The Birdbox Guide to Living in Nigeria
This is a guide for *IJGB’s* who want to integrate quickly into Nigeria without any of the awkwardness and effort.
I have put together a 10-step guide to help you transition from an ambitious, inquisitive human being into prime Homo Third-World.Follow these steps and you too can become a Nigerian worthy of being included in the term “the masses.”
1. Always Defer to older people
All the time. Everytime. Without exception. If they say jump, you say “How high sir?” If they’re done eating chicken and they leave you the bones to eat, glistening with saliva, you say “I’m so grateful and honoured for the privilege Sir Daddy Your Honour.” Then you get to cracking those bones with tears of gratitude in your eyes.
They did after all, go through the arduous and conscientious effort of dropping out of a vagina before you, so that is definitely an achievement. Make sure you respect it at all times, or else Tonye Cole will post you on his Instagram.
2. Never ask questions
Intellectual curiosity? Independent thought? What are you, a homosexual vegetarian atheist IJGB? Where do you think you are?
Over here, we trust and obey. We do as we are told. We keep our backs strong and our minds soft because who needs a strong mind? A strong headmaybe, for doing this.
But not a strong mind.
3. Do the religion and let the religion do you
Like, literally let the religion do you.
Preferably in your parents’ house. Consensually, non-consensually, underage, whatever. It’s just you and the religion alone in your bedroom having a praise and worship session interspersed with screams of “Oh God!” What do you think it means when they say god loves you?
Don’t be one of those Children of Disobedience and let the religion love the crap out of you.
4. Immerse yourself exclusively in ‘gist’ culture
Refuse to Google anything for yourself and pick up new information that way. Learn exclusively from gist you saw on your timeline and on WhatsApp group chats. Say no to every kind of learning and self-development. Get into arguments at every opportunity, but make sure you have no idea what you’re talking about first. It makes it sweeter to observe the ignorant spectacle of stoppable force meeting movable object in a chorus of mediocrity.
Dedicate a third of your waking hours to tagging celebrities on social media hoping to get a like or retweet from Tonto Dikeh or Davido. When you’re not doing that, go around pestering people on Twitter by tweeting “KFB” at them. Make sure to “O jewa ke eng” and “Sco pa tu mana” as much as possible too. Never engage with anything that could make you a better or more informed person on the internet. Follow all the “sub delivery” and “savage response” handles and spend the remaining third of your time trying to catch their attention.
5. Pretend to be ‘woke,’ but let the real you slip out at the worst moment
Join everyone when it’s time to pile on Buhari or call out a rapist on Twitter. Instantly switch to victim-blaming mode when the rapist turns out to be your MCM. Be ignorant. Be childish. Be unfunny.
6. JUNGLE JUSTICE!!!!
Be violent. Extremely, unnecessarily violent. And yet be a totally shameless coward at the same time. Threaten to slap people and make a show of wanting to fight whenever a road traffic incident happens, while secretly praying that someone comes to hold you in case the other guy beats you up. When you spot your chance to shine against someone who cannot fight back, such as a tied-up alleged thief awaiting street justice, knock him out with a wooden plank and be the first to place a tyre around his neck. Bonus points it it’s a female culprit and you take care to molest her. On camera of course.
Make sure you take a clear video and post it on social media for the whole world to see. It obviously goes without saying that you should make no effort whatsoever to at least verify what crime was allegedly committed and the identity of the supposed criminal. Are you actually thinking of asking a question? Where do you think you are?
7. Drive with an imaginary cataract
Your eyes work just fineof course, but where is the fun in driving as if you are not visually impaired? Put on your hypothetical Birdbox blindfold and hit the road! Make sure to do 60km/h in the fast lane and hog the lane, then inexplicably move to the slow lane to attempt 120km/h, horning furiously at the car doing 60 in the slow lane. Overtake from the right at all times, because every other driver on the road needs a bit of a visual challenge too.
Your side view mirrors are quaint ornaments included for beauty and aesthetic purposes. They serve no meaningful purpose. When you want to turn or switch lanes, make sure you do not plan it 10 seconds before you do it, and especially make sure you do not use your turn signal. Turn signals are for lesbians and vegetarians. Meat-eating, God-worshipping Nigerians need turn signals for what? Jesus is your copilot. At the very last minute, swing your steering wheel violently to where you want to go, even if it means cutting across 3 lanes. If you survive, it, add it to the long list of testimonies for church on Sunday, before the religion does you in the pastor’s office.
8. RACE WAR!!!
You must not attempt to do anything without referencing somebody race, gender or ethnicity. Understand that people have no free will or moral agency, so all their actions are directly dictated to them from the book of Nigerian tribal slurs, stereotypes and clichés. All Igbo men traffic cocaine in Malaysia. All Yoruba women will sleep with you for a pack of chips. All Edo men are lazy f+++boys. All Hausa men on earth work as gatemen and are illiterates with ten wives and eleventy children.
When you are going business or contesting an election, you must use these superior insights to your advantage. If your partner cheats you, it is not because you filed to do your due diligence and research. It is because of the village they come from. If you are in an unhappy marriage, it’s not your fault for rushing into a marriage for convenience while you kept your six girlfriends. It’s that useless woman from Ilejemeje that trapped you with a baby because that’s how they do in their village.
9. Blame everything and everyone except yourself for the shambles that is your life
From the day you were born until now, nothing has ever been your fault. Some people in your mom’s family tried to kill the pregnancy. When that failed, the coven of witches resolved to send different people to put you in trouble at different points in your life. Despite all your mom’s people being long dead, you are 37 and still suffering for what they are doing to you from the underworld.
There was no bad decision, missed opportunity or foolish attitude that made your life turn out this way. It’s them. You don’t need to explain who they are, because we all know. Those damn they, with nothing better to do than harass mediocre people and make their lives just that bit more mediocre.
10. Wear a blindfold, trip over a stone, fall, accidentally make a baby or 3, and prolong the cycle
Body no be firewood nah. Who can blame you for taking a bad situation and making it 3x worse by bringing a baby into it? You just had to fire that afternoon, and condoms were never your thing. Let’s all kuku join you and celebrate the new addition, and then do a collection to help you with a few days’ worth of diapers and baby food. After that, you’re on your own and your life is not even decent enough to be mediocre anymore, but guess what?
You can have two or three more children, so at least you will have company!
