The Luxury of Averageness

The United Nations estimates that about 689million people live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty here is defined as living on less that $1.90 per day. This is calculated using income and people's ability to meet their basic needs. Like most numbers, the devil is in the details here.

A closer look at this 2020 Human development Reports published by the U.N. shows that over 1.3 Billion people live in multi-dimensional poverty. They, usually, have little or no access to potable water, nutritious food, steady electricity, quality education, basic healthcare and shelter. They are also prone to high rates of infant mortality. It's important to note that this lack of access to products that would meet their basic needs is not always because these products do not exist around them. They usually exist, the real issue is that people living in poverty do not have enough resources to afford their needs.

Of all the things poor people can't afford, I think the most expensive, and perhaps the one we need most, is what I like to call The Luxury Of Being Average. The Luxury Of Averageness, for lack of a better term. To put it simply, I think that for poor people to live long and happy-ish lives, and permanently escape poverty, we simply cannot afford to be average at anything we do in our lives.

I'm aware that a lot of people equate being exceptional to being rich and leaving poverty behind. The reality is that this is rarely the case for people born into poverty. Many studies have shown that hard work and generally being exceptional doesn't always translate to better life circumstances and outcomes. My experiences of being born, raised and growing up in Sub-Saharan Africa confirms this theory; I simply do not know any group of people who work harder than poor people.

My experience is that most poor people have to be exceptional in their everyday lives to survive. Thousands of us die avoidable deaths daily. If a minor disease doesn't kill us, our unbalanced diets, poor infrastructure, poor working and living conditions eventually do. We are always one not so random tragedy away from early death. 

As grime and alarmist as that may sound, it really isn't an exaggeration. It is our reality - one we must acknowledge before we can make any significant progress on our journey away from poverty. First step to solving any problem is acknowledging the problem, right? Right. This reality of ours is even more grime for those of who are citizens of so called 3rd world countries where welfare services are pretty much non-existent. There is a reason life expectancy rates are so low in these countries. 

Contrary to what some rich and privileged people believe, poor people do not enjoy being poor and we are always thinking of and scheming about ways to get out of poverty. It's the only thing we think about as much as we think about where our next meal will come from. Again, this is much more pronounced in 3rd world countries where the gap between the quality of rich people's lives and those of poor people is widest. It is infinitely more difficult to be born into poverty in 3rd world countries and somehow find your way out of it.

Being born into poverty is to always be the best at everything or risk death. It's winning every footrace to the stream so that you can get semi-clean water before others get there and muddy the river; it's a survival of the fittest against natural selection; its being top of every class because the only way you can get quality education is if you won a scholarship. Being born into poverty is risking your life by going to work during a pandemic because hunger would kill you faster than COVID-19 if you don't work and earn your literal daily bread.

Just like rich people, poor people would love a break from working and being exceptional at everything. The only difference is that our lives depend on our exceptionalism. We would love to flunk classes and get average grades. We would love to work average mid management jobs and earn average salaries without worrying about how to foot our bills if we or our dependants got sick. We would love to take educational gap years and travel the world to ''find our true selves and passions'' whatever that means and is. 

Poor people would love to live average and unremarkable lives in small towns, age quietly and die peacefully in our old age, yet retain our dignity even after death but these are luxuries we cant afford. We simply can't afford to be average.

Random Tattle and Waffle On Life and Possible Time Travel

One of the ways I imagine our reality is like an infinite loop that recreates itself infinitely, in infinite directions. like driving on a road that moves your destination further away from you, the closer you get to it. I imagine that this happens because time moves way faster than us humans and all our means of transportations.

For example, if humans could run a thousand meters in half a second, you could be tempted to say that that is time travel. You would be wrong. You would be wrong because if the distance doubles to two thousand meters, the time needed to run it would also double to a full second. I believe that as long as the time doubles with the distance, time remains faster than us and consequently, we can neither travel ahead of it nor go backwards in it.

Next you might wonder if ''pausing'' time would make any difference. You might ask if we could we travel back in time by pausing time and retracing our steps. As tempting as that sounds, I don't think it would qualify as time-travelling to the past because everyone else would be stuck where we paused them and we would be the only ones moving. That honestly looks more like being faster than the rest of the ''paused'' world and getting to the future before them. 

Ok, I admit that sounds like time-travelling into the future. Perhaps, time travel would only work for travelling to the future. We could maybe stop an accident by moving a kid out of the way of an oncoming vehicle. If the car has already hit the kid though and we retrace our steps and push the car back, the effect of the hit would still be felt by the kid because it has already happened. The only way to stop the kid from feeling the effects of the hit AFTER it has happened, seems to be to somehow, rewind time like '80s and '90s kids did cassette players. Staying with that analogy, we would then ''record'' new events over the old ones.

If this theory and logic follows, it would mean that every time one human goes back in time to change something that has already happened, and everyone pauses, they would create a new reality/dimension. This new reality/dimension would of course house their consciousness as it dies off in the old reality that was taped over. 

If all humans had the ability to do this, it is not far fetched to assume that all 7 billion people on earth would have at least one reality where their consciousness exists and rules. One reality which is their world. One reality where they are the protagonist and everybody else has a supporting role. we could posit further that these worlds, realities, dimensions, what ever you chose to call it, would have all started from one consciousness. 

One life. One reality that split or reproduced and passed consciousness to a second life simultaneously creating a second reality. Then this process repeated itself and created more consciousnesses, all, or at least some, of which were capable of splitting/reproducing themselves and creating new realities and consciousness. Just like a virus spreads and reproduces under the right circumstances.

So as new consciousnesses keep multiplying and reproducing, our infinite loop of consciousness, our universe, keeps getting even more infinite. Just like a car on a journey that gets further away from it's destination the closer it gets to it, from any and every direction.

On The Peaceful Protests Going On In Nigeria

 Over the past week, young Nigerians took to the streets in different cities across Nigeria and the rest of the world in protest. United in our quest to see significant changes and improvement in the way we are treated by members of the police force, especially the so-called Special Anti-Robbery Squad, A.K.A. SARS, we young people are demanding an end to the terror reign of this rogue police unit.

The Nigerian police force, founded and used by colonial governments as a tool of oppression and subjugation against the public, has stayed true to its colonial origins and functions. Contrary to their motto of 'To serve and Protect', they were/are trained to see the public as an enemy who they must endeavour to oppress and terrify at any opportunity. There have been many reports of SARS, among other crimes, kidnapping, torturing, robbing and in some cases killing their victims.

Just like women all over the world have stories of emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse from men, every Nigerian has a direct and/or indirect experience of physical and emotional abuse in the hands of Nigerian police officers. It is common knowledge that officers of the Nigerian police force routinely extort and assault the very same people, they are supposed to serve and protect.

Perhaps, this makes it unsurprising that women have been at the forefront of the protest efforts, planning and organising everything. SARS officers have, over the years, magnified everything that is wrong with the Nigerian police force, and perhaps, the country at large. They prey on the weakest of us and make a joke of the most honest of us.

As young boy, travelling from the city to the village in the company of my parents for Christmas and other holidays and festivals, it was a common sight to see police officers mounting check points and demanding money from road users. It was all supposedly demanded 'in the spirit of the season of giving and sharing' but we knew that if you didn't give them what they demanded, and didn't have a good reason for not cooperating, they would make up an excuse to delay our journey. They threatened as much, albeit mildly.

Nigerians take pride in our resilience; our ability to thrive even under the harshest of conditions. We are firm believers in the saying that whatever doesn't kill one, makes one stronger. so, for the most part, Nigerians tolerated this extortion by the police and let it become part of our daily lives. Most Nigerians who are as old as the country have tolerated barely motorable roads, navigated inefficient transportation systems, and unsteady power supply. They have endured lack of potable water, poor healthcare systems and facilities, rulers who loot their commonwealth and other markers of a failed country, for as long as they have been alive. Most of them couldn't care less about being extorted by a police officer, so long as they called them 'Oga' while doing it, they are content.

Younger Nigerians however have very little patience for this kind of life. It is actually a surprise that these protests didn't start many years earlier because try as much as the older generation did to inculcate their culture of respecting elders and authority even when they oppress you, into us, our everyday decisions and lifestyles show we rejected it and them with it. The younger generation of Nigerians have questioned everything from traditional career paths pursued by our parents to religions and entertainment. This questioning has also led to a lot of rejections. 

A lot of people in these younger generations, after graduating from medical school dumped medicine to pursue careers in the arts and other non-traditional avenues. We are more excited about becoming musicians, computer programmers and graphic designers than our parents were about becoming lawyers and/or doctors. Lots of young people have rejected religion and chose to be atheist or agnostics. In a country as religious as Nigeria, rejecting religion is perhaps a bigger middle finger to our parent’s values than the ongoing protests. 

When we consider the fact that young adults make up a disproportionately high percentage of Nigeria's population, these protests and their seriousness start to make better sense. Throw in the fact that a very high percentage of our young adult population cannot point to any tangible thing that the country has done or does for them and you start seeing the picture clearer. A lot of these young people only have jobs because they created unconventional jobs and careers for themselves after waiting to no avail for the government to make policies that are favourable to the youth.

I suppose the best compliment I could give to the government of the day is to say they are just incompetent and clueless about what good governance entails. Yes, I really meant that as a compliment to them. The alternative would be saying that they are a bunch of evil people who are actively seeking to impoverish Nigerians. A cynic would say that they are doing their best to ruin the economy and ruin as many Nigerian lives as possible. An overwhelming majority of the policies they have made since they came into power, certainly demonstrate this.

Highest among their misdeeds is a clear insensitivity to the people. They are so out of touch; one could argue they do it on purpose. This insensitivity is again clear in the way they have reacted to these protests. Most government officials initially ignored the protests in their typical 'wish it away' fashion. When they eventually came around to pretending they are taking it serious, they came with the usual tactics of talking down on protesters and trying to bribe their way out of it.

What they don't know is that these are protests like none other they have seen before. There are no protest leaders to bribe, these protests, as well organised as they have been, sprang up organically. 

They resorted to banning protests and using brutal force against protesters in some areas, but people are still turning out en masse to protest. Nigeria has close to a 100 million, formally, unemployed people, majority of which are Gen Z young adults. They have nothing else to do but protest. Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world; a lot of people are more likely to get good food at the protests than they would if they sat at home.

Yes, these protests are so well organised that protesters are been provided for in ways the Nigerian government has never provided for her citizens. people from all walks of life are chipping in in whatever way they can. The lawyers amongst us are providing free legal representation to protesters. Doctors, nurses, therapists and healthcare workers are providing free medical care to protesters. A lot of us may have rejected traditional career paths but the ones who embraced it are awesome at it. People are taking turns to protest; companies are giving their workers time off work so they can join the protest. A lot of our jobs can be done remotely anyway, so best believe that people are working from the venues of the protests.

We are putting our resources into these protests, making sacrifices daily to continue these protests but perhaps the biggest causative factor isn't what we have contributed or sacrificed. It may rather be what we have found. A lot of us have found purpose in these protests. All the confusion and conflictions about religion, traditions, identities and the demands of the modern world may sometimes look pointless to us but making sacrifices in order to fight for and build something that, even remotely, resembles our dream country is a clear and achievable short to medium term goal to us. It is one many of us seem to not mind paying the ultimate price for.

If all these sounds to you like I'm already counting our chickens with these protests, I suggest you think again because make no mistakes about it, these won't be the last protests this generation will engage in. Even if these protests are forcefully quashed tomorrow, the seeds for future, bigger and better protests have already been sown. The unemployment, very bad economic policies and economy, hunger, insensitive government officials, poor infrastructure, striking public universities and police brutality, that led to these protests will still be here. These are the areas we can count on this regime to be consistent in.

Young Nigerians have gotten a taste of the kind of change we can effect when we make demands in unison. We will continue making demands. We have gotten a taste of our power. If Nigerian politicians, SARS and every other group of people who wield power in Nigeria have taught us anything, it's that people will do anything to hold on to power.

 

About My First Book

 On January 29 1929, Reverend Robert Fisher, acting under orders he received 2 years earlier from the British colonial government in Nigeria, opened the gates of Government College Umuahia to the very first set of students. The mandate given to Reverend Fisher, a British, Anglican priest, was to start a school where local boys would be educated following the traditions of British public school models like Eton, Harrow and Winchester.

The school, located in the south-east of Nigeria, was the first of it's kind in the region and drew students from all over west Africa and the then Southern Cameroons. Over the years, some of the greatest minds and achievers of the past 100 years have passed through her. Her list of famous Alumni include but is in no way limited to Chinua Achebe, Ben Enweonwu, Jaja Wachukwu, Peter Katjavivi, Elechi Amadi, Dr E.M.L. Endeley, Ken Saro Wiwa, Isaac Dagogo Erekosima, who would later become the first African Principal of the school, and many more.

While Rev Robert Fisher welcomed a total of 25 students in January 1929, in October 2001, few months after my 10th birthday, I was welcomed alongside over 300 other boys to this great citadel of learning. To varying degrees, we were all expected to follow in the footsteps of all the great men who came before us and make our families, societies and new school proud. In reality, not everyone who is admitted into Government College goes on to become famous or even just a decent member of the society.

In this book, I try to tell the stories of my experiences, as well as I can remember, during a period that I believe has had the biggest influence on my life. My hope is to bring people who read this book into the totally different world that was Government College Umuahia in my time. I hope that by sharing my experiences people who are not Umuahians can get an idea of exactly why and how a place like this can totally change one's life for good and/or for bad. 

Furthermore, I hope that the current school management will see these stories as the management of a great hotel might see a customer's review of their hotel. I hope that they can make necessary changes required to make the schooling experience better, continue producing great Alumni and upholding the good traditions and values of our great school.

Perhaps, this book could have had a more glamorous or attention-grabbing cover but I decided to use the famous colours of our School's uniform, complete with our brown belt. This is all part of my attempt to immerse whoever picks up this book into every bit of the Government College experience. I hope that when you're done reading this book, you will feel like you were there with me that first year, side by side, succeeding and failing together.

This is a book I have always wanted to write but kept postponing. I have always lied to myself and pretended it wasn't the right time or I that I never have enough time but the truth was that the real reason I didn't write this book years ago was Impostor syndrome - feelings of inadequacy and asking myself who I thought I was to even think that I could ever write anything anyone would want to read.

Thankfully, Impostor syndrome isn't the only thing I feel. I also feel a genuine fear of dying without exploring talents I think I have. My fear isn't of death itself but rather of living without doing anything meaningful with my life. As most of the world entered into partial or complete lock-downs as a result of the sickness and deaths caused by COVID-19, thoughts of how fleeting this life is overwhelmed my consciousness, I became more motivated to do a lot of things I had been putting off for a long time.

In April I successfully, had an overdue bilateral surgery. As I lay on that operating table, 3 doctors hovering over me, two of them sniping, slicing, cutting and pulling different parts of my body, I felt a huge pain. It wasn't physical pain, I was under heavy Anastasia and unable to feel anything from my chest down to my toes. The thing is, in that moment, I felt a level of vulnerability I had never felt before. 

I wasn't in control of anything that was happening there and when I reached down to feel my thighs with my hands, it felt like I was touching a mass of nothing. It didn't even feel like I was touching flesh or meat. It just felt like my thighs were a heavy mass of nothing. I imagined that must be what it felt like to be dead - your spirit/soul/whatever standing there looking at a sack of flesh that used to house it but now lying there empty, useful for nothing, except as food for worms or ashes to be spread or kept in a jar by living humans.

In that moment, my fear of living a useless life overpowered my impostor syndrome. Days later, as I lay around my apartment recovering from the physical injuries of the surgery, I started making a mental outline of what this book would be like. There were lots of stories to be told and my biggest worry was how to tell those stories in a way that they would be interesting enough for other people to truly understand them and feel as close to the experience as possible.

I decided it was too much to cram into a single book so I divided them into different parts based on the years. This first book will focus on my first year and introduce readers to the environment, traditions, school rules, regulations and other norms that make up the Government College experience, just as I was introduced to them in my first year.

While this is not a work of fiction, it might as well be fiction for readers who are not alumni of Government College, especially those who have never been in a total institution. Nonetheless, I realise that a lot of the characters in this book are real people with real lives who are most probably living their lives somewhere around our very small world. With that in mind, I have tried to describe events and people in as much details as possible without taking anything away from the rawness of the story while also protecting the identities of the people who the events recounted in this book may adversely affect in any way.

I also know that some of the words we used back then as school slangs may mean different things in different languages or societies and as a result may be offensive to some people. My intention isn't to offend but to make the book as authentic as possible, clearly displaying the ignorance of youth and expressing how what is considered normal in one place may be considered abnormal in other places, across different time periods.

I have to thank Aude for encouraging me to write this book when I mentioned it to her over a year ago. Special thanks to Paula who also encouraged me to write this book, recommended Brene Brown's The Call To Courage  to give me the extra push I needed, and read the first few chapters I wrote before anyone else. Huge thanks to my long-term friends, Slim Phil and Pascal for their words of encouragement and my colleague Mario who designed the book's cover. Not forgetting Fu'ad and Ope who recommended and introduced me to my editor.

Few days ago, I submitted the first draft of the book to the editor, hopefully, we can finish it up and publish on schedule. My target is to publish on the 2nd of next month, the 19th anniversary of my first day at Reverend Robert Fisher's School. Additionally, my plan is to publish it through Amazon's self-publishing so that people can easily order digital and hardback copies from anywhere in the world and have it delivered to them promptly. If anyone has a better idea, I'm open to listening. Leave me comments in the comments' section or reach  me privately through email Okoyeinnocentn@gmail.com and @centyclaus on Instagram and Twitter. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project. Thank you.

Edit: the book was published on the 2nd of October 2020, exactly 19 years since the day i stepped foot into Government College Umuahia. It's available in digital and paperback copies here on Amazon

What is God?

Right from my childhood, 3 things have always fascinated me; human existence (what are we doing on earth and how did we get here?), human relationships and actions (why do we do the things we do and how can I relate better with people so that they can understand me and I can understand them?), who is God and what is God's endgame? Of course, I became a teenager and sex and sexuality were automatically added to the equation.

Religious and scientific explanations of how we got here have, at different points in time and place, and to different extents, sufficed to quell my curiosity. After years of human interactions, and more than my fair share of sociological scholarship, I still don't understand people and they mostly don't really understand me. I have learnt that is OK and I will keep trying. Initially I thought sex was an unnecessary and disgusting exchange of bodily fluids, bacteria and germs. Eventually my hormones betrayed me so I started having sex. I tolerated it. Then I enjoyed it. Then I enjoyed it even more with people I felt something for, be it love or lust. I try to stick to that.

I was born a catholic. I was baptised few weeks after birth. I took Cathecism classes and learnt the foundation of the church's theology, beliefs, and traditions with regards to God. I received holy communion and after even more Cathecism classes, I received the sacrament of confirmation on the 8th of December of the year 2000, just a few months after my 9th birthday. Graduating top of my confirmation class was one of my proudest moments as a kid. I was the youngest there and most of the adults didn't take me serious. I thought being top of the class would change their minds. I was wrong. So wrong. Anyway, I went on to serve at masses for the next 6 to 7 years till I went off to university. A catholic-ish university.

It has always seemed like the older  I got and the more I learned about God, and the world in general, the less sense it all made and the less I understood. I have given up trying to make sense of it all few times. Then I sleep, wake up and continue trying to make it all make sense. Rinse and repeat. Having been mostly exposed to Christian and Catholic doctrines, it's only normal that I mostly see this puzzle from a Catholic and Christian perspective. The Catholic concept of the trinity makes sense to a certain extent. You have God the father, God the son and God the Holy spirit. Cool family. Almost.

Almost, because the holy spirit would then be either female, asexual or Jesus has 2 heavenly daddies. Ergo the very first same sex union and family was God's. I don't know a lot of Catholics who would like any of those possibilities. Thinking about it though, it's most likely possible, because, according to the bible, the Holy Spirit descended on Mary and Jesus the earthling was conceived. Mary is female. Humans don't make babies asexually.

If we assume or agree that the Holy Spirit is asexual and therefore has no gender, we get closer to the teachings of the Jewish and Islamic religions. From my, very basic, understanding of these two religions, they believe that God transcends gender. That makes sense to more sense to me. Now, considering that Catholicism, Christianity as a whole, and the very concept of one supreme and true God - Monotheism are offshoots of Judaism. It looks to me like somewhere between deciding that there had to be one true supreme God and worshipping this God through the Catholic/Christian way, Humans assigned a gender to this God. 

I know the bible quotes Jesus as referring to God as 'father' so many times. I wonder if he did that just to make it all make sense to humans. You know, since most societies at that time were patriarchal and most people considered the father the head of the family. It would make sense to just go with the human formula and not complicate things even further. I mean they already had a hard enough time believing he was God's offspring, seeing him defy the few laws of physics they knew back then by walking on water, turning water to wine and the rest.

Perhaps he knew that God could be anything they needed God to be but since most people had daddy issues, he let them have a dad and got on with his ministry. Anyway, I include Jesus among the men who gave God a gender. I wonder if that's part of the reason the 2 other Abrahamic religions say he's just a prophet. I mean if you don't know the gender of the 'being' you claim is your dad, I would have a hard time believing your claimed parentage. That's just me and my trust issues though.

Recently, while contemplating this idea of God transcending gender, I started wondering if gender is the only thing God transcends. I mean if we accept that God transcends gender, then why stop there, why stop at the transcendence of gender, why limit God with our poor human imaginations? Why not transcend every thing else, including the entire universe.

The question then becomes, NOT how or if God created the universe but what if God IS the universe in it's infinity and every thing, humans, all the planets and galaxies, known and unknown, exist within the infinite time and space that is God? So the big bang and evolution is then just God evolving from an earlier state that is currently beyond our human understanding because God is every thing that ever existed, every thing that exists and every thing that will ever exist!

To My Unborn Child

To My Unborn Child

My dear child, I love you! I’ve loved you from the very first moment I could conceive the idea of you. I’m a polyglot but I still can’t find words that perfectly describe how much I love you, how you warm my heart and make me smile. That’s why it breaks my heart that I even have to think about writing you this letter. I suppose if you’re reading this then it’s already too late. You’re already here and I couldn’t save you.

To be honest, my hope is that we never have to meet. That I never have you. Beyond that, on the off chance that I do have you. My hope is that this letter explains, even a tiny little bit, why I never wanted to have you. They say I’m at an age when the human brain is at its best. I’m at my optimum thinking capacity and the thought of bringing you into this world, as it is, looks like a very bad idea to me. It scares me. I must say I don’t just say this this because of COVID-19. Our world was already too messed up way before COVID-19 caught our attention.

I wish I could tell you that you can be whatever you want to be, but I’d be lying. You can’t be whatever you want to be, not in this world. Not with the way this world is currently set up. It’s not right, I hate it, but it’s what it is. You see, our favourite activity in this world is discrimination. We discriminate against people based on the colour of their skin, their genitals, what they worship or do not worship, who/how they vote, where they were born, who they were born to, who they have sex with, how they talk, how educated they are and so many other silly excuses we make up. We love to discriminate!

There’s nothing that unites and excites us more than our discrimination. We come together and form groups to help us make our discrimination more efficient and effective. Ironically, when we get into those groups, we form smaller groups so we can discriminate against people in our original groups who don’t quite fit into these smaller groups. We rinse and repeat the process until we are standing alone. Dying alone.

People will discriminate against you. They will put up so many barriers, directly and indirectly, to ram it home, to make sure you know you don’t belong in their stupid little groups. Most people you will meet are not even the architect of these barriers, but they will be damned if they don’t uphold it. Especially when it’s in their interests. We love to pretend we don’t see these barriers or that we are powerless. Self-preservation is our 2^nd favourite activity, right after discrimination.

“Why would people discriminate against me?” you ask? “I have done nothing wrong. I haven’t even been born.” You protest. “What should I be, if I can’t be whatever I want to be?” Well let’s see. Everybody discriminates, but, my child, if you’re female, Black, carry the passport of a 3^rd world country, are not so good looking, not so intelligent and/or poor, you get what I call the negative 6-star treatment.

If you are really my child, then there’s a huge chance that you got 3/6 of the above. Normally 50% is a pass but remember nothing about all of this is normal. In my experience, the worst is to carry the passport of a 3^rd world country. Its quite simply the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I wasn’t even born when it happened. I wasn’t consulted. No one asked my opinion. I didn’t consent to it, but the rest of the world will be damned if they didn’t punish me every day because of this crime. For it is indeed treated like a crime.

Just as our given name implies, we are but 3^rd class citizens of this world. When the rest of the world sneezes, we catch a cold. We get to pay for the sins of the rest of the world. It doesn’t matter if it had nothing to with us but if someone commits a crime somewhere, be rest assured that some politician will find a way to blame it on us. On you. Even though you haven’t been born yet, their children will make sure you pay for it whenever you get here. It’s their tradition and they will hold it up or die trying.

It gets even worse if your 3^rd world country is an African country. Worst if it’s Nigeria. You see, it doesn’t matter how much the world hates us and casts us off, our propensity to self-destruct is unrivalled and it’s our biggest problem. There is no better example of this than the leaders we elect/rig into office. Somehow, we have a way of finding the absolute worst among us and putting them in power. On the few occasions we fail and someone remotely competent gets a whiff of power we don’t rest until we kick them out or turn them into the dark side.

At the root of this propensity to self-destruct is our favourite activity, discrimination. Most of us would rather see the area and people they had the misfortune of been born into, burn to the ground than see it made better by someone who doesn’t share their beliefs, genital uniformity, sexual orientation, political party(I would say ideologies but our politics isn’t based on ideology), tribe, ethnic group or language. They would rather discriminate until they are standing alone. Dying alone.

Being Nigerian, like a foul smell, follows you everywhere. It comes up, like weeds, in all the places you least expect and want it to come up. The first time you notice it, you will see that my analogy of a bad smell isn’t just metaphorical. I say this because you will notice the, otherwise, normal people you talk to suddenly turn up their noses on you like you’ve suddenly developed a body odour. this goes very well with a little backwards tilt of the head, raised eyebrows, curled lips and, of course, the coup de grace; arms crossed at the front in a defensive position.

My child, I do not write this to scare you. I write this in the hope that it prepares you for the near impossible task ahead of you – being happy in this world. It’s the least I can do for you after given you this curse of 3^rd world citizenship. I hope that if you ever think of it all one day, you will find a way, a reason, no matter how small, to forgive me this mistake of mine. I love you. I always have and I always will.