Thank you, IDT, for this sobering, powerful reflection. Your words cut deep — because they are true.

We are a nation still trapped in the shadow of betrayal. Our leaders have governed with detachment, ruling over us without truly being part of us. Their final act — to die abroad — only confirms what many of us have long felt: they never believed in the country they led.

Your piece forces us to confront uncomfortable truths:

Our hospitals remain death traps, not because we lack the resources, but because we lacked the will and the leadership to build better.
Our roads kill, not by accident, but by design because maintenance was never profitable to those in charge.
And our silence, as citizens, has often been bought with token promises and short-term distractions.
You ask, “What legacy did they truly leave behind?”
Sadly, the answer is clear: a legacy of flight, not faith.
Flight from responsibility.
Flight from consequence.
Flight from the nation itself.

But let your words also serve as a wake-up call, not just an elegy. Because the question now is not only what they did — but what we will do.

Will we continue to applaud wealth stolen from hospitals and hidden in foreign homes?
Will we keep electing those who treat public service as private enterprise?
Will we allow Nigeria to remain a cemetery for the poor and a cash machine for the powerful?
Or will we, finally, demand more?

You wrote, “We don’t need leaders who flee to die. We need leaders who live and if necessary, die with dignity among their people.”

Yes. And we also need citizens who will not forget. Who will remember these betrayals at the ballot box. Who will build, not just criticize. Who will stay, not flee.

Thank you for speaking the truth not with malice, but with purpose. May your words stir conscience, inspire courage, and ignite change.

We owe it to the dead. And more importantly, to the living.

SHAKA ABDUL ISAH aka DONSHAKA .