nigerianness

I didn't realize just how much so this applied to us Nigerians until recently with the fuel scarcity issue. The Statistician General, Dr. Yemi Kale @sgyemikale was reporting on the labor force numbers. He not only reported the numbers but also a brief explanation of how the unemployment numbers are derived...supply and demand. In comes the Children of Anger (coined by the eloquent Olufunke Phillips) interpreting the data with their trauma. Quickly, the data was influenced by Buhari and the govt. Anger took over and the value of the information was almost lost.

Nigerians have suffered traumatic experiences at the hands of their elected government. But it really is a case of doing ourselves. But for some reason, we remain in that traumatic place. The land may be fertile, the road paved, the flowers blooming, but we cannot let go of that trauma. Our entire identity becomes that trauma. We have trust issues and we panic. We don't know who we are, and we are content blaming and whining and complaining while submitting our request for a savior.

And I'm tired of the whiners and complainers. So I'll channel my energy on those who choose to be active rather than those who want to stay suffering.

nigeria's savior complex

We have a savior complex.

By we, I mean Nigerians. myself inclusive.
I try to catch myself when that happens.

We are looking for a savior. We are looking for someone to rescue us. That would be ideal, wouldn't it? Someone to make our lives better, clean our messes (and messes not ours), take out the trash, polish the place, and bring in new and comfortable furniture.

Except it's lazy. It is absolutely lazy with hints of entitlement. And we revel in that. We do it comfortably and with glee. We can look into the history of that for another day, but now that it has been identified (we probably won't admit it for another decade), let us try to do better. Let us try to curb it one step at a time.

So there is another fuel scarcity around year-end in Nigeria. That is actually a common recurrence. And the conversation, as always, falls on the savior we elected that ended up not saving us. Buhari needs to be critiqued and rightfully blamed for this.

But we? We also need to own some of this. We need to shift the conversation from looking for a savior to looking at what we can do. We need to own some of this. We need to shift the narrative from staying in the past and blaming the advocates of the leadership. Yes, #wetoldyou but at the end of the day we are in this mess together. Have your #wetoldyou moment. You told us and we didn't listen.

But are we going to move past it? Are we going to come up things we can do right this moment? Are we going to report those who are hoarding and overpricing? Are we going to demand accontability? Are we going to do something active other than the passive things we have always done.

And I legit just realized how much we live and die by this savior complex.
- family abroad, they should save us in poverty
- religion, God should save us
- politicians, they should save us

Everything and everyone should save us except ourselves.

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, can't put the blame on you
...
Don't save her
she don't want to be saved

No Role Modelz - J.Cole