Nigerians – An unlikely endangered species?

These are not the best of times to be a Nigerian. As the country we apparently call home contends with rampant domestic insecurity and a worsening economic crisis, thousands of young people are increasingly voting with their feet, both legally and illegally.

Following a series of unfortunate incidents over the past few years, however, there is now a newfound paranoia about what happens to us in the outside world when we do make it past Seme border. For the first time in the country’s history, there is a real sense that Nigerians are trapped between the proverbial devil and deep blue sea – threatened by poverty, violence and insecurity at home, but facing violent xenophobia, damaging suspicion and real existential danger abroad too.

This is a new experience for many Nigerians who are accustomed to being globetrotting individual adventurers with only the loosest sense of shared national identity back home in an ethnically and religiously divided country. What does being “Nigerian” outside of Nigeria actually mean, save for an accent, a few generic cultural tropes and jollof rice? Driven by the reality of a government that sees itself as an occupying regime and an increasingly hostile and unwelcoming outside world, however, an unfortunate group identity appears to be coalescing around the impossible choice of death and poverty at home versus violence and persecution abroad. What a choice that is to make for one of the world’s youngest demographics.

Pseudo apartheid at home?

A few days ago, I made an argument that Nigeria is not practising democracy by the dictionary definition of the term, because the political leadership of the country is an entirely separate demography from the vast majority of the citizenry. I pointed out that with a median population age of just about 18 years, versus a political gerontocracy filled almost exclusively with over-60s and over-70s, the situation could be described as minority rule. Technically speaking, where the leaders do not represent the led visually, culturally, ideologically or even functionally, but rather represent their own narrow interests without any care for the majority population, what do you call that? Feudalism?
Late-stage Communism? Apartheid?

Whatever it is, it certainly is not democracy, but perhaps the fault is with those of us who ever believed even nominally that Nigeria was any such thing. Between the antics of the Sani Abacha employee currently moonlighting as Nigeria’s president and the alleged 69-year-old on whose incontinent Mandate They Shall Stand, it now looks increasingly like our overlords simply no longer believe it is worth pretending to respect Nigerians in the slightest. The Bola on whose Mandate They Shall Stand, but who ironically can barely stand without collapsing into a pile of vinegar-flavoured old man dust, openly told us recently, “You will be president one day, but after me.” Why would he sugarcoat it after all? The gloves are fully off now.

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The titular head of the hostile military force currently occupying Aso Rock also makes no bones about how little time he has for our nonsense these days. When pressed just a little bit to sign the election amendment bill ahead of the deadline, who could fail to note the tone of the press release sent out by the State House? “Oh shut up, you maggots,” it said, “Emperor Buhari the Great tires of your ceaseless chattering and he will only do whatever he wants to do in his own time. If you don’t like it, come and win an election to become president like him, let’s see.” Well not in those exact words, but close enough. The disrespect we are currently copping as citizens of Nigeria is so dramatic and in-your-face that I’m sure a few well-tuned telescopes are picking it up from the International Space Station – it’s just that hard to miss it.

Even our neighbours know it now

The story of Itunu Babalola captured the imagination of many of us for this exact reason. Here was a young Nigerian lady in a neighbouring West African state who was told very confidently to her face, that she would be punished with death – simply on account of being Nigerian. Then there was an 8-month period of nothing. Then she actually died – and we all could do nothing about it. The Ivorians will of course insist that her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence that was not linked to the vocal promise made in public and to other people’s hearing by the police officer in Bondoukou, but that is academic. The point is that it is now general knowledge even among our African contemporaries that Nigerians are now the proverbial unwanted orphans of the world – expendable at home and not much better off abroad.

The situation is compounded by the fact that Nigeria has a credible case for being the world’s most under-policed country per capita. It also has a geometric population expansion rate that shows no signs of slowing, alongside an educational system completely unfit to prepare millions of young Nigerians for the world of today, let alone the future. It is against this inhospitable backdrop that hundreds of thousands of young people continue to make the decision to flee Nigeria every year, resigned to the cold reality of living with an emergency consciousness in an increasingly harsh and unwelcoming diaspora, be it in Malaysia or Malabo.

In the absence of a significant miracle in the short term, it would seem as though Nigeria’s famously confident and unflustered populace will have to get used to a new and unfamiliar place in the world. Right now, we are stuck at the junction of a society that is disintegrating at its seams, a government that sees us as obstacles to be counteracted, and a world that may not want us anymore.

Where does that leave us? I know just as much as you do, which is to say, I have absolutely no idea. We will just have to find out together.