MENTALLY ILL NIGERIA
By: Jamylah Yusuf
There is a popular joke on the Nigerian cyberspace that says ‘everybody in Lagos is mad’. This joke is as a result of the bustle and chaos that is attributed to the atmosphere in Lagos. Everyone is in a hurry, everyone wants to outsmart each other, everyone tries to be the most cunny and everything is acceptable.
This isn’t just a ‘Lagos thing’. It is a Nigerian problem. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say ‘everybody in Nigeria is MAD’. Truly, you must lose some nuts to exist in a space as insane as ours.
The problems of Nigeria are so numerous that listing them alone could lead to one’s admission in a psychiatric ward. Where does one even start from?
Is it the Government? Our Leaders? Our educational system? The health facilities? The Never Ending National Drama? The killings, the list is endless.
But what do we do as Nigerians? We breathe! We live! We even make jokes of it all.
In the past four years, there has always been events that should have Nigerians bow their heads in shame but somehow, a joke is made of this occurrence and everyone laughs it off like a bunch of psychiatric patients holed up in a single room would.
There was the NSCDC website saga, we laughed it off and even made shirts that read ‘my oga at the top’. There was Mama P, there was the abduction of lots of school girls, there was the missing budget for the country, there was the episode of exposing looters, then the whistle blowing saga. We heard of we would ordinarily never hear of. The sums were so huge that one can only dream of owning such money. there was the saga of a national leader attributing meningitis to fornication.
There was the issue of a Nigerian senator threatening to rape a female senator during a sitting of the house. Most recently, there was the issue of a serving senator jumping off a police van, a national leader making a mess of his speech on the national TV as well as While all these went on, serious massacre and bloodshed happened in a number of Nigerian states, the roads remain unsafe to ply. Both as a result of the countless potholes and fear of the men who run a venture of robbery and kidnapping. Robbery used to be a midnight activity but it became an activity that isn’t time bound.
Government punished workers after work by refusing to pay them their dues. But what do Nigerians make of all this problems? We just eat and sleep hoping that things get better. We keep hoping that we are not directly affected by any of the happenings until it directly affects us.
A Nigerian musician recently made a music video depicting the sorry state of our nation. A part of the lyrics read ‘‘police station dey close 6:pm, for security reasons. This is Nigeria!’’
It is a fact that is insane. At 6:pm, the robber’s day just began.
How we remain sane in the middle of all the chaos and insanity called Nigeria is the 8th wonder of the world.
Maybe we are not sane. Maybe insanity is an unwritten requirement needed to survive in Nigeria. The more reason one who has had the taste of a saner clime would hardly survive in Nigeria.
But then, we are Nigerians, insane citizens of a mentally ill state.
This insane state is all we have, making it work isn’t a choice. It is an obligation. Therefore, when we celebrate national holidays on how far the country has come, it should really be a celebration of how the country has managed to remain in one piece despite all of it. Ours is the case of a psychiatrist and his patients who have all gone mad but still manage to keep the hospital building upright.
One unarguable fact is the resilience and strength of Nigerians. Maybe it is because our leaders are aware that whatever the situation is, Nigerians will always cope, they will rise out of it. A typical example is the market place of Borno state.
The incessant bombings and general insecurity has not put commercial activities to a halt in the state. If a bomb goes off in the market place today, in two days’ time the stalls are back in their place. Everyone goes on with their daily business.
If a motorist is attacked by robbers, fellow motorists wait for the coast to get cleared so they move closer to see if the victim was injured. If not, they thank God and say ‘sorry o’ and everyone disperses. Nobody is bothered about calling the police, or getting a forensic expert to investigate the crime scene. That isn’t how Nigeria works.
Nigerians are also hospitable people by default. The more reason why despite all the tribal oriented and religious oriented fights, a lot of intertribal marriages and even interfaith marriages.
The insanity of Nigerians is perhaps a special breed. We manage to be overly angry as well as happy at the same time. A Nigerian can be furious this minute and the next minute, he or she is laughing so hard that you will wonder if such excitement is normal. In fact, everyone in Nigeria is expected to be angry hence the average conversation openers of ‘sorry, please, excuse me’ or the colloquial ‘abeg no vex’.
We are by default, relatives, aunties and uncles, brothers and sisters linked by the common insanity that permeates the atmosphere of our country.
We do not despair however. We look into the eyes of fellow countrymen and say with so much conviction that ‘my brother, my sister, E go better!’
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