Why the hell do we think we have a great culture in Nigeria?
on Nigerian Culture and Lemminglike respect
Last Wednesday I sat with my client after discussing a deal we were working to close we entered the Nigerian subject. Everyone knows when you enter Nigerian craze you can be on the topic forever, but I didn’t have the luxury of time, it was already 11:50pm. During the conversation, I mentioned what I believe to be one of the greatest challenge we have in Nigeria. Its a culture epidemic. For some reason we think we have a respectful culture in Nigeria and children respect their parents and authority and their elders. Well I call bullshit. That is why we are where we are today, because we have been broken into “mindless respect”. Now picture this, Nigerian president, is on medical vacation, where the fuck is the President, what is wrong with the dude, they said he wants to keep it private. What does that even mean, do we realize that guy is public property, he is using taxpayers money to do those so called tests, he would still get paid in full for those days that we is absent (assuming he comes back), Buhari is public property once he took that oath of office. It is now alarming how much we don’t give a shit, or we are letting the whole thing slide. He would speak to Trump, Saraki, Osibanjo, his cows but the governed be damn. It’s super disrespectful. But Nigerians are the coolest people ever, we just make memes about it, laugh about it and shrug it off. Why?
I contend that the reason is because our parents in collaboration with society have broken us into “mindlessly respecting” our elders, no matter how wrong or stupid what we think they are doing is. Just shut up and do as you are told. Elders always know best. This translates into authority of any kind. From your class prefect to the President. (I further believe that this system of control in Nigerian society is perpetuated because its easier for those above us to operate this way. No questions asked. So when you mum says dive under the car you cry and do it). That is why someone can estimate that corruption & looting would command 27% of Nigerias budget in 2020. It’s absurd. We just sit there, laugh and cry recession. It’s super annoying. I mentioned to take a look at the American society, children are trained to question authority as a routine thing. When your Doctor says take this and that, you say why? what is wrong with me? When your teacher says slap your fellow student, you say why, what did she do wrong?All these thoughts came flooding back when I was going through my twitter feed this morning.
I immediately responded the cop was gone because I have a faint idea of the American Society (he is now on adminstrative leave). They don’t play with shit like this. Now I need to point out the things that stood out for me from the video
- The guy who dropped his stuff and went to seperate the “officer” from the young kid (he also threw a punch at the guy and went on-guard — that was cool)
- The kid that rammed into cop and the second one that jumped over the hedge. Now this was a cop with a gun and these were high school children.
- Everybody ran when the cop fired his weapon. Everyone runs at a gunshot when you are not ironman, but they came back.
It blew my mind more when I saw the whole story and the reason behind the officer grabbing the boy in the first place. It was because the kid was shouting at the officer when he was speaking rudely to a girl for walking across his lawn. The kid was telling him thats no way to treat a lady. Remember this is a 13 year old kid. That is the culture in which he was brought up in. Where it is okay to question authority and speak up if what you think they are doing is wrong. That is why other kids were quick to sprint to his defence. Now see the society’s response to the story and LAPD not arresting the cop. That is what a normal society is supposed to do, fucking respond (in peaceful and not very peaceful ways). Not by making jokes and memes.
Bringing it back home to my beautiful country. Nigeria. I was shocked when I saw this video. Not because of the treatment, Nigeria soldiers are known bastards with civilian rights! But that people were actually watching. This guy is lame he is actually fucking helpless.
How can a human being treat another human like that. Why would you even do that to a person? For wearing Camo shirt? Are you kidding me? How do you watch that happen in your presence? But here is Nigeria everyone is scared, no one wants to get beaten, self fucking preservation. One article mentioned how the civilians looked on helplessly. They were not helpless, they had the advantage of numbers, they had the benefit of knowing right from injustice, they just chose not to act. Well I blame the culutre. The stupid ass so touted culture of respect that broke a whole nation into thinking any consituted authority is diety and above us.
This is how society responded. Oh thats right, we didn’t do shit, we just retweeted and shook our heads. While the military came out to say its not a reflection of the military and is and isolated event. Do they kiss their mothers with that lying mouth. Of course they did some for the press.
They gave him boots and the camouflage pants. Its a truly sad situation in Nigeria. But what do we do? we shake our heads and go back to watching Big Brother.
What is the way forward?
I would say that we should start to realize the flaw of this idea of respect and culture. Then we should make it a duty wean ourselves off the concept. Learn to start questioning authority when you feel you need to know or what they are doing is foolish. We should try to bring up the child growing up today with a different mentality, teach them to be respectful yet, confidence and assertive. Then we can start to think about building a truly great culture.
