Nigeria is a mess right now.
The news cycle is back to being predominantly bloody, and every headline, tweet, and breaking update is full of the same keywords:
“Kidnapping” “Death” “Killing” “Accident” “Murder”
The worst part is that while to some people these words are just pixels on a screen, to others this is their real life.
To some people this is a “sudden uptick in violence”; to others this is the jarring reality of the everyday they face in Nigeria.
And while constantly being exposed to gruesome news about the state of the nation has led some people to feel numb and become unintentionally passive, it has put others in a constant state of worry and anxiety.
It’s very discouraging to wake up to more news of a major attack or killing or ambush or something disheartening, but it looks like that’s where we are at again.
Personally, I find myself torn between avoiding the negative to protect my spirit and staying abreast of what’s going on to leave no room for ignorance.
Either way, the niggling question remains – what can we do in these trying times?
Unfortunately, not much.
Everyone seems to be saying something without actually saying anything.
Should we pray?
Yes, I believe so, but to what end?
Prayers alone can’t save us.
If they could, we’d be the most prosperous nation in the world from all the prayers we’ve been praying for decades.
Should we hold our leaders accountable?
What does this even mean, and how exactly do we do it?
Tweets? Long articles? Social media rants? We’ve been doing all this and more, but it’s hard to force a horse to drink water even after you’ve dragged it to the stream.
They don’t care; they’ve never cared because it’s never affected them. They are so passive and unbothered about the terrible economic and social state of this nation to the point that they almost seem complicit in it.
Yet, as futile as it seems, I fear our leaders waking up to do something is our best chance at survival.
Should we hit the streets in protests?
We’ve done that before, remember?
How did that end up? Not well.
Protests only work in nations like France, where the government is shameful enough to not want the entire nation to crumble into chaos.
Nigerian leaders simply do not care.
They are blind to bandits and terrorists, and yet somehow always ready to dispel peaceful protesters with force and aggression.
So much innocent blood has been shed in the name of activism in this country, and unfortunately, a lot of it has been in vain.
Hitting the streets does not seem like a reasonable option, just another excuse for more lives to be lost.
We can give examples of successful violent political overthrows in other nations, but those citizens were all ready to die for their country to receive liberation.
Are you ready to die for Nigeria?
The simple truth is that you and I are not going to willingly lay down our life for this country, and if we aren’t, why should anybody else do so?
I laugh when people talk about “hitting the streets in numbers” like this is some virtual reality game.
Will you stand when the bullets start flying?
Will you be willing to forsake your family and your friends?
Will you leave your life that’s actually not that bad when you ignore the wider scope of things?
Exactly.
Let’s be honest, please.
Should we cry out for foreign help?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that more major insecurity-related events have dominated our newsfeed since Donald Trump made his threat two weeks ago.
I’m not going to dive into possibilities of what could be happening behind the scenes, but I know patterns well enough to know when something very fishy is going on.
I stand on my point from earlier about foreign help NOT being the solution to our problems, even though I understand more why it appears to be an appealing option to many.
If the local government won’t do their duty, why not seek help from the saviours from the west?
It all sounds so noble, but history has given us enough reasons for us to be cautious.
So if we, the citizens, are powerless, and our leaders are ineffective, and we can’t resort to foreign help, what exactly is the hope we have?
How do we get out of these trying times?
I have no idea, and you don’t either.
We can posit and theorise and suggest and argue back and forth all day long, but the truth is that the real power to change the nation is in the hands of a few, and unless they do something about it, nothing is going to change.
Nigerians are a set of very interesting people.
The way we can easily be distracted by frivolities and be divided on the lines of religion and ethnicity is something that baffles me a lot.
I’m sure Nigerian politicians are always baffled by just how gullible and easily fooled the average Nigerian is, and they have never failed to take advantage of it since the inception of this nation.
Sure, in times of severe crisis like this, everybody is always politically correct and the type-set of a perfect citizen on the internet.
But in times of serious issues that relate to nation building, like policy making and elections, we throw away unity and start bickering again in division.
I mean, look at how easy it was for them to use Nnamdi Kanu’s “sentencing” to start another conversation about tribe and tribal alliances.
Is it a coincidence that for two whole days before that, Nigerians were united on the calling of justice for victims of the Kebbi kidnap and the attacked church?
But of course, we fall for the same agenda as always.
They don’t even need to try to cook up anything elaborate or brilliant; once we hear our tribe vs another tribe or our religion vs another religion, we lose all our senses and we turn on each other.
And on the regular days, what are we discussing?
Davido vs Wizkid. Big Brother Nigeria. Bobrisky said this. A sextape dropped from this university. Attacking a pastor for leading midnight praise. “Feminists” vs “Alpha males”.
Nothing substantial. Nothing on nation building. Nothing on economic development. Nothing on political innovation.
Just discussions that are honestly a rightful fit for people that reside in the poverty capital of the world.
We’re as poor economically as we are poor intellectually.
The only time we seem to remember the dire trouble we’re in is when there’s a sudden fall in the dollar rate or when insecurity fills the news cycle and we’re all fearing for our lives.
Apart from that, we love our bubbles of blissful ignorance and mediocrity, and the leaders love it too.
Dumb leaders leading even dumber citizens – it’s so anti-climatically hilarious.
And yet, people are really dying.
I don’t think people understand the concept of death in relation to murder and violence.
Especially when it’s based on the basis of differing religions.
It’s unfair, and it’s barbaric.
The amount of innocent blood that is crying out for vengeance against Nigeria is enough for this country to never progress from where it is.
It’s very bad; it’s always been very bad, and now it seems to be getting much worse.
Especially since the government is clueless (or uninterested) in doing anything about it.
Back when the Chibok girls were kidnapped, this current administration was the opposition party, and they were so loud and harsh in their criticisms of the then Goodluck-led government.
Now, history has inevitably repeated itself, and Mr Mandate is nowhere to be found.
Just long tweets that don’t say anything and likes and comments from his horde of retarded followers.
I think the part that should worry the average Nigerian is just how confident these bandits, terrorists, and Islamic extremists are becoming.
They seem to know that absolutely nothing will be done to prevent them from having a free hand, and they are exercising that knowledge to the best of their ability.
A major ranking military officer was killed like he was just one random, and nothing happened, absolutely nothing.
A country like the US, with its sketchy history and its conspiracy tendencies, would never allow the military reputation of its country to be spat on like that.
But look at Mr Giant of Africa; everything just passed like it was another day.
It almost seems like top government officials are directly linked to these organisations and their militants, because how else do you want to explain all these occurrences?
It’s crazy.
It would almost be intriguing, like watching another season of 24 Hours or another instalment of London Has Fallen, except that real human beings are losing their lives and being displaced from their families.
This is real life, and like it or not, the threat is as real to the people in Ikeja, Lagos, as the people living in the forests of Zamfara.
Insecurity, especially one that’s state-sponsored or unacknowledged, can eventually end up touching EVERYBODY.
So, my question again – what do we do in these trying times?
What can we do, really?
There’s a party of people out there trying to shame others for going on with their lives and activities and living as they can, claiming it’s a sign of indifference and a lack of compassion, but is it really?
Nigerians are really annoying and performative when it comes to this thing because you’ll find them everywhere dragging and insulting anybody who posts something that’s unrelated to the current trend.
It’s dumb because everybody is still going to work, banks are still open, markets are open, and schools are still open, so what is this, our addiction to online solidarity that we never apply in the same measure offline?
It’s very stupid to me.
These are ordinary Nigerians, not government officials or security personnel; if they decide not to post anything about Kebbi or Kware, that’s their business.
Miss me with that “create awareness” rubbish. What awareness is “@sholzy_baby126” with her 146-follower account creating?
The government that can actually do something about the situation is fully aware and refusing to do anything about it.
So, how does a random Nigerian vendor posting her wares or a musician releasing his new album stop insecurity from being solved?
Like I said, performative and annoying, and it’s always after the fact that we seem to remember that there are serious issues on the ground.
Whatever posts or tweets you see from people regarding this issue are either them trying to vent their frustration or to add more information to what’s already common knowledge.
Don’t let anybody guilt trip you about going about your regular life; you already have enough problems as it is.
As long as you’re not being ignorant or insensitive, there’s really nothing else you can do.
Isn’t that one of the most heartbreaking facts about life, that it moves on regardless?
After I finish this article, I’m probably going to sleep, or watch another episode of Criminal Minds, or listen to another sermon.
No matter what or how I feel, I’m as powerless to do anything about anything as you are.
And one thing I’ll never do is worry about things out of my immediate control.
What will you do when you finish reading this article?
Move on with your life, I assume.
Even if you go down another wormhole of reading tweets of all the evil happening, eventually you’ll have to snap out of it to attend that family event or to pick up that call from your friend.
No matter how much “anxiety” you feel, you too must keep on living.
Does this make you “evil” or “insensitive”? No.
What’s evil and insensitive is when we pretend like their plight is not a real issue or that it can’t affect us too, or we forget that there are people who do not have the same privileges as we do.
You become a part of the problem when you act like the problem doesn’t exist.
As for me?
I’m never going to stop praying for my nation; I don’t care what anybody says or tweets about the ‘futility” of prayers.
Who knows if the prayers are the reason the entire nation hasn’t fallen into absolute carnage right now?
I have friends and family scattered all across this country, and since I can’t do anything else, I’ll intercede regularly, and that will be my role to play.
Also, in 2027 or 2026 (hope you know they are trying to move it?), I will probably vote in the next elections.
Will it count? Probably not, but it’s much better than being a keypad and hashtag warrior.
I just hope I see a reasonable candidate to vote for. I even already have one in mind; God help him.
Nigerians will cry about how much their votes don’t count and allow the people who know the value of each vote to steal election after election.
Interesting set of people, I tell you.
Always crying about suffering but still not tired enough to do anything about it.
Let me add this.
The ONLY real solution to this problem is for well-meaning Nigerians to get into politics and social development in large numbers.
The key is to get into both sectors with ideas and a tenacity that will either force the old heads to retire or to fix up their performances.
Right now, they are having a field day because they have nobody to challenge them. The people who will replace them once they are gone all have similar goals and ambitions.
It’s just recycling the same corrupt system.
We need a radical change and overhaul, and, I’m sorry, but, as powerful as it sounds, guns and bloodshed will not do it.
The best and most effective way to take over power is through Industrial Revolution that’s backed by a new wave of political transformation.
Will it be easy? Impossible.
The greedy occupants of power will NEVER surrender without a fierce fight.
Will it take time? Yes.
Decades upon decades of the same consistent leaders with consistent values should get us to a semblance of sanity.
Will it happen? Most likely not.
The average Nigerian youth is too preoccupied with other personal things to worry about the country, not that I even blame him/her anyways.
It just seems like nobody is interested in actually doing the job, and we all just want to complain and complain and lament.
That’s fair.
Maybe one day we’ll get to it; till then, I guess we can keep tweeting about how much to spend on a first date, laughing at whatever it is that GehGeh said, and posting TikToks about who to involve and who not to involve in our December shenanigans.
It’s fine.
The whole world is in crisis right now, and it seems like it’s closing in on itself.
Sometimes, it’s hard to pick positives or to see a future in the bleakness of everything.
In a few days, the news cycle might be restored back to “normal”, filled with distractions or irrelevant information, and we who are not directly affected by the crisis will forget again.
We’ll be back to living lives and doing our day-to-day things, while those who have been affected will remain affected forever, and those who will continue to be victims will suffer in silence.
It does not look good at the moment, yes.
I just pray that there’s still hope for the rest of us in these trying times.
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It's how you summed up everything I've been thinking for days into this post.
This morning, I deliberately went off social media. Not because I wanted to be insensitive, but because I was on the precipice of depression. Then I heard that the boarding schools in my state has closed and I was so relieved I wanted to cry.
But you're absolutely right. It's to keep on praying until our voices are gone, and act when the time comes.
Thank you for this post.
This is a very lovely read.
Indeed, there really isn't any tangible thing the average Nigerian can do other than to keep praying for a better Nigeria and exercise their voting rights for the right people when the time comes. Prayer can never be too much or too small.
Nigeria will be great again; however, the work it demands is a story for another day.