Nigeria Vs The World.

I bet a number of us must have read about the recent maltreatment of a particular set of Nigerians aboard a British Airways, flight, right?

Well, it has got me thinking deeply than I previously did. I am really sick and tired of the stigmatisation, the stereotypes and generalisations. I am Nigerian and I am proud of it (though I almost choked on those words). It is a very difficult time to be Nigerian now. If we are not being deported, we are being done for fraud or our guys are hated by other black men because they believe they steal their women or other national females think Nigerian men are dogs and not good role models, all sorts, you name them! Nigerian women are either prostitues or plain gold diggers.

How long are we going to seat back and have countries in the world drag our name in mud? How long are we going to accept being disprespected by even the likes of Tanzania!? Recently, Wole Soyinka was undignifiably searched at the South African Airport, why? Because he is Nigerian of course! It's only a Nigerian that would die on his way to being deported back home without it's government batting an eyelid! I was shocked to read on a Nigerian forum, recently the comment of another Nigerian like myself who thought the Nigerian who was thrown out of the BA flight deserved it perfectly well! I was shocked! She even went on to suppor the treatments being metted to us in the diaspora because as she saw it, we are unruly individuals! I wasn't able to reply to her comment because I am not a member of the forum, otherwise I would have given her a piece of my mind, but I digress.

Now, it has come to the crux now that I personally have to be a doer rather than a mere talker. I have taken part in heated debates in the past about Nigeria and how I think it's a great country with vast potentials but where am I now? I'm still in a country which isn't mine. I went out recently to vote for the current mayor of London, however, when such event happens in Nigeria, I never return to at least exercise my rights as a Nigerian. What we need to know now is that this world is borrowed from our children. Whatever we do now, is what our children will come to find. If we live little for them, they get little.

A lot of us are here in high flying post, we love starbucks, we love French connections, we love walking into Gucci and feeling among, we have bought into the western culture that ours seem so backward now. Even in Nigeria, you see how the western culture have infilterated ours. When they ask a lot of us why we are are not at home, we moan about security, lack of light and all sorts yet it's in this same secure land that our children are been killed. I guess you didn't hear of Damilola Taylor or the recent wave of gun crimes which is claiming a lot of black children's lives, eh? Security isn't guaranteed anywhere in the world!

I recenctly learnt that in the last one year alone, one thousand Nigerians have lost their lives to robbery and attack in SOUTH AFRICA!!! Can you imagine that? We are hated even in our own continent! Why exactly do we feel the need to travel out of our shores? Fair enough if we want to do so for exposure, the education that the likes of Britain gave. Hmm...even the thought of that brings to mind the amount of money ordinary Nigerians contribute to the British economy in terms of visa fees! Not all these visa applications are successful, mind you. A lot of Nigerians made noting less than 3 applications before being eventually granted a visa! Yet we say there is poverty in Nigeria, I say where? Why do we fork out all this money so as to be disrespected and maltreated, so?

Isn't it this same Nigerians which do not provide opportunities that South Afrikaans are milking from its economy in terms of telecommunications? I just think we need to change our orientation. Nigerians are a very dynamic people, we are a people who do not settle for less but we never see diamond in the rough! We are always after the Diamonds that have been polished and shiny which of course was taken from our land and using our people to do the hard work of making it what it is!

Talking of diamonds, isn't it just at our backyard in Sierra Leone? This same oil, before it's discovery, i'm sure we would have travelled to Saudi Arabia for opportunities just because it has oil, if we hadn't found it on our own land! There is still alot that we are yet to uncover but no, our people fail to see it. We want to come to a place where it's already being laid out. Who wan suffer, abi?

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I just thought to let you know that I am tired of this stigma and I wanna return home. I wanna die at home! if there is any death that would kill me, I want it to be from home and not from these yobs or hoodies! Yes, I am fed up of this all1 Nigeria is great! I am great!