Just like many city-born middle class individuals of the late 70s and 80s, I was born into a cocoon of privilege that
As far as we were concerned, every govt scholarship, job opening, healthcare perk, access to coveted recreational facilities, travel opportunity, etc, was our exclusive domain.
As far as we were concerned, our reality was the only one that existed.
My jolt into reality happened when my dad died in a car accident in 1992 & I was violently brought down to earth as a kid
I wept that day (silly me. This was several urban dwellers' everyday reality that was so absurd to me)
Having struggled through university on the proceeds of my late
I had colleagues who sent themselves to school (in spite of both parents being alive), and surviving on 2-3 "square" daily meals of beans for months on end
It was in OAU I learnt to cook delicious
I had an orphan friend (a genius) who completed his bachelor's (a 1st class) by teaching tutorials to "freshers" for his whole time in school.
Having completed school, I slipped back into the cocoon of privilege
Marriage & children came.
But my destiny of rural empowerment kept on calling me throughout the years until, first my move from Lagos to ibadan in 2015,
And my final village "retreat" in 2019
Having subsumed myself into the
I am no longer apprehensive when I hear about droves of our professionals seceding from Nigeria.
Trust me, there's far more where they came from
Our ingenuity
My infrequent forays back into the bourgeois cocoon, these days just leaves me with revulsion.
Urban snobbery isn't who I am anymore
I'm more comfortable with the broken english speaking ordinary folk I come across daily in the heartland of Nigeria than with our
Nigeria is truly a great country
Our greatness lies in the plurality of what forms our core as a people
10 million emigrants out of Nigeria can't detract away from what substantiates who we really are as a people
I love Nigeria!