How To Live in Nigeria
Photo: Omotayo Tajudeen
Die several times.
Remember that Nigeria kills you a little every day. Pretend you never feel it. Pretend everything is okay. Live for 10 minutes like Tequila Leila. Pity those who still hawk Nigeria on their heads. Laugh at their cowardice. Purse your lips and wonder why it is taking their hearts this long to divorce their patriotism. Convince yourself that you do not have Nigeria in your heart any longer. Intentionally forget the national anthem. Choose peace over nationalism. Say tufiakwa on your relationship with the country. Convert yourself into a national atheist. Grief over your forsaken ex. Live to leave.
Run mad for minutes.
Hate your neighbours and their children. Pretend the country didn’t break your heart in the best way. Wash your hands off a system that stinks. Holy-Ghost-Fire every misfortune that might meet you on the way. Olorun ma je to being a victim of one-chance. Accommodate traffic in your life like oxygen. Pretend you didn’t see the twenty naira the policeman extorted from the bus driver. Turn away from passengers who begin a conversation with ‘this country’. Wear your earpiece. Play Brymo’s latest. Pretend like you are singing the lyrics correctly. Observe the almajiri child by the roadside—second to the temptation of insulting his parents. Call them losers, or if you like, blame them for Nigeria’s condition. Refuse to worry, and remind yourself that it is only a matter of time before you japa. Remember all your friends in Canada, UK, USA, and Germany. Shine your teeth for nothing. Wonder at how people watch your madness. Tell yourself that they are mad.
Find who to blame.
Ask Google, “Who is Nigeria’s problem?” Ignore the figures from international reports. Bin the research. Tell yourself that the studies were sponsored by the West, who envy Nigeria’s development. Always assume it is the others. Call the Igbo’s names. Call the Hausa’s names. Call the Yoruba’s names. Walk yourself out of these endless circles of division. Remember your history book. Blame the British. Blame those who gave birth to you. Blame your uncle, who couldn’t get you a job since he took your CV five years ago. Allah ya sawake, you become like these northern politicians. Your son can never be these greedy businesspersons who scout for new opportunities to hike prices. Curse the Naira devaluation. It is the reason why your e-trading fails. Curse the non-indigenes that snatched your jobs. Blame NEPA for failing to meet your deadline. Blame friends. Blame family. Blame God. But don’t blame yourself.
“Turn away from passengers who begin a conversation with ‘this country’. Wear your earpiece. Play Brymo’s latest. ”
Walk inside your head with a hammer.
Take off your trust like a jacket. Hang them in your compound. If your landlord betrays you, hang it in your sitting room. If your family betrays you, hang it in your room. In your closet. Put it under your bed. The only thing you will never do is trust, again. Be angry at the beggars that request money from you to return to their village. Try to imagine their uncles or brothers who switched off their phones when they reached Lagos. Confirm that electronic appliances have a 2-year warranty before you buy them. Make sure you always buy secondhand Cotonou goods because they last longer than new ones. Avoid the Ebuka that sells on bonanza. If a gentleman in a suit, with a laptop bag on his shoulder, stops you, walk away. Always keep 10 and 20 naira notes in your car for ‘anything-for-the-boys?’
Assume you can survive.
Be scared of living. Be afraid of dying. Wear your black sweatpants and the T-shirt you got three years ago during the Run-For-Your Kidney campaign. Use a torchlight to confirm if you picked the right wear. Be at peace that generators only start by 9 pm and go off at 12am. Do not forget to exercise if you want to live long. Remember to drop your phone and wallet. Lock the house twice. Take out the keys and try opening the door to confirm it’s locked. Walk out of the house. Refuse to stare at the mud beside the road. Know that every vehicle flashing headlights at night might be armed robbers. Watch Aproko Doctor. Take a lot of water. But do not eat healthy. Because who healthy meal ep? If you have to die, try not to die of simplicities. Avoid terminal illness. Shout, “It can never be me” anytime you see news of early death.’ Convince yourself that God summons the country for a conference of prosperity, but it declines God’s appointment.
Be a watchdog.
Imagine Frank Olizeh appearing again on NTA and saying, “It is 9 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” Confirm that your children are with you. Switch from one channel to the other. Do not be tempted to argue with your wife. Especially about Bollywood and K-Drama. Do not pay for your DSTV subscription until your previous subscription is exhausted. Shift to your phone screen. Switch on your mobile data. Curse your network provider for exhausting such an amount of MB for just status viewing. Try to hold body with some meme. If you can, spend the next thirty minutes watching a fashion company’s new ad on Instagram. Watch Charles Inojie and Paw Paw’s old comedy skits. But be very careful not to log into Twitter. You will be tempted to. Try to ignore the trending issues. If you can’t, try to avoid headlines with death tolls and pictures of dead bodies. Refuse to give your opinion on the incident. Read people's posts. Read comments. Do not reply to the hate speech comments. Pray that God grants you the visa.
Set yourself on fire.
If your body is too heavy, try hanging out with friends on Saturday evening. Avoid running mad. Eat Suya and soft drink at night. Wear the face of a distracted thinker and walk into a Mama Put joint. Refuse to remember the country, pretend to enjoy its abdomen. Pay for the plate of food. Listen to the woman narrate the long inflation analysis—about how the plate of rice ballooned to a thousand Naira. Swallow your saliva. Resist the urge to complain about the three hundred naira bottle of Coke. Eat kpomo and drink zobo. Burn inside. Ignore the mirror. Make sure your birth certificate is under the bed. Ignore the temptation to acknowledge that as you grow older, the country’s thorns grow younger. Live like a bird. Do not think of the future.
