lowered.

A new flag rose. And for the first time in living memory, Nigerians saw themselves not as subjects of a distant king but as citizens of a nation they could shape.

The streets filled with joy, tears, and songs.

Freedom had a taste, bitter in memory but sweet in promise.

Today, we celebrate 65 years of freedom. Sixty-five years since the day Nigeria reclaimed her voice, her power, and her place in the world.

But independence is not just a date; it is a responsibility to honor the courage of those who fought, to build the nation they dreamed of, and to never forget the price of liberty.

That day, Nigeria did not just celebrate a flag or a date. Nigeria celebrated the triumph of courage over oppression, of vision over chains, of a people who refused to accept that they were meant to be anything less than free.

Joypearl 🤍🦋✍️

#happyindependenceday2025

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