Most of the time I feel small, tiny, insignificant, because of my race, gender, culture and especially because of the country I was born into, the continent on which my birth took place. Sometimes I resent my parents for birthing me here. And yet I know it’s no one’s fault, except maybe the ‘creators’ of the world as it is. Those who created the ‘rules,’ and exploited others to make themselves great, the veto powers, the makers and enforcers of international laws. It’s all bullshit!
It is part of the reason I feel most awful when I travel; the passport I carry means I get to be discriminated against. And not the kind of discrimination that an Alt Right might show a person of color, but the subtle ‘these are just our rules,’ ‘this is just the way we do things’ type of discrimination. It is all very offensive.
I’ve always been the type of person who notices small things, insignificant things, like how whenever I’m travelling to an African country, my gate is always located at the shitty parts of the airport. I notice how I am treated when I hand over my passport. Suddenly the rules change and I am scrutinized, more often than not. I don’t want to care or analyze these things but I can’t help it. I get angry and upset and deeply unhappy.
There comes a time in every foreigner’s life when they decide, enough of the bullshit, I know my self-worth and cannot continue to endure these circumstances. They become homesick and long for a simpler time in their lives when they didn’t have to worry about visas and navigating worlds that aren’t your home, a time when they didn’t need to speak slowly or explain themselves or even break down their very name into pronounceable syllables so others can comprehend their very being. They are sick and tired of being the ‘other.’ And so they return home for some peace of mind and for the comfort of the familiar.
The first couple of weeks are fun and exciting as you indulge in all the foods and joys your country has to offer. As you re-assimilate yourself with your culture, or at least try to.
A while back I learned of a term, Third Country National (TCN). It’s a person who lives and works in a country that isn’t their home country. (In my case, even my ‘home country’ isn’t my country of birth). The term can also be used to refer to a person who hasn’t lived in their own country for so long that when they return they no longer fit in. It is also especially difficult for the individual because they can never fully belong, not to the country they have been living in, by the share fact that they are a foreigner there, and not to their country of birth because they have been gone for so long that they no longer remember/accept their culture as normal, and they cannot slide back in. So they now belong nowhere, like a person without a shadow of their former self.
As the weeks stretch to months, you remember why you left in the first place. You are from a third world country after all, so goodbye to all the comforts and conveniences you have become accustomed to. Your new found accent that used to delight others only now highlights how much you’ve changed and how much farther the country has moved on without you. No matter how experienced you think you are, you are now a novice, someone to be cheated, someone who needs to be protected from harm and evil. And you resent it all; your culture, your traditions, the way of life your ‘people’ choose to live every single day. For they don’t hear the things you say, they don’t see your reason. All they say is, ‘things like that can’t work here,’ or ‘go back to where you came from for peace of mind.’
Nigeria is my country of birth, and I have love and empathy for it for many reasons but especially because of the amount of suffering that exists within its borders. And even though sometimes I even feel a tiny bit of pride for Nigeria in some particular areas, I actually don’t like Nigeria. The longer I live here, I realize I actually do not like my country of birth. Sometimes so much so that I feel like needles are pricking my skin and I want to flee with the wind, out of here as soon as possible.
This country is designed to be pathetic, so that all who are able and willing to, will leave, and no one of substance, who can evoke change, will remain here. And through all the brokenness evil and corruption will prevail as usual; the rich will keep getting richer through fraudulent means, politicians can continue their sickness and lies without no one ever challenging them, ever! And disorder and disarray can continue to erode at whatever beauty and purity is left, as things continue to degenerate until God knows when.
I don’t like our culture, our way of life, our mindset, our jingoism despite the country being shit, our self-worth found in religion, our self-righteousness. I find it all very irritating. But before you close this page, I urge you to suppress that surge of anger you feel, put aside your pride and that “Nigeria is the best country” attitude, and hear me out. Don’t you see that this is our fundamental problem? If you like something too much and hold onto it, nothing will ever change. So why do we praise this country to the skies and yet complain and complain and complain about its shortcomings.
When they say one about Nigeria, you’ll say ten in her defense and argue with your life about how great Nigeria is, and yet you don’t have a job, or your job pays you next to nothing, you haven’t had light in weeks or your light is very unstable; and, you have been fetching water for months now. You are stressed, forced to squeeze yourself into stuffy, grossly over-crowded buses, stuck in traffic for hours in the terrible heat of this country. And yet you defend this country to the tooth and nail.
If a Nigerian wakes up one morning and without any prompting or backing facts, decides that Murtala Muhammed Airport is the best international airport on the planet, even if they’ve never left the country or seen pictures of other international airports, they will die on that topic and it’s the most ridiculous thing. Many Nigerians just love to argue pointlessly, and many are loud and irritating about it. It only just highlights the person’s ignorance.
Don’t you understand? By not defending Nigeria blindly, you’ll be able to see more clearly that a lot of the daily occurrences in your life are wrong, and should not be happening, especially in a country as rich and as educated as ours. Think about it.
Nigerians love enjoyment but at their core, they don’t value ‘the good life’ that’s why bare necessities like electricity and water are still a problem. If they valued having it, they would have it. Nigerians are too used to hardship, it’s what’s crippling us. People don’t care, they just do what works for them without thinking for a moment what it does to others.
Nigeria sucks the life out of you. It is extremely difficult to remain hopeful here or to achieve things; the country doesn’t let you. It instead frustrates the life out of you, and especially does all it can to keep you down until you’re utterly defeated with no hopes of achieving your dreams. So you either give up or resign yourself to God and/or fate, or you run away to another country that will value you and your talents. Or, you resort to evil and corruption so you can achieve those dreams.
For the vast majority in current Nigeria, it is near impossible to be successful legally, and it’s impossible to be filthy rich without getting your hands a little dirty. Quote me on that.
And you would think, with all these, change must be inevitable. Except that Nigeria changing is inconceivable because people here are too disorganized to unite and make sustainable change, or demand it from the government. Most cannot even come together on tiny things like fixing the giant potholes that riddle their neighborhood street. They would rather complain daily and wait for the government that we all know doesn’t give two shits about even the major problems, much less the hole in your street.
They’ll rather ‘rely’ on these people than take a little money out of their pockets to try and fix the problem. Yes, it’s not our job but it is a necessity. Unless of course, it really doesn’t matter to them and they are secretly okay damaging their cars daily, and kissing goodbye to peace of mind and sanity by continuously dodging potholes every single day, for the rest of their waking days.
The amount of time and brain energy it takes you to function daily in Nigeria, is enough to exhaust you for a lifetime. Once you spend a day going through traffic, in the heat, returning home to no electricity, or water, to mosquitoes biting your flesh, and to the constant noisiness of the country… the amount of stress that comes upon you; being unable to shower, or flush the toilet after use, or wash the dirty dishes in the sink. It demoralizes you. You won’t be able to focus on your art or calling and be creative, because you are way too stressed to function.
It is impossible to emulate the life you had abroad here, even just a little bit. (Unless you are filthy rich). Nigeria is so stressful and merciless that only the strong and ferocious can survive here, in Lagos especially, or it will chew and spit you out.
The worst fate is to have left Nigeria for so long without having other options outside of Nigeria, but being forced to return to the putrid mess you thought you had left behind, the disarray you were sure you’d never ever return to. And now you’re forced to confront this painful reality and call it home.
I’m only in love with Nigeria from the luxury of being far away. Nigeria is black water that sucks you in. The suffering, the pain, the mess is all too much! Sometimes you feel like if you don’t numb yourself to it all, you’ll run mad or die. So you create a haven for yourself, your niche, and fill it with nice and pretty things. You surround yourself with people you love and people who distract you from the emptiness and meaninglessness of this life we are all living.
And we survive, and we go on, and we keep on keeping on. And all the while nothing ever changes, positively. Our country continues to degenerate. And we cry out louder to God to reach down from heaven and save us. But that’s not how God works. Or haven’t you heard: ‘Heaven helps those who help themselves?’ Which I used to think meant, if God sees your efforts, He helps you. Now it seems more like, ‘If you truly, truly want help. Help yourself!
The only thing that keeps me going here on most days, no matter how disappointed in my country I am, is that the sky is the same everywhere. It looks the same and feels the same, and that is very comforting. Even though down below is filled with filth, abject poverty, and all manners of evil, high up above there is beauty, calmness, peace and serenity, there is hope for a brighter tomorrow. And that grounds me when I feel myself slipping away, when I feel the bounds of sanity escaping me. I remember that nothing is forever, even the current terrible state of Nigeria.
zizbaby 