We await the dawn of the New Year 2025 with bated breath. Very soon, the exchange of New Year messages will fill the air across the globe. Tonight, multi-colored fireworks and firecrackers will light up the skies in Tokyo, France, China, Japan, Washington D.C., London, Spain, and Abuja as we usher in the New Year. Tonight is a sleepless night—a vigil night. We keep vigil as we transition into a brand-new year.
In Nigeria, our ingenuity in crafting sanctimonious New Year messages is unmatched and unparalleled. “I wish you prosperity in 2025.” “2025, my year of financial breakthrough.” “Favor, promotion, good health, breakthrough, victory, anointing for excellence in 2025.”
These are some of the New Year messages reverberating on WhatsApp and other social media platforms tonight. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear people shouting: “Crossover! Come to our church and cross over!”
Our revelry in all sorts of superstitious beliefs about the goodness or badness of the New Year knows no bounds. Many Christian worshippers are currently sleeping in churches, determined to cross over to the New Year in worship. They believe it’s wrong to cross over in a beer parlor or in drunken stupor. But cross over to where, you may ask? From frying pan to fire? If you didn’t sow anything in 2024, why are you expecting to reap a huge harvest in 2025?
Please, don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing against the exchange of New Year messages. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with sending good wishes and messages like these. In fact, we should maintain an optimistic and cheerful attitude toward life. We must focus on the brighter side of things—no defeatist attitudes, no surrender to failure. We are not melancholies or sadists who see only the dark side of life. We are full of faith, hope, and love. Therefore, it’s proper and fitting to wish ourselves all the goodness that 2025 might bring.
But don’t be naive. I know you have faith, but be sensible too. How is it said again? “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” If wishes alone could transform reality, Nigeria would already be the most politically stable and economically prosperous country in the world. One does not reap where one has not sown. If we sowed chaos in 2024, why should we expect to reap a bountiful harvest in 2025? If the Tinubu government was a failure in 2024, why would we suddenly expect instant economic prosperity in 2025?
You see, no New Year comes with intrinsic economic prosperity. No New Year arrives with prepackaged blessings. The New Year will be good or bad only to the extent that we—the living—work hard to make it so. God has created us and endowed us with intelligence and free will. We shouldn’t expect God to perform miracles to solve problems that are well within our human capacity to address. For example, don’t expect God to feed you when He has already given you hands with which to work.
Our miracle and prosperity mongers often forget that happiness and sorrow are inseparable in this life. Nothing good here lasts forever. Hardly has any pleasure begun before it ends. We are mere wayfarers on earth, and our path is intertwined with both joy and suffering. No cross, no crown.
As St. Josemaria Escriva aptly puts it: “On this earth, love and suffering are inseparable; in this life, we have to expect the Cross. Whoever does not expect the Cross is not a Christian. Whoever does not look for the Cross will encounter it anyway and will find that it brings despair. If you look for the Cross with Jesus on the Cross, you can be sure that at the hardest moments, if they come, you will be in the best company—happy, strong, and secure.”
So, stop wishing away the difficulties of life, for they are inevitable whether you like them or not. God has no reason to work to a miracle to solve ordinary human problem which has not surpassed your human intelligence. If you ask me, I would say the miracle we urgently need in Nigeria at the moment is the miracle of putting our human intelligence to work to improve the well-being of our fellow human beings. Let us use our God-given intelligence to positively transform Nigeria in 2025.
As I mentioned earlier, no New Year is intrinsically good or bad. You must work to make the New Year what you want it to be. If you are hard-working, the New Year will likely be good for you. If you are lazy, it will likely be bad for you.
We must stop deluding ourselves into believing that simply denouncing Satan and his works with an air of hubristic self-righteousness inside a church on New Year’s Eve will magically erase all troubles and suffering in 2025. That is not how life works. Troubles and challenges will not vanish overnight. It is not enough to renounce the evils plaguing our society as if that alone would negate their powers. Instead, we must work diligently for the good of our families and society.
As I’ve said before, God has given us intelligence, and He expects us to use it to improve the well-being of our fellow men and women. God has no reason to work miracles to solve problems in Nigeria that we can solve ourselves with effort and creativity.
As we enter yet another New Year, let us remind ourselves that no New Year comes with prepackaged blessings or miracles. You have to work for the success of your New Year. Resolve to do your ordinary work with a sense of responsibility. The Presidency must demonstrate greater responsibility in 2025—no more wasteful expenditures. The same goes for the National Assembly.
Likewise, the judiciary, that vital third arm of government entrusted with the sacred duty of dispensing justice, must restore its credibility. 2024 was a disastrous year for the Nigerian judiciary. It has become an object of ridicule, tainted by the very people who are supposed to uphold its integrity. The alarming levels of official corruption and moral decay in both the Bar and the Bench must end. Judges must adorn the breastplate of integrity, transparency, discipline, impartiality, and honor in discharging their sacred duties. Similarly, practicing lawyers, as officers of the temple of justice, must cease tempting judges with bribes.
Lyman Bryson once said, “Great citizens are built upon greatness when their leaders dare to let them use their minds, when the state helps them to know the competing choices open to them, preserving for them the essential democratic spirit which seeks truths by its own efforts.” Unfortunately, the opposite of Bryson’s vision is happening in Nigeria today. This cannot continue. This is not life.
While we sing redemption songs at the dawn of the New Year, let us remain focused on solving the small but significant problems that improve the lives of our families and the ordinary man on the street. We should not expect God to solve these problems for us. Instead, we must use our God-given intelligence and resolve to work out our collective salvation in Nigeria.