60 years of Nigeria defeating Nigerians

In 1976, a young man returned to Nigeria after his university program to commence his youth service year. He was posted to Sokoto where against all odds, he fell in love with the extreme weather and the rustic environment. Working in the civil service, he distinguished himself and received the highest recommendation from his bosses. When the year was over, he expected that as was customary, he would be asked to stay and take up a full time position in the civil service.

Instead, he was told that such positions were reserved for indigenes and those from Northern Nigeria. “If you’re looking for a full time position, you’ll have to go back to your Lagos,” he was told, “The best we can offer you is a renewable 6-month contract.” Bear in mind that at the time, being a first class university graduate with a promising resume was an almost guaranteed passport to success in Nigeria. Being offered a short term contract was nothing short of an insult as far as he was concerned.

Decades later after returning to Lagos and building a very successful career there, he would recount the story to his youngest son who would listen with rapt attention. He would tell him that he did everything he was supposed to do and followed every rule and yet Nigeria still found a way to deny him. He couldn’t help the fact that he was from Lagos and it should not have mattered anyway, he would say. Summing up the story, he would tell his little boy, “I learned that there is no such thing as ‘One Nigeria.’ Also, Nigeria is not fair, so you must protect your own interests at all times. This country is a jungle.”

The little boy who heard these words grew up, finished school, started his own career, watched his beloved old man die, and is currently dealing with several iterations of the same issue of Nigeria defeating the purest aspirations of its people. That boy is also the writer of this article. From 1960 through 1976 and down to 2020, it would seem as though Nigeria’s only proven existential function is to defeat Nigerians and create human sorrow.

‘Engage and don’t antagonise’

In 2020, 4 and a half decades after David Hundeyin Snr realised that Nigeria was set up to destroy his ambitions and he would have to constantly fight against the odds if he wanted more, it is more of the same. Not satisfied with merely denying its people of the resources and opportunities that other people take for granted in countries that are theoretically poorer, Nigeria is now a place where young people in the productive urban areas of the south effectively live under hostile occupation.

Going out and coming back home in one piece and without molestation at the hands of the Nigerian state has now become a genuine prayer point for its famously religious inhabitants. Rather than take a step back and ponder the absurdity of being terrified of what essentially amounts to their own elected government, young Nigerians have been trained to put their heads down, lie down quietly, take it and hope it will be someone else’s turn next time. Where my dad chose the “fight” option and taught his boys to likewise attack the world and beat it into their own vision if it would not be agreeable, this is clearly not a popular position.

I was amazed and disappointed in equal measure to see a prominent campaigner against police brutality proclaim that his campaign was intended to “engage and not antagonise” the authorities. He further proclaimed that the police whom according to House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, now inspire more fear in Nigerians than criminals, “are also victims” of the system.

Once again it appears that Nigeria has defeated even the best of it, and convinced them that demanding an end to rape, abduction, assault and murder at the hands of the operatives of an elected government is akin to “antagonising” them. We are all supposed to operate on the terms dictated by a country that has spent 60 years showing us in infinitely colourful ways that it does not give a hoot about our lives, hopes, dreams or ambitions.

You don’t have to accept it - but you’ve chosen to

If you read up to this point expecting it to be another “awa kontiri e nor good o” type article, you should probably stop reading now because this is where I turn my eyes from the page, look you in the eye and tell you very directly - this is your fault. Nigeria is your doing. You are the one who makes the decision everyday to be defeated by a country that has no new tricks. You are the owner of your own destiny who has chosen to allow someone bamboozle or bully you into subservience. Nigeria does not have to be a mess, but since you have decided to politely “engage” (if at all), instead of loudly and vigorously asserting your personhood, why would it change?

What is the reason that the security services that are meant to protect you now openly hunt you like a human game? What is the reason Nigeria’s legislature churns out bill after bill expressly going after your social freedoms, rule of law and property rights? What is the reason Nigeria works hard to exploit every available opportunity to make life difficult for you instead of doing a fraction of what other countries manage to do for their citizens? Why can’t you have good things in life once you are in Nigeria?

It is because you have refused to push back where and when it counts. It is because you refuse to develop the ability to feel and sustain anger over a long period of time. It is because you have the attention span of a goldfish, such that when the latest twitter hashtag dies down, your outrage dies with it. It is because you believe that a live dog is better than a dead lion, so you choose to kneel and cower in front of armed criminals in uniform, hoping that this will buy you some more time to experience the life of a dog.

You believe in existence instead of life, so you have given up the possibility of living like you could for the temporary assurance of living like you do. Whenever a maverick like someone mentioned at the outset who was trained to fight from a young age speaks up and threatens to make you feel bad about your voluntary enslavement, you predictably pile on them and drown out their voice so that you can communally share the mediocre comfort of misery in company.

For 60 years, this has been the case. For another 60 years or more, it could well continue if the national entity as we know it somehow makes it that far. For as long as Nigerians continue to dress up their cowardice and mediocrity as “decorum” and equanimity, nothing is going to change.

Once again it appears that Nigeria has defeated even the best of it, and convinced them that demanding an end to rape, abduction, assault and murder at the hands of the operatives of an elected government is akin to “antagonising” them