By Chris Ihidero
I no longer really know how I feel about my country.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. I know how I feel but I can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that things have come to such a terrible state between us. I’m in an abusive relationship with my country.
I’m the abused and my country my abuser. For reasons I can’t explain, beyond national pride or patriotism, I’m attracted to my abuser; in fact, it may be said that I am intricately tied to my abuser, perhaps eternally.
I used to be one of those diehard fans of Nigeria. While I have always recognized our imperfectness, I loved this country endlessly. I sang the national anthem with a vibrating heart; I always placed my right palm on my chest when reciting the national pledge. When Bongos Ikwe wrote and performed the theme song for Nigeria at 25 in 1985, it became my favourite song, as did the song that was made for the Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
When the Dream Team won gold at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, I ran to the top of my father’s house and screamed: I AM PROUD TO BE NIGERIAN. Moments like that have been plenty in the past. If Nigeria won the World Cup today, I doubt very much that I would be able to muster such emotion in celebration.
I have never wanted to live outside Nigeria, or hold citizenship of another country. Like many, I have had numerous opportunities to move abroad and consistently I have refused them all. Somehow I have always felt that my life’s work is here in the land of my birth and orientation. When the American Visa Lottery Programme became popular in the ‘90s my parents applied for all of us and none of us won. By the next year I asked them not to apply for me, that I wasn’t interested in becoming an American. When I got offers to come do a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in the US, with a teaching position a possibility, I refused because it looked like I would be living in America for a long time if I took the offer. If I hadn’t moved on to filmmaking and the same offer came today, I am pretty sure my answer will not be the same.
I have no faith in the government and governance of my country. I constantly pray that I do not need to have anything to do with the police or other security agencies that are supposed to be protecting my life and properties. As much as it depends on me, I have little to do with politics or politicians. I did not vote in the last presidential elections because I couldn’t find a candidate worthy of my vote. I regard the political process in my country as a major farce. As presently constituted, worthy leadership, especially at the federal level, is an impossibility in my country.
As Soyinka says in The Lion and the Jewel: ‘When a snail find splinters in its shell, it changes house…’
‘Why do you stay?’ This is the question I ask myself often; why am I still here? Truth is, I love Nigeria. I love this land and its people…I love being Nigerian. I love the wide-eyed reaction I get when I introduce myself as a Nigerian when abroad. The reaction is often comical, them not knowing whether to flee from a potential fraudster or embrace someone from the country that gave the world Nollywood, Soyinka, Achebe, Fela, Kanu Nwankwo and Jay Jay Okocha.
And then there are the daily miracles you run into right amongst the filth. The diligent civil servant, the incorruptible policeman, the upright, hardworking and dedicated politician, the market woman who refuses to hike the prices of her goods when others do so just because they can, the brand manager who wouldn’t inflate the invoice you submitted and doesn’t want a huge chunk of the money before he can sign off the contract, the journalist who doesn’t need a brown envelope to tell a story; they exist in this land, hard as they may be to come by. In the past one year, a private hospital on Allen Avenue has tried killing two members of my extended family; they were both saved by public hospitals: Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta and Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.
It is people like these that keep hope alive in Nigeria. In the end, it’s many more people like these that will set Nigeria free. It will take time, no doubt. But because they are among us, if only we’ll look hard enough, I can sing again to Veno Marioghae’s Nigeria go Survive with hope:
Nigeria go survive, Africa go survive, my people go survive o Nigeria go survive.
