Nigerian... and Tired…
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In conversation with a friend recently and I casually made a statement about my country failing me. I think my specific words were “you know that deep helplessness and disappointment..?” And the blank stare and long blink I got from her in response was all I needed to realise how deeply I had normalised the trauma of simply being Nigerian; the toxicity of unhealthy dependency. That relationship where you give and give and give and just when you think there’s no more left to give and you definitely deserve better, you’re handed a morsel, some measly crumbs and you think “oh well! Maybe being Nigerian is not so bad. We’re fun, cool and we have amazing jollof rice!”
Being Nigerian is such a complex existence. People want to understand us, but when we try to explain, no matter how empathetic they may be, the chasm gets wider. Somehow, over the years the burden has been on us to make our plight more understandable, more palatable. We’ve deployed humour, music, dance, slangs, an entire brand kit that screams “I’m Nigerian, I’m hip, I’m cool, I’m confident, I’m enterprising, I’m better than those stories you read and those emails you receive!” We welcomed that burden. It was our chance to change the narrative, but what a burden it was. Much like the molested woman who is asked why she didn’t dress well, the BLM protester who is accused of being a lowkey looter who always wanted to break into Nordstrom, the person with the video recording his friend’s death at the toll gate who is encouraged to not rock the boat and give the government any reason to take firm action. Like all these people, to whom most of us can sadly relate, we have borne the weighted burden of proving ourselves worthy to the world; explaining that we are more than the dominant narrative.
“When a nation is failing, you see it in the eyes of its people.”
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What no one sees or talks about is what happens at the end of the day when we drop that burden to stretch our backs. What happens when I need to engage with the fact that Nigeria has failed me? What happens when I get so used to providing basic amenities for myself that I start to wonder where I got the idea that I am even entitled to not being failed? Are they really failing me? Aren’t I being the proverbial fool that keeps expecting different results by doing the same hope-pray-complain dance everyday? Why should we have to be the “strong people”? Why do I have to brag about my resilience not because it’s a skill I sought after to complete my human experience but actually it’s a coping mechanism because I cannot “come and go and die”?
Okay I hear you thinking “maybe we can depend on each other”, but what do we do with that? After complaining, what next? We tried that, but Nigerians don’t know how to wallow without action. Yes, we’ve been so conditioned to accept that “change rests with you” which in itself is not a bad thing but hey what about the guys who promised us change? The ones who take a portion of our income to protect us? No response?
So we turned it into a sport. Let’s see who has more pain, who has endured the most, who’s the strongest. Normal people will never understand why a sympathiser who comes to pay condolence visits passionately describes what happened when they also lost someone, or tells you about another person who died of an even more horrific accident. Or what about the guy who hears that you’re ill and goes “na wetin kill Emeka sister be that o!” It seems like a pain contest, some sort of challenge to stick it up to the big guys and maybe ourselves that despite what was thrown at us, we’re strong people. Until being strong is not a choice, not even a necessity, but they somehow made us think it was our duty. Someone said to my mum “you have other children, stop crying!” when she was mourning her son’s death. It’s not poor etiquette. It’s not wickedness or insensitivity, at least not completely. It’s helplessness. It’s a cry for deep healing.
Moving on didn’t really help. Resilience wasn’t working. Making do seemed like we were having our souls pierced day after day. Still it was normal. We were “coping”. But then they started killing us. For no logical reason! We had a formula. Don’t join “bad gang”, get an education, don’t steal, keep the right company, avoid dangerous areas. Still, young people were being shot and arrested and abducted. For not having cash in their pockets, for hairstyles, for the value of their own privately-funded property. I hear my non-Nigerian friends saying “they need to speak up!” Well, we did just that. Peacefully. We turned it into a party (because, Nigerian), cleaned up afterwards, used technology, social media, advocacy, all the “normal channels” to make this cry heard across the world. To those people we carry the burden for. The ones that have so magnanimously accepted that we’re not like they expected based on what they read, “oh she’s a different kind of Nigerian” Yeah those ones. We shared hashtags with them, we did the “right thing”!
But the people who swore to protect and serve turned off the lights; and to the soundtrack of the melody of the national anthem, advanced on a throng of unarmed peaceful young people, already victims to a country they were still pledging allegiance to; and shot people with live ammunition. Oh they didn’t end there. They deleted this event from their memories despite the existence of actual evidence. They have remained silent. They are advising us to “move on” and “let peace reign” so the cycle can refresh and get back to us picking up that burden.
“In the end, the question of whether a country is failing may best be answered by its own people. If their eyes say “we have been deserted,” the verdict has been rendered.”
But now we bear a different kind of burden. A new pain. It’s unique because we haven’t felt this cocktail of emotions before. In 12 days we went from sad to frustrated to angry to reasonable to methodical to hopeful to organised to frustrated to determined to….. Dead? A lot of our oomph died with those people on 20th October. At least 10 people in the last 24 hours have told me they’re numb. We are tired. We are angry but too tired to react. We are hurt but too tired to attempt to stop the tears. We have been debased but are too tired to cover our shame. We are broken but too tired to use our default coping mechanisms. It’s a new pain and we are trying to learn what to do with it. We will rise again, in a minute or a few months. We will use our votes and our voices again. We will use our numbers and our pens and our keyboards. We will dance and sign and organise again. But for now, please allow the resilient overburdened Nigerians to just be tired. For just a little bit. We will be back.
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