As an international student, I count myself lucky to have been able to experience life in Nigeria and outside of it.
While I cannot honestly claim to have lived in Elysian bliss in Nigeria, I was surprised and rather distraught to find that life there is portrayed in the U.S. as something like living in Panem from “The Hunger Games.”
I have had to insistently explain several times that I have only ever seen a lion in a zoo, not casually strolling down the street; that I had, indeed, seen cars on roads prior to my arrival; and that I had in fact boarded a plane in order to get here, not swam across the Atlantic Ocean. It certainly did not help at all that almost all the reports from Nigeria were those of violence and general instability.
The Broadway show “Fela!” once sang that “Nigerians suffer and smile.” I like to think that the Nigerian smiles not because (s)he enjoys to suffer, but, like so many others elsewhere, is sure that hard work will bring its rewards. Nigerians resolutely refuse to put up white flags in their struggle to live good lives, choosing instead to celebrate life in whatever conditions it presents.
True, Nigeria, like several countries around it, has numerous problems, many of them stemming from the absurdly inefficient leaders it has been saddled with. Despite these leaders, there is resilient hope that resonates, I dare say, throughout the African continent, of people determined to make their lives and those of their children better — despite the harrowing political, economic and domestic difficulties that assail them.
The world never sees reports on this fascinating group of people who bravely strive to make an ordinary existence in extraordinary conditions.