Thread by @nwaoma007

Not Enough. . .

1./ She thought she was Nigerian.

100% Naija Pikin.

Apparently not Nigerian enough.

Deemed part of the 5 percent; not one of the 97%. She didn’t make the cut.

Marginalized, no chance to be in the running.

2./ Zoned out, yet she thought the green passport meant she was in the zone.

5 years in primary school;
6 years in secondary school;

she was taught to pledge her faithfulness, loyalty and honesty to Nigeria.

Where did it get her?
No matter how hard she tried,

3./ there was someone waiting to tell her a 5 percenter wasn’t good enough.

Not good enough! Not one of us.

You don’t speak the lingo; you don’t know a ting oh.

Igbo on the outside, “ofe mmanu” on the inside. That’s what her fellows said.

4./ Judged and found wanting at home. She returned to the home she knew.
Eko for Show. Lagos for all. There’s room for everyone, but it will cost you.
Lagos is like that, commerce is everything. . .

link.medium.com/8amz2Ta0sgb

5./ Anything is for sale. Money for hand, back for ground.

Pay your money “E sanwo”! Eko will accommodate you.

Oops! They lied. Apparently even there, she wasn’t good enough.

It was all a facade.
To the lagoon. . . To the lagoon. Be off with you.

That’s what he said.

6./ So she asked him.
“Is it me? Is it just me? But he said “No! Not only you. You and your brothers.

All of you. Be off with you. Go to the lagoon. There are no gradations of you.

You are all the same “Awon omo Igbo.” You want to use Igbo sense to take over our land.”

7./ He didn’t care that she couldn’t speak Igbo.

He didn’t care that she grew up in Lagos.

“Omo Igbo,” he said, “Off to the Lagoon with you. Boya you can speak Igbo, or you cannot speak it; you are all the same.”

No problem. She returned to her fellow 5 percenters.

8./ She knew she would find acceptance. It was now clear, Nigeria saw them through the same lens whether they were igbotic, or not, okoro was all Nigeria saw when Nigeria looked at her.

“Awon omo Igbo.” Some called her.
“Nyamiri.” Others called her.

9./ “Fake-life aje butter.” Her fellows called her.

Yet she had thought that if she remembered that “No matter where she went; if she remembered the road that led her home,” she would be fine.

She found her way home to the east.

Home at last; acceptance at last.

10./ Not at all! They pointed their fingers and they cackled.
You’re not good enough.

You’re not a true-bred 5 percenter.

Dejected she turned away.

On to the next bus.

Across the Niger.

Back to Lagos.

Eko for show. She would try her luck again.

11./ Perhaps this time, she would find acceptance there in Eko.

Off the bus at Jibowu, she hailed a taxi.

Take me home, home to Bode Thomas.

She sat in the taxi pondering the way forward.

Just then, a new voice spoke. Through the airwaves, she heard the voice speak.

12./ “Spare parts dealers! Spare parts dealers!! We will soon stop you from doing business here.”

She considered his words, then she asked him;

“Will you really stop my brother’s business? We have an aged mother.

We have a sick father. Brother is the breadwinner.

13./ He must do his business.

What is the problem with his business?

He pays his rents. He pays his taxes.

He contributes to the community where his business is. Why can’t he do his business?”

“Besides,” she said to him. “I can’t speak the 5 percenter’s language.

14./ They say I’m not one of them.

Brother Eze cannot speak it either,

but he speaks your language. Can we stay? Can Brother Eze continue his business?”

He looked at her. He despised her.

Then he spoke clearly. “Be off with you. You are not one of us.

15./ Go back to your brothers too bad if they don’t want you.

We don’t want you either.”

Then she knew, her goose was cooked. “Elu ejighi aka, ala ejighi aka.”

She was a bat.

Neither bird nor mammal.

Not good enough to be a 5 percenter.

16./ Yet not dilute enough to be anything else.

What was left?

A life in the shadows.

In the rafters with her fellow bats.

“Good bye Nigeria.
Goodbye my 5 percent brethren.”

The End.