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In the scorched annals of human tragedy, certain events do not merely break a nation; they fundamentally alter its DNA. When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the instantaneous flash of heat was only the beginning of the end.

The true horror was the invisible, creeping poison, the fallout that drifted into the lungs of the innocents in Nagasaki and beyond, deforming generations yet unborn.

Today, Nigeria is not being governed; it is being radiated.

This present administration did not arrive as a builder’s crane, but as a “Little Boy” dropped onto the fragile ethnic nationalities unity, weary economy and thriving insecurity.

We are no longer living in a developing nation; we are living in a fallout zone, breathing the toxic dust of a catastrophic policy explosion that has disfigured the very essence of what it means to be a Nigerian.

An atomic explosion begins with a blinding light, a moment where sight is lost and reality is vaporised. For Nigeria, that flash occurred on the inauguration day of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu – 29th of May, 2023.

With a single, unscripted sentence, “Subsidy is gone”, the detonator was pressed. There was no lead shielding for the vulnerable.

There were no cooling towers of social safety nets, and no bunkers for the poor. In that instant, the Nigerian middle class was vaporised.

This sudden detonation ignored the physics of poverty: you cannot remove the floor from beneath a man already standing on a precipice and expect him to fly.

That one unpleasant flash blinded the markets, sent the Naira into a freefall of subatomic proportions, and left 200 million people stumbling through the smoke of their own disappearing livelihoods.

The true horror of the 1945 bomb was the “Black Rain”—the radioactive water that fell on those desperate for a drink.

In the current Nigerian landscape, the fallout is the hyper-inflation that clings to every loaf of bread, every liter of fuel, and every strip of malaria medication.

This is a cataclysmic disfigurement.

We see it in the eyes of fathers who can no longer look at their children in the faces, because the “radiation” of the economy has rendered their hard labor worthless. We see it in the collapse of our social sectors. The “neighboring town” of Education is dying of leukemia; the “neighboring town” of Healthcare is suffering from total organ failure.

The “neighboring town” of insecurity has become a state thriving business.

Like the survivors in Hiroshima, Nigerians are walking around with “keloids” on their spirits, thick, ugly scars of trauma that no “Renewed Hope” slogan can mask.

The tragedy is compounded by the uncared nature of the “scientist” in the control room.

An atomic bomb is indifferent to the beauty of the architecture it levels; similarly, this regime seems indifferent to the well-being architectural design of Nigerians. A clear pointer that, while the nation burns, the radiation spreads.

Recently, in Borno State, Nigerians were bombed by insurgents; our gallant soldiers were ambushed and slaughtered just days prior. Yet, the Commander-in-Chief offered no solemn condolence, no national mourning. Instead, he boarded the Presidential Jet, heading to London for what appeared to be a “Film Festival.”

There was no remorse, no pause to honor the dead. The message was clear: the lives being liquidated are merely collateral damage in the Nigerian leadership experiment theatre.

In 1945, the radiation didn’t stay in Hiroshima alone as it spreads uncomfortably to other places.

In 2026, the poverty does not stay in the slums. It has reached the gated communities; it has reached the diaspora who can no longer sustain their families; it has reached the very marrow of our national pride.

We have become a disfigured giant, limping across the world stage, leaking the radiation of our own internal collapse.

How do you heal a child whose brain was stunted because protein became a luxury during the “Tinubu Fallout”?

This is a genetic deformity of a nation’s future that no single budget cycle can repair. We are being deformed by a regime that views human suffering as a mere statistical variable.

“Nigeria is currently scorched in the earth not because it lacks the best brains or wealth, but because, we chose the worst brains to manage the best brains and wealth”.- DSM.

Today an era has ensured that for the next generation, the primary goal will not be innovation or greatness, but mere decontamination.

We are focused solely on surviving the poison, and as such, we have normalised the high fever of 30% inflation; we have normalised the stunted growth of our industries; we have normalised the radiation sickness of constant insecurity and national grid collapses.

The American bomb ended a war, but at the cost of humanity’s innocence.

The Tinubu “bomb” has ended the dreams of many Nigerians. We are now a people mutated by hardship, living under a mushroom cloud that was created by the hubris of bad policies.

As we look at the ruins of our purchasing power and the ash of our aspirations, we must realise that recovery will not be a simple matter of policy reversal. You cannot un-radiate a body. You cannot un-drop a bomb. We are left only with the bitter task of counting the casualties and wondering how a single regime was allowed to become the Hiroshima of our collective history.

The landscape hit by an atomic blast takes decades to become habitable again. The soil must be turned and the water filtered. To save what remains of the Nigerian spirit, we must find a way to neutralise the “toxicity of indifference”.

If the 1945 bomb ended a war, the Tinubu regime has started one: a war of survival for the Nigerian people.

The scars will be permanent. The question that remains is whether there will be enough of the Nigerian souls left to rebuild once the dust finally settles.

The final answer that must counter “Hans Geiger” as replicated by Tinubu’s Atomic Policies will be found in the “Result Sheets” of the 2027 elections.

Until then, we must walk through the fallout of our choice in 2023, waiting for us to consciously stop the “Black Rain” in 2027… even as I come in PEACE.

Dr. Sunny Oby Maduka (DSM), is an Author, Resource Personality, Management Consultant/ Trainer, Chartered/Certified – A u d i t o r / A c c o u n t a n t , Financial Compliance Expert, Economic/Political Analyst Strategist, Marine Expert and Motivationist)