As a Nigerian
Life must be really tough right now
I just saw a woman singing the part where Jacob Banks sang about keeping an afro on Slow Up passionately, (sorry for the laugh but) why is a white person singing that passionately about an afro? Yes, I know this opening line makes me an ass especially because I sing passionately to London Grammar regardless of how white it might make me sound.
What a week it has been for the giants of Africa! crowdfunding 5 ransom payments shortly after a terrorist attack that the government refused to report on? we are collectively going through it. I’m listening to podcasts where IJGBs are doing recaps of their visit to Lagos and it’s just fascinating how far removed they are from the reality of living in Nigeria (outside Lagos of course). Speaking of Nigerians in the diaspora, some of you need to drop your short-term amnesia about things you’ve experienced or you’re experiencing. The amnesia finds its way out of your oesophagus when you try to make your ‘friends’ feel guilty about remaining at home for reasons best known to them.
And it is not like you did not sacrifice a lot to be where you are so why do you suddenly become an insensitive prick when the japa topic comes up with your friend back home? I believe you become that way when you refuse to acknowledge that you miss home and would prefer to be here if things were better. Needless to say, the same kinds would not recognise racially charged microaggression when they experience it because their strife to quickly forget homeland trauma makes everything that happens outside of the homeland right or at least better than home. I hope you extend more grace to yourself so that your friends can breathe without reading “When are you leaving that country” and all its other subtle variations.
In other good news, my dad (fondly called Ààrẹ) finally found the one 16 years after my dear Florence passed away. I like the new woman more than I’d like to admit because I really tried not to when I heard that they used to date long before my parents met. It also confirmed that men are rarely confused or indecisive about relationships. They are oftentimes enabled by women who are also indecisive about their future due to some conditioning. Anyway, the thought of having a stepmom makes me giddy.
I’m currently reading a funny as hell book about a woman who lived a sheltered life and judges other women while experiencing the same things she deems oppression of those women. Pro tip: if you (a Nigerian daughter) decides to leave her father’s house, make sure you’re not going to another man’s house especially if that man is your boyfriend who sometimes cheats and has women over at his place late at night because you might find out
Noooo! it sounds incredulous in a fiction book but I bet you a number of Lagos women have had the same experience and they probably stayed with the man in question. May I add that this protagonist left home because she found out her dad who refuses to transfer property to his ex-wife (her mum) had a son about her late younger brother’s age and didn’t tell her. She said most people usually found out about the other family at a man’s burial, almost like she was more upset about the way she found out rather than the betrayal. Anyways, you people should be careful in Lagos sha. Things dey occur
2 things I enjoyed…
Love is Blind Sweden: Most of them hate each other but delulu is the Solulu
Coming Over by James Hersey
Stay Jiggy
xx