The Nigerian

I don’t think people really know what it means to be Nigerian. Yes, you’re technically Nigerian if you were born on that 400,000 square mile plot of West African land carefully carved out by European powers, but I think that being Nigerian comes with a certain experience. It is an experience that takes shape in many forms but ends in the rebirth of the mind and of a way of life. It is growth, and that growth comes from a soil enriched with oppression. The oppression of the colonizers who bred us to believe that what was great must be white. Beauty was defined as lighter skin, straighter hair, thinner lips, and narrower noses. Intelligent was what only the white man created. Savage was the language that dances on my tongue and the culture that raises me up to dance on my feet. Yet, if I were not soaked, baptized in that bath filled with marginalization, I don’t think I would love my country, my tribe, or myself as much as I do now. 

Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely do not think that infecting a people with notions that create generational self-hatred is a benefit. But, I know that when I finally fell in love with my people and country, it was more meaningful because I was affected by those notions. British colonizers of Nigeria set a standard for excellence that resulted in self-loathing being a societal norm in the country, but Nigerians have the ability to overcome and advance.  What I have learned is that being Nigerian is about being able to self-liberate. It is about using oppression as a platform to rise up and to dance on. What I have learned about being Nigerian is that you jubilate despite calamity and that the insecurities that our colonizers cultivated are nothing but satellites. Pride is our world. It is our earth. It is the way of life of the Nigerian, and it is what makes the Nigerian.