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In case you missed it, President Buhari is at the ongoing 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and as expected he made a speech, which seemed to hit all the right notes-strangely enough, knowing Daddy Bubu’s track record.
We thought there would be zero drama but alas, Buhari proved himself to be a longstanding drama king!
We stan!
All was right in Eden until a moderator asked the indomitable question “President Buhari, Nigeria has a very young population, perhaps you might highlight what a pathway for a resilient future looks like?”
Ha! Gbege!
We all know that Daddy Bubu and the word “youth” do not see eye-to-eye at all. Remember the last time he spoke about us? Yeah, that didn’t turn out well, he dared to call us lazy!
Everyone held their breath in anticipation of his response. Nigerians were like:
Bubu, as always, didn’t disappoint. He went on a tangent, totally off point.
His opening sentence reminded me of my days in secondary school debates, when we just had to acknowledge everyone, even the cockroach in the cupboards. Or those that will say “thank you for that beautiful question” before actually answering.
The rest of his response? Hmm, it was an unwieldy spiel of how climate change is important and how Nigeria is working towards that.
Err, sir, President Buhari, Daddy Bubu, were we not told in school that we must read the instruction to a question before we answer? The instruction clearly said to focus on the youths. What are you doing sir? Why are you looking up and down liadat and talking about climate change? Holl’up, are you reading from a script?
You are supposed to be talking about the future of the youth! WHAT? THERE’S NO FUTURE? Aiye mi te mi bami.
So the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently mandated a charge (or fine) on any amount above a cash deposit of over 500k. It might sound like a big deal, and there was a social media outrage, but many people remain unlooking. The truth is most people are broke, so the issue doesn’t concern them at all. In fact they wish this was their only problem.
Here are five reasons why you and most people don’t care about the CBN cashless policy:
1. Your account balance is not even up to 500k; the N52 and other charges deducted by your bank is still paining your soul. You cannot come and carry another cross on your head.
2. The noise and complaints are not putting money in your pocket. What do these people know about cashless? They should come for a masterclass; you are a master at being cashless!
4. You’ve not been in the banking hall for months to collect one kobo, not to mention depositing over 500k…
5. If you get 500k today, you won’t put it in a bank. You don’t want to hear stories that touch; it’s someone’s 800k one bank swallowed like that o.
Well, until the champagne problems comes your way, you’d rather just stay in your lane and calculate how much food you’ll buy today based on your lean budget.
Nigerians are not exactly fans of the walk-the-talk mantra. Remember that Daddy Bubu promised that he would make the naira “great again”? How’s that working out for him? At the last count, a thousand naira barely gets anyone through the day. Leemao!
So yes, it is newsworthy if someone does exactly what they say they will, and more so if the said person is an elected official.
In this case, it was the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who made the news.
Let’s Walk You Through It, Shall We?
In December 2017, he promised that one of his sons would be enrolled in a public school in the state to show his commitment about raising the education standard in his state.
Some two years after, it seems the governor might actually be doing this. According to a Septemeber 23 tweet on his official twitter account, Abubakar Al-Siddique El-Rufal has indeed been enrolled into one of these schools.
As I said, it was a newsworthy event, because, well… Nigeria. So, as you may expect, Twitter rose to the announcement. Internet is accessible, maybe not cheap, but it is accessible. Everyone had something to say about it.
There is this person that thinks the Governor is only trying to score cheap political points:
This person says y’all shouldn’t trip:
There are reports that Government renovated the said school with about 195 million Naira. But this person thinks that shouldn’t be THE point.
But, there just might be a little twist to the story. I mean, it’s Nigeria, isn’t it?
I can only think of two things here; yes, the money has been diverted in true Nigeria version, or maybe, just maybe the children in question were too shy to meet the Governor. I mean who wouldn’t be?
To get a better understanding of Nigerian life, we started a series called ‘Compatriots’, detailing the everyday life of the average Nigerian. As a weekly column, a new installment will drop every Tuesday, exploring some other aspect of the Nigerian landscape.
This week, a former corps member gives a brief recount of his experience as a teacher in one of Nigeria’s neglected institutions and the lessons this experience taught him.
In 2015, freshly graduated with a degree in Environmental Science from a rather pricey UK university, I returned to Nigeria for my service year. In my estimations, I had one year of rocking poorly-tailored khakis with fanny packs, community building projects and shouting ‘corper wee’ without provocation, cut out for me. My heart was brimming with excitement.
What I didn’t plan for, however, was having that excited, hearty real estate, getting overrun with disappointment, when I was posted to teach in a school so neglected by the government, its most modern amenity was coloured chalk.
If you recall, 2015 was the year the naira and the hopes of Nigerians locked fingers and took a simultaneous jump off the back of a former dictator turned president. Our currency had just crashed and it appeared the only change our president was capable of bringing was bus fare. And yet somehow, I stayed optimistic, excited even, for my return to carry out the NYSC programme.
Which is why rather than ‘runs’ my way through three weeks of camp and the entirety of the programme as was repeatedly suggested to me, I spent three weeks in matching whites — learning drills, dodging soldiers and unwinding at the mammy market, leaving my posting and the rest of my service year purely to chance. When fate struck and declared my place of primary assignment as *SunnyVille Group of Schools, located in a never before heard of part of Ogun State, I was only too happy to oblige.
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On my first trip to my PPA, I had no idea what to expect, so I let my optimism get the best of me. When the bustling, traffic-heavy landscape of Lagos gave way to the lush greens of Ogun State, I was thankful for all the fresh air I’d be taking in. When we arrived at the buka-laden community where the school was located, zero fast-food restaurants in sight, I whooped at the opportunity to eat only traditional meals for a time. But when I came face to face with what was to be my workplace for the next year, my good cheer started to glitch.
Imagine a shoe box, scaled up for humans, but just barely. Per a rusty, rundown sign outside of it, SunnyVille was a primary and secondary school, a fact I had to confirm by venturing in, without any permission.
To my surprise, this government approved school had students between the ages of 10 and 18 learning in classes divided by thin planks of wood to maximise space. Signs written in chalk announced doors leading to three classes: basics, junior and secondary schools all jumbled together. The floors were made of untiled concrete, the kind you had to water before sweeping. There were almost no windows in place, and the school was lit purely by natural light. A disconnected line outside and subsequent communication informed me that Sunnyville and its students had been without electricity for close to a year.
When I found my way to the proprietor, I asked what kind of extra-curriculars were in place for the students, to which he confusingly responded that all his pupils were hard working. He informed me that Jss 3 and SS 2 were in different terms from the rest of the school, and yet somehow didn’t think it odd that students were learning in such an unsuitable environment. To him, they had to make do with what they had.
And since 1973, the Nigerian government has been reading from the book of ‘Making Do’ — placing incompetent corps members in charge of the formative learning stages of student life. It is how I, a grossly unqualified Environmental Science degree holder came to teach civil studies and basic science to primary school students. And agriculture, geography and biology to secondary school students. The remainder of the Sunnyville teaching staff consisted of even more corps members and only four permanent staff members.
In my service year, I taught classes of students who were tickled by the thought of learning with computers. Who couldn’t help but shy away from a laptop when I brought it in to demonstrate its teaching and learning possibilities. Students who genuinely believed their requirement to clear surrounding grass with hoes and rakes in the generation of lawnmowers was a necessary part of their education. Who remarkably, showed great patience when classes had to be paused when darkened rain clouds prevented visibility.
And yet somehow, like flowers blooming through concrete, these same students amazed me with their brilliance. In the latter part of 2015 and for the majority of 2016, I had the privilege of teaching children who never failed to ask the right questions, or give the right answers. Whose eagerness to learn, in spite of stifled conditions showed a resilience beyond their years. Under my charge, there were aspiring doctors, lawyers, engineers and even a writer. Aspiring professionals whose optimism and fiery ambitions could not be put out by a government or an educational system unconcerned with their progress.
If ever I needed an indicator that success could be made in spite of Nigeria, I only had to look to the rusty sign of the Sunnyville group.
There’s actually nothing we won’t hear in this country. The Nigerian Senate — same guys with a ₦13 million monthly salary, inclusive of a ₦1.24m ‘hardship’ allowance, have brought something brown new for us to chew on.
This time, our esteemed Honourables are looking to spend ₦5.5 billion on new SUVs for each of the 109 members of the nation’s senate. This will add up to about ₦50.5 million naira spent on each senator.
Now, like any right-thinking person, you must be thinking, how on earth is ₦5.5 billion a reasonable amount to spend on jeeps in the poverty capital of the world? In a country that can’t even afford to pay a ₦30,000 minimum wage countrywide? Where VAT is about to be increased to generate more money?
Well, that’s you, a reasonable person. On the flip side reason, however, is Senate leader – Yahaya Abdullahi. A man whose vision must be limited to the dividing line between his buttocks because he believes it is ‘an insult to say a Senator cannot ride a jeep in Nigeria’.
His statement was in reaction to the public outcry against the amount of money proposed to get these guys riding in new whips. Just that nobody ever die of insort, I know where Nigerians would have carried this man to.
Now if for any reason, you see some sense in what he’s saying, then I have a little math assignment for you, don’t be angry.
Take all the money they’ve spent on your education, plus all the money you’ve ever spent on food, then add the salary you’ve been collecting all of these years. Has it entered ₦50 million?
And even if it is, is that why they should spend money the average Nigerian most likely will never see in his lifetime on a jeep?
Well, that’s just our opinion. Let us know what you think about the proposed ₦5.5 billion jeeps in the comments below.
Ever watched one of those Hollywood movies with serial killers doing serial killer shit and just started shuddering? Movies like Seven and The Silence of Lambs? From troubled childhoods to bouts of insanity or using a particular motif, serial killers in movies usually have a very peculiar pattern that boils down to a “why” and“how”. Surely, everybody knows this.
That’s why it’s crazy that with the news of a serial killer on the loose, the Nigeria Police quickly concluded (without public evidence to back it up) that the victims were prostitutes in a tone that said, “Oh, look, they don’t really need protection.” As if that wasn’t enough, they advised women to desist from prostitution. And that’s all they could say.
Let’s back it up a little bit for context:
It started in late July, or early August. Different accounts tell it differently. It was in a hotel in Olu Obasanjo Road, Abia State; a man strangled a 23-year-old woman, Maureen Ewuru. When the news came out initially, the police said the prime suspect was her boyfriend. They also assumed it was an isolated event, but more events sprang up to prove that there’s really really likely a serial killer on the loose.
“After having sex with her, he locked the room and took flight but unfortunately for him, he left a trace which is helping us in our investigation”
– The Nigerian police.
A few days later, this time in Owerri, Imo State, a hotel attendant found the dead body of a woman under a bed in one of the hotel rooms they had to clean. Apparently, the woman had come in with a man on a Saturday, and by the next day, she was dead and the man was nowhere to be found. There was evidence that sex had taken place; whether it was consensual or not remains a mystery, but the police again concluded that the man in question had to have been her lover.
Hotel in Woji, GRA
A week later, and two weeks after the very first incident, another woman was found dead in a hotel in Woji, GRA phase one in Port Harcourt. Like Maureen Ewuru, she was strangled to death. It was at this point that the police started to suspect that it might be more than a “boyfriend kills girlfriend” type situation. In this case, the man took everything that could be used to identify her: from her clothes to her phone.
The most interesting part of all of this is that there’s a pattern. With the bodies of the women strangled in Port Harcourt, a white cloth (in some reports referred to as a handkerchief) was tied around their necks.
At a march organised to protest the killings at the police headquarters, the deputy commissioner of police in Port Harcourt, Chuks Envonwu told the protesting women to advise their fellow women to not go into prostitution because it’s only prostitutes that can fall victim of this crime. Wild right? Maybe not so much. If you step out of your bubble once in a while, it’s easy to realise that this is how the average Nigerian man thinks.
However, Soibi Ibibo Jack the woman who organised the protest gave it back to him. She told BBC that while the women killed were not sex workers, the lives of sex workers also matter. In her words, “They’re human beings and need protection too.” We stan.
Only a few days after this protest, on September 15, another death was recorded. A woman died in a motel in Rumuola area in Port Harcourt in another quite similar death by strangulation. While the chairman of Nigeria Hotels Association Rivers State Chapter, Eugene Nwauzi has said that they’re working with the Police, DSS and State Government to stop this menace, it’s quite sad that these many women have to die before more action is put in place.
What are the police doing? They claim to be investigating while going around calling the victims prostitutes and prioritising the investigation of a parody @policeng account on Twitter.
Meanwhile, investigation is on to ascertain the source of the fraudulent handle and deal with it appropriately.
As it is, there are unconfirmed reports of the suspected ways in which the women must have been lured to the hotel. One Twitter user posted a broadcast message. The woman in the message narrated her experience with another woman who wanted to purchase some products she sold. The female buyer called her over the phone and told her to deliver the products to a hotel in Port Harcourt. When she got to the reception of the hotel, the female buyer told her to come up to her room. Remembering that a serial killer was on the loose, she decided to run for her life.
It’s only a theory, but who knows?
Is it a gender war? Maybe, maybe not. There have been arguments about this all of last weekend, and theories about the motive of the serial killer. But what is clear so far is that women are being targeted, and by the definition of the term serial killer, the victims often have something in common: their demographic profile, appearance, gender or race. Reporting this story and seeing so many unconfirmed accounts and rumours made us wonder: just how many deaths from the hands of this serial killer have gone unreported? We do hope the police start acting right.
The Nigerian experience is physical, emotional and sometimes international. No one knows it better than our features on #TheAbroadLife, a series where we detail and explore Nigerian experiences while living abroad.
Today, our search for abroad life takes us to Minnesota, a state in America whose freezing temperatures, blizzards and tornadoes are simply not strong enough to keep Nigerians out. There’s even a Redeemed Christian Church of God there guys.
My knowledge of the state only went as far as the facts Fargo taught me, which I would learn in the course of this interview are nothing like what Minnesota is like in real life. Helping to shed a little more light on the state is Ayoola, a Nigerian who has been a student of Minnesota State University since 2013. He lets us in on how living abroad has been since then.
When was your first time abroad?
Kenya. I was pretty young, maybe 12. The next time I crossed Muritala Muhammed was when I was heading to school in 2013.
What would you say is the easiest means to leave Nigeria? Asking for 140m friends.
Student-visa way! Which is what I did. I mean, I haven’t left-left Nigeria, but American visiting visas are hell to get these days and relocating legally? Just put a pause on that while this president is in office. I guess I was lucky when I left, it was fairly easier then. I don’t know the process now though. I used EducationUSA back then, they were pretty reliable.
How expensive was it to get a student visa in 2013?
Man, the golden age of N140 to a dollar. Back then I think it cost $300, which was about N45,000.
Gasp!
Yeah, if you started paying school-fees post-2015, I feel bad for you son. I’m still in the fee-paying boat, but those first two years were bliss and I didn’t even realise it.
So you were in school when the exchange rate started turninoniown in 2015. How crazy did that get?
It was… crazy. But I’ll say I was shielded from the worst of it because my school has student-paying jobs within it, while also allowing students to register outside jobs as courses. So even though the Naira was moving mad, I was able to have my own little kpa du kpa, earning dollars to supplement my allowance and all that.
What’s one thing everyone should know about Minnesota?
It is nothing like Fargo! My God! I’ve had to explain this to more people than you would think possible. Skress.
And lakes, there are lakes everywhere. It’s called the land of 10,000 lakes, but I bet there are way more.
There are! I checked. 11,842 to be precise.
Aha! Plus, everyone has a lakehouse here. They’re always gathering to fish. Like it could be freezing out, and you’d still have people lugging fish reels all over the place. It’s one thing I love, family events
What was the thing that surprised you the most about living abroad.
You know, it would surprise you, other people might say how free-spirited or how crazy Americans are, but the most surprising thing about living abroad is Nigerians. Well, Nigerian parents. Once their right leg crosses that boarding gate, their problem with collecting things from their left hands goes. You’ll see them saying “thank you” when cashiers hand them groceries with their left hands; always blows my mind.
So Minnesota has a Nigerian community then?
Nigerian, Somali, there’s a whole African community. What’s crazy is, we all band together. In Nigeria, you might differentiate Igbos from Yorubas, but over here, everyone just gets a kick out of the fact that they’re from the same continent. It’s such a different feel; universities have African unions, it’s crazy.
Where’s the go-to place for Nigerian food in Minnesota? None. You can’t imagine the injustice. If you want Nigerian food, you have to cook it yourself. I’d be in my dorm whipping up Jollof rice, or going to the next Nigerian’s room to have some egusi. Such is life.
Speaking of university, how is the campus experience?
It’s staying up to study until 3 am and walking into a 7am class in pajamas, but it’s also planning spur of the moment inter-state trips over the weekend. Like there’s serious work, but you’re not killing yourself because of school, you get?
Like when I decided to switch majors in my third year, it wasn’t a complicated process, filled out a form, took the extra courses I needed and that was that.
Won’t lie, abroad life is pretty sweet, I plan on getting a work permit after school so it doesn’t end. I know your next question is if I’d ever consider moving back…
(It was)
I won’t rule it out though. The thing about living here is the sudden patriotism that jumps out. Getting extra hype when Nigerian music comes on at parties, being defensive whenever Nigerian slander comes up. You should see us Nigerians speaking in pidgin and their native dialects when they gather. It’s actually wild. And the truth is, I just miss home. It’s cliché, but there’s no place like here.
Hear, hear, she says in Surulere. Any bad sides to it though? Of course. Especially since Trump came into office. But I’ve had only one truly racist experience, and I didn’t even realise what was happening until it was over. My friends and I were standing outside of a cinema hall and some white boys in a car pulled up beside us mouthing something we couldn’t hear. Like we were so clueless, we actually asked them to come closer so we could hear them. It wasn’t until they sped off, we realised they were calling us the n-word. We just laughed it off. That’s the only time really.
Disappointing. Last question, what do people in Minnesota think about Nigerians?
Funny you should ask. Nothing. They really don’t know us. When people from Minnesota ask where I’m from and I say Nigeria, it’s always a blank stare that follows. They’re so clueless when it comes to African countries. We got some shine when Rick and Morty did a sketch with Nigerians, and other sketches, but that’s it oh. Cold world.
Want more Abroad Life? Check in every Friday at 9 A.M. (WAT) for a new episode. Until then, read every story of the series here.
To get a better understanding of Nigerian life, we started a series called ‘Compatriots’, detailing the everyday life of the average Nigerian. As a weekly column, a new instalment will drop every Tuesday, exploring some other aspect of the Nigerian landscape.
This week, a young woman recollects how weight gain in her adolescence, led to the development of an eating disorder. A dark hole she was luckily pulled out of through a mild bout of self-conceit.
At 13, I experienced the most pivotal moment of my adolescence and I was completely unaware of it. Overweight and staring at my mirrored reflection in the guest bathroom one night, I pored over every stretch mark, every neck roll and every swing my arms took from even the slightest jiggle. I had recently learnt that the fastest way to motivate weight loss was to watch yourself eat in the nude. Deciding to spare myself the indignity, I chose the after-effects instead. My protruding stomach from that night’s dinner and my now eclipsed vagina provided double servings of persuasion. Sticking two fingers down my throat, it was the first time I caused myself to throw up after a meal.
For most people, personal weight gain is this big puzzle. This “I just woke up and was 30 pounds overweight” mystery. Like some unknown enemy chose to swap bullets of lead for kilograms of bodyfat and pelt them at night. In my situation, however, I could pinpoint timelines, meals and probably even dates if I thought about it hard enough.
At eight, I was a lean, quick-witted tween, whose world view revolved a little too seriously around the philosophy: ‘you see what that man did? A woman can do it ten times better’ — a belief system taught by a proudly feminist mother and re-inforced by a yet to be shaken faith in self. Primary school academics, sports and leadership were treated with a war-like urgency against my male peers that went beyond my years. So when it came time to marking territory at home against my only two siblings — boys, I went more than a little apeshit.
I made sure pranks against me were repaid with a rather unfair measure of their pound of flesh. I refused to be excluded from physical activities, forcing my way into playing defence, offence and goalkeeping in their football matches. And when it came to those games children play with food — who could steal the most food from the kitchen? Who could take the most food from their siblings? First to finish the most food, I more than held my own.
By ten, after heaps and heaps of food had been consumed, most times in a rush — I went from participating in a multi-player culinary competition to being the sole contender, when even my older male siblings couldn’t keep up with my diet.
It was around this time I started to notice a slight hesitation in my zipper when I put my school uniform on. A new heaviness every time I attempted to stand and a never-ending hunger school lunches and contraband snacks just couldn’t satisfy. By thirteen, after I had made the leap from elementary to junior secondary school, I was clearing a packed ‘lunch’ from home for my ‘second breakfast’. The school provided lunch for an early ‘brunch’ and a purchased meal from the school canteen for my final school meal of the day, all of these supported with intermittent snacking of course.
By that age, all the cheery tones describing my rapidly multiplying waistline and dress sizes to my parents, as mere ‘growing pains’ had gone down three timbres, taking on sombre tones usually reserved for the dying.
“Watch that girl”, they said in stage whispers to whichever parent was toting me around, “she’s getting too big”. All the while pointing accusatory fingers at me, in case I had somehow managed to miss the reference.
And watch that girl I did. By JSS3, I had witnessed myself transform from an athletic, usual suspect for class captain, front and centre bubbly student — to a quiet, too scared to take up space, backbencher.
I hated my body, I hated my appetite, I hated the stares I attracted in public transportation, I hated feeling like I needed permission to exist. By 13, on a six-month extended break home following the completion of my junior WAEC, I become more concerned with my looks than any child psychologist would find healthy — I manically investigated the quickest ways to lose weight.
Reducing portions only worked for a time before I decided to reward myself with daily cheat meals. I felt too awkward exercising and turned to comfort foods when I didn’t see immediate results. Praying about my weight only made me feel pathetic.
It was only when I stumbled across the deceptively exotic-sounding names – ‘bulimia’, ‘anorexia’, eating disorders that have ended lives and ruined food consumption for many, that I realised I stood a fighting chance of losing weight.
After my first try, naked, emptying the contents of my stomach, it became a daily routine. Every meal was followed by a trip to the nearest toilet. My hurls masked by loud music and running water. To hide the tears that usually followed from making yourself sick, I frequently took baths — three or four a day most times. My family never suspected a thing. You had never seen a teenager on holiday so clean.
When I started to see results from denying myself the satisfaction of digesting food, I decided to take things a notch higher. Actual starvation. Where I would take three meals, they became two and even that dwindled to one.
Days where I successfully had no meals, I would beam at my reflection with pride, taking the hunger pangs strumming away in my stomach as victory cries against obesity. Soon, I couldn’t eat a meal without feeling the need to throw up, even without needing the usual prodding of my fingers.
Within 6 months, after routinely throwing up and starving myself, I had managed to go from a soaring size 14 to a fast whittling away 8. I began my senior year of secondary school, a freak to be studied by my peers. ‘Did she have AIDS?’ ‘Maybe she got an abortion?’ ‘How is she so skinny?’
Anyone else would have hated the rumours, I was just happy to be the subject of a conversation that didn’t revolve around the potency of my farts. The fact that I was always dizzy, had come to always find myself hungry and couldn’t bear to look at food without a longing that went beyond hunger were things I chose not to dwell on. That I was essentially living a half-life at only 13 was irrelevant. I was happy to be dress sizes down and society’s idea of beautiful, and that was that.
There’s a chance I would have retained this ‘happiness’, and continued on to be forty-five-year-old taking bathroom breaks in between lunches to empty her gut, had it not been for this post from 2013 by Yagazie Emezi I stumbled on while randomly reading her blog in class in ss1. I can’t believe it’s still on the internet.
The thing about bulimia is, for all the good you might feel losing weight and fitting into envied clothes; a world of harm is being done to your body. From dental sensitivity to throat problems to mineral imbalances, the bad always, always outweighs whatever physical good is thought to be done.
For me, no bad was more unforgivable than the swollen neck glands highlighted by the article. A tell-tale sign of bulimia sufferers, the bloated glands usually result from an irritation caused by constantly having stomach acids pass through the throat.
Taking an excuse from class, I rushed to the school toilet to examine my jawline in 3D, and there it was, staring back at me, a face that was fast taking on the shape of a pufferfish!
I wish I could say something more profound put an end to my bulimia. Perhaps body positivity, or a healthy meal plan I finally decided on and stuck to, but really, I just didn’t want to be called ‘fish face’ by my peers. The fact that Bulimia sufferers have an increasingly high chance of mortality and worrying rates of suicide completely lost on me. I just didn’t want to look funny.
It has been many years since the thought of swollen glands put an end to my disorder for good and even now it is still unbelievable that vanity at such a young age pushed me to do a most unthinkable, hateful thing against my body, and just as easily pulled me out of it. Since then I have adopted a body positivity I wished I had in my youth. Never fretting when the pounds heap on, and being just as casual if they do come off. Life is a little too short to be overrun by kilograms on a scale or people asking that you ‘watch it’ before you even learn about Pythagoras Theorem.
There is nothing Nigerians haven’t tried in order to gain the government’s attention on just how — for lack of a better word — displeased, we are with their leadership.
We’ve held church crusades.
We tried nationwide strikes.
We’ve attempted and succeeded at coups. We’ve held protests and tested the occasional name-calling. But nothing, nothing at all looks like it’s going to get the government to pay university workers their due, disburse a livable minimum wage, fix up the health sector, repair all the terrible roads and get children off the streets and into schools etc., etc., anytime soon.
With these trial and error methods gone out of the way, it might be time for Nigerians to look in another direction; it might be time for us to try “The Mali Approach”.
Now you might wonder, what is the ‘Mali Approach’? To explain, let’s examine the country’s state capital, Bamako.
Bamako, Mali.
Mali has a largely agricultural economy — 70% of its workforce engage in the trade. The most productive agricultural areas of the country lay along the Niger River, which is between Bamako and Mopti. The north of Bamako is home to the largest concentration of cattle in the country.
Bamako is also the nerve centre of Mali; local and international trading in the country’s agricultural produce, livestock and fish take place here. It is a major link to a principal port of trade with Dakar. What this means is that Bamako is quite integral to the existence of Mali. It is so important that, without the state capital, Mali would lose about 36% of its GDP.
That’s why what you’re about to read is shocking: You know what a group of people in Mali did to the roads leading up to Bamako in August 2019?
They blocked it.
Now, why would they do a thing like that?
Two words: bad roads.
Mali is a country plagued with close to impassable roads. Multiple directives on the internet warn travellers and visitors to be careful of its roadways. Having had enough of the government’s nonchalance to fixing the roads, a group called Sirako (which translates to “about the roads” in the country’s Bambara language), joined residents in blocking the main way leading up to the country’s capital. This blockade went on for about four days, gravely disrupting trading activities in the country.
The blockades.
The blockades started on August 23 in the western city of Kayes. Hundreds of residents blocked the main bridge over the Senegal River.
By day four, the protests had spread to other regions: over 1000 trucks loaded with merchandise for trade were stuck outside of the city’s capital – Bamako.
Attempts by the government to have the blockades removed proved abortive — the Prime Minister couldn’t get representatives of the people to budge.
Within the time the blockades stood, dealers in fruit feared for their produce, which were stuck in trucks unable to access the city capital. Bus passengers had to walk kilometres to make it into Bamako.
The country was in a standstill, because a few citizens decided, enough was enough.
The aftermath of the blockades.
By August 28th, less than a week after the blockades started, the government released an ’emergency’ 5.0 billion CFA francs, for the resumption of a major highway project to fix the roads leading up to the city capital.
See where a little strong head can get you?
Now, this might not work in the Nigerian context because well, you don’t need to do much before tear gas makes an appearance during protests. But, it does make you think. Hitting the government where it hurts just might be the way to go.
The Nigerian experience is physical, emotional and sometimes international. No one knows it better than our features on #TheAbroadLife, a series where we detail and explore Nigerian experiences while living abroad.
South Africa is a country known for gold, vuvuzelas and the apartheid hero, Nelson Mandela. But beyond nationalists and national treasures, it is also a country infamous for the widespread xenophobic sentiments held by its citizens.
In 2008, the country recorded the bloodiest xenophobic attacks in its history, when over 60 people were killed. In 2015, attacks got so severe, Nigerians and other immigrant businesses were the subject of repeated attacks and looting in the state.
To get a feel for the daily life of Nigerians currently living in a land so outwardly against their presence, we sat with a young Nigerian woman, who recounted her experience.
For such a distincg Nigerian name, you have quite the South African accent, how long have you lived there? My family moved to South Africa shortly after I completed primary school. I think I was about 13 years at the time. I’m 23 now.
Why did your family decide to move?
Well, my mother is South African, and my dad is Nigerian so they moved to be closer to her family over here. He still lives in Nigeria though.
Oh! So you’re half-Nigerian, half South —
Well. I’m Nigerian and I hold a residence permit in South Africa.
Wait, explain. In South Africa, once you’re an immigrant or you have immigrant parents, citizenship is just… no. My best friend, whose parents are Nigerian, was born here and speaks Zulu like she owns the place. We’re both toting permanent residency permits.
Hold on. I just did a quick Google search and holders of permanent residency permits should be able to apply for citizenship after five years, right? Right?!
Yeahhh, you would think so. But nope, that citizenship is not going to happen.
Wild. So you mentioned your best friend is Nigerian, is there a Nigerian community where you live? Oh absolutely. But not just Nigerian. There’s an African community here. You might not think it because of the attacks, but Johannesburg is a pretty metropolitan city. There are Zimbabweans, Malawians, a lot of Congolese people. The majority of my friends are immigrants.
Okay, you just mentioned Johannesburg. Before the attacks that happened this week, had there been any crisis with immigrants? I wouldn’t say crisis, but it’s always a tense situation. The attacks started in the part of Johannesburg that isn’t safe, and right next to it is this big immigrant community called Hillbrow.
Tell me about it.
So Hillbrow is like the starter city for any immigrant who recently moved. The rent is low; it’s about 1000 rand a month
You can find Jollof rice in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. There are a lot of Igbo mechanics, french clubs, it’s very multicultural. But the thing is, it’s right next to Central Johannesburg, a portion of the city that the government has pretty much left to rot. So immigrants, for reasons beyond me, get the blame for its deteriorated state. To some people, immigrants living in an area can cause it to go into disrepair. So it’s always an easy target.
For Nigerians in particular, were there any clashes before this week’s incident?
Here’s the thing about Nigeria and South Africa. If you go to Sandton, almost all the music is Nigerian: Wizkid, Davido. Dj Cuppy was even there about three months ago. Nigerians even spend the most money in clubs, and that’s all fine. But a line just gets drawn and there’s this resentment towards immigrants.
Can I tell you something?
Go on. South Africans blur the lines where immigrants and foreign nationals are involved. They use ‘Nigerians’ as a blanket term.
Wait what? Yes!
Please explain. When I first moved to South Africa, someone said to me, “The Nigerians in Johannesburg speak french,” when I kept insisting I could only speak English. He was actually referring to Congolese immigrants. So when you hear people say South Africans say things like: “Oh, we’re tired of the Nigerians in this place,” what they really mean is, they’re tired of Zimbabweans, Malawians, the Congolese and just about all black immigrants in South Africa.
What?
So in these recent attacks, Nigerians were said to be targeted, how would they have been physically identified? I don’t know that any Nigerians were actually attacked. Nigerian businesses were looted, but to have attacked Nigerians would have required going around to their homes, which are high-density immigrant areas, and that would be a foolish thing to do. Although, in Central Johannesburg, in the further parts, where townships are, there were reports of immigrant homes being attacked shortly before this week’s incidents. However, to answer your question, Nigerians bear distinguishing marks from South Africans. Nigerian men are physically bigger and taller in build, where South African men are smaller. They’re darker too. Maybe the language and then the accent.
So these aren’t the first attacks this year. They’ve been building up?Exactly. So there’s a reason the attacks happened in Johannesburg and it probably links back to this guy, Herman Mashaba, he’s the Mayor.
Think ‘Trump meets your tribalist African uncle’. Because of him, a weird wave of nationalism has swept over Johannesburg. He won on a platform that condemned immigrants and blamed them for everything from the lack of jobs in South Africa to his wack hairline. He has a special term for immigrants, he calls them “Illegal foreign nationals”. The sentiments he preached have carried on from his campaign and have settled on the people of Johannesburg. He has also been carrying out a lot of immigrant raids.
Tell me about those. Okay, so about three weeks ago, this bonafide South African, mixed-race woman got arrested, because, and I quote “She looked and smelled like an Ethiopian.”
In trains and bus stations, they stop people and ask for their Identity cards.
What? Like passbooks?
Exactly, this has been happening in Central Johannesburg. About two weeks ago, there was a raid where immigrants sell clothes for cheap. Their goods were seized and they were asked to show their papers. Apparently, they were selling “counterfeit clothes” to the good people of South Africa. What does that even mean?
Bruh. Nigerians got the rap for that somehow. Same way a Nigerian drug dealer was accused of killing a South African taxi driver. You know, what supposedly led to this week’s attacks, when apparently, It was a Tanzanian.
We heard about that. Have you been personally attacked for being Nigerian? I’ll be honest, there’s a bit of a distinction. While xenophobia cuts across all social classes, violence drawn from said attacks are usually restricted to, you know, the underprivileged in society. I’ve been pretty sheltered, so while I’ve never been physically attacked, I get I verbal assaults and looks of just hate, yeah, those happen.
Man. I mean, every time I have to go to get my passport or papers at the government office, people look at my name and say, “Oh, you must have bribed your way to get these papers”.
Man. Man. Have you ever felt the need to go by a South African name just to have things easier? Hmm.
Well, it’s a thing where I’m very cautious when I tell people my name. I’ll admit there have been times where I just leave it out that I’m Nigerian because you never know who you might be speaking to, they could be violent, they could have a specific anti-Nigerian/immigrant axe to grind. But these days, I just own it, it’s terrible having to deny your identity. I have a friend that that just moved here from Nigeria for university, anytime he gets into a cab, he’d claim he’s Congolese or Malian, anything but Nigerian. It’s crazy.
Would you ever move back to Nigeria?
I mean, I’m in Nigeria every year, so I never feel quite far from home. At the end of the day, there are better opportunities in South Africa for me right now. I’ll always consider the possibility though.
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