Confessions to my Nigerian friends.

Today’s post was written by the beautiful, witty, intelligent and supremely talented Debbie Camara. I first met Debbie in January 2010 in the Zain Africa Challenge International Festival in Kampala, Uganda. To my eternal shame and everlasting disgrace, I was too shy to engage her in conversation (yea, I’m shy. Sue me). Luckily for me, at the end of the programme, we all swapped phone numbers and Facebook user names. I saw a chance to redeem myself on Facebook, and (as a ‘sharp guy’) I took it. She quickly became one of my closest and ‘bestest’ friends, someone whose judgment and advice has come in handy on quite a few occasions.

Debbie………

I told y’all. She has different talents

Our friendship is remarkable considering she has never been to Nigeria. She hails from Zambia and lives in Tanzania, yet she has already met my dad (in her words, he is “a very charming gentleman. I wonder now why I was so scared before I met him. I now know why you are such a gentleman”. I’m such a perfect gentleman because I have good genes. I see you yimu-ing. Stop it, unless you want your nose to freeze in that position ( ˘˘̯) ) and she is friends with my girlfriend (she asked her the first time they talked whether she wanted a large or small wedding. You see how women connive?)

She wrote this for me a while back. However, I didn’t publish it because I was saving it for a time when the message would drive home more forcefully. Now, with the ruckus in the country over Patience Jonathan, the return of Dana air, Abati’s buffoonery, and the introduction of the N5000 note, added to the now-more-commonplace Boko Haram insurgence and poor infrastructural development, I consider this the proper time to publish it.

Please read and do not forget the lessons embedded herein. God bless our land.
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My first encounter with Nigerians was in 2002, when my chemistry teacher cracked a joke about you guys. I didn’t completely understand the joke, but the part where he said ‘if you wanna be big, be as big as Nigerians’ held my attention. With time, however, I began to see what he meant, and I never forgot those words.
My 2nd encounter was with Nollywood. Yes, Nollywood! Those movies hit our TV screens, and changed our perceptions of life in my part of Africa. There was something about them, an aura maybe, which made them seem larger than life. Was it the wigs and the loud makeup the women wore? Was it the Ogas and Igwes in their big cars and large houses? Whatever it was, I still do not know. What I know is that it revealed a way of life that was alien to us, and more often than not, it made me do a double-take.

I was a teenager in those days, and I was highly impressionable and curious. So when one of my friends got herself a Nigerian boyfriend and told us tales about how ‘big’ he was, I was beside myself! My curiousity got the better of me, and I determined to find myself a ‘big’ Nigerian boyfriend! I also decided to start research on Nigerians and their ‘bigness’.
I started my research (it was more like an obsession), and it was hard, because I never actually got to meet a big Nigerian (or any sort of Nigerian for that matter. It’s not like I thought any other sort existed). However, I learnt a few things.

I got to know that Nigeria was a unique country. It had lots of natural resources, a varied and colourful history and a big unstable democracy. I learnt about the variety and spread of different cultures and how diverse the geography of the country was. I found out that Nigerians were fun-loving people, with large, loud parties. They had big weddings, were big spenders, had many playboys, playgirls, con men and con women, and in general were a happy-go-lucky bunch of people.

As I grew up, my priorities changed. My obsession gave way to more important things like love, passion, compassion, and all the other little things that make a girl tick, and I found out that I couldn’t spot those attributes in Nigerians. I concluded that Nigerians were nothing more than emotionally stunted, wealth mongering, superficial, fun-loving, big people! My heart broke because I had been longing for a big Nigerian of my own. The Nigeria I had seen, however, became somewhat synonymous with the big bad wolf in my head.

Years later, I encountered Nigerians again, but my prejudice prevented me from allowing any emotions to surface during my interactions with them. Despite the fact that these ones were (quite disappointingly) rather ordinary and could only be differentiated from the other students representing the 8 or 9 countries present by their particularly unique accents, I still held on to my biases. Imagine how I felt, thinking them to be such big people and discovering they were as ordinary as everybody else. My disappointment and surprise was mixed with the prejudices and mental picture I had built about them, and further bolstered my resolve not to interact with them.

However, there was something about these Nigerians. They refused to be kept away, and by the end of the gathering, we had all become friends. I stopped dreading them and began to notice the ‘bigness’ in my new-found friends. To my utter shock, I discovered that it had nothing to do with glamour or wealth or such other superficial attributes. It was something far more powerful, far more important. It was so startling it fascinated me.

These young ladies and gentlemen were dreamers. They had dreams for their careers, their families, their girlfriends/boyfriends. They had dreams for their country and fellow countrymen. They had ideas; they had passions, some for the whole of Africa, some for their country alone (no surprise, with the threat of Boko Haram and puppet leaders in power). When these now dear friends of mine laughed it was big hearty Nigerian laughter, when they talked, or joked or sang, they did it in a grand way. Add that to their big dreams, and I found myself falling in love with Nigeria again.

The differences between their actions and outlook and the images I had built up jolted me. Could this be the new breed of Nigerians? Whatever happened to the big old superficial ones I loathed? One day, out of the blues, I got my answer. This was the true Nigerian spirit! Whatever they did, whoever they become, each person had the ‘big’ Nigerian heart. It did not matter what path each person chose, at the end of the day they were all trying to survive and make the best of their life the only way they knew how…the big way!

What did I learn from my ‘big’ friends? I learnt not to limit myself, and not to accept boundaries. I learnt to throw off the restrictions placed on me by society. So now, if I’m going to dream, I’ll do it the big way. If I’m going to live, I’ll do it the big way. I’ll laugh, dance, and meet the problems of life with a smile. I’ll even die large. Their funerals are big! Why not my own?

From me, a few words to my new friends. You are big enough. You may have lost sight of that fact with all the problems your country is facing, but you are still big enough to wipe out the corruption, challenge the Boko Harams of this world and fight those that try to divide you. You are big enough to realize and appreciate the fact that there is strength in your diversity. You are big enough to recognize that every individual dream is a part of the whole, and you are smart enough to find how to unify those dreams and move your country forward. Nigeria needs you. She needs you to be strong and proud because you are her children. She needs you to level the obstacles in her way. She needs you on her march to greatness. Big Nigerians, you can overcome.

P.S. This post is the 30th on this blog, and I’m elated and honoured that you are reading it. It’s been a great privilege to share my worldview with you, and I don’t take your loyalty lightly. Thank you for being there. Thank you for reading. Thank you for the comments, corrections and encouragement. I wouldn’t have a blog if I didn’t have readers, and you are the reason I keep trying to improve. Thank you very much. Together we would move on to greater heights. Amen.

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