There’s lit­tle de­bate that the type of ju­bi­lance that we have cel­e­brat­ed the start of a new year with in the past, was not present last night as we crossed in­to 2025.

There is, nat­u­ral­ly, a heavy feel­ing about the way things went in 2024.

If any­thing, many are hap­py to bid 2024 good­bye with the hope that 2025 will bring some turn­around in the prob­lems the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enced.

The sup­port the Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived from a wide cross-sec­tion of cit­i­zens and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty for the State of Emer­gency, is a re­flec­tion of just how frus­trat­ed the na­tion has been with the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

But con­vinc­ing the na­tion enough to hope for a brighter 2025 can on­ly be achieved with a sus­tained ef­fort that brings about a re­al im­pact.

The task that all arms of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus face is not on­ly to sup­press se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, but to en­sure that the el­e­ments that fu­el them, in­clud­ing the in­flux of drugs and guns, are al­so ad­dressed and sup­pressed.

The start of the year al­so ush­ers in the Car­ni­val sea­son, which of­fers many of us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to di­vert our fo­cus away from the de­press­ing sce­nar­ios we’ve been ex­posed to for a sus­tained pe­ri­od. We can­not, how­ev­er, al­low the cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties to cloud our judge­ments.

Even with po­lice op­er­at­ing on a height­ened state of alert, those de­ter­mined to cause dis­rup­tions and car­ry out their ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties will con­tin­ue to seek ways to do so.

De­spite that, we must cel­e­brate our cul­ture to the fullest as a re­flec­tion of the re­silient peo­ple we are.

It is the songs of our cul­ture that have of­ten giv­en us rea­son to hope.

The Mighty Spar­row’s ‘Uni­ty’ re­mind­ed us that if “you put a hand and I put a hand, then we shall see, for big and for small, in no time at all, pros­per­i­ty.”

The late Black Stal­in al­so told us that when the coun­try is fac­ing its dark­est hour, “we can make it if we try, just a lit­tle hard­er.”

In the short Car­ni­val sea­son of 2024, it was Mi­cal Te­ja’s ‘DNA’ that echoed loud­ly as an an­them to us with the re­minder that “free­dom is in our DNA” and that there is “no place like home.”

But what we saw af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties in 2024 was a re­turn to our ugli­er side, as gang vi­o­lence, rob­beries, kid­nap­pings, ex­tor­tions and home in­va­sions forced many in­to ar­eas of frus­tra­tion and de­spair.

The clear in­abil­i­ty of our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to find com­mon ground in sup­port of mea­sures that would sup­press crime of­fered lit­tle hope of a quick res­o­lu­tion to the woes.

Amid the gloom, there was lit­tle by way of in­spi­ra­tion through sport­ing achieve­ments of in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, with the sin­gle biggest mood-lifter com­ing from Joshua Re­grel­lo’s in­cred­i­ble 31-hour pan feat last week.

We can­not let the fail­ures of 2024 be re­peat­ed in 2025.

Our fight against crim­i­nals must not on­ly be con­front­ed with the tough­ness that it de­serves but must be sus­tained through­out the year.

The in­jec­tion of con­fi­dence that the war is tilt­ing in favour of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens can on­ly boost the sup­port and as­sis­tance that the po­lice will need from cit­i­zens.

May the new year bring a re­newed de­ter­mi­na­tion among all of us to re­turn our coun­try to the peace­ful, fun-lov­ing place it once was.

On that note, we wish our read­ers a safe and hap­py 2025.