A Letter to my Nigerian Niece -By Hussein Adegoke

Dear NIECE,

Hello, girl! Good morning! How are you and how is Mom and Dad? I would suppose they are both fine. You have been with us for two whole months now, right? Wow! That’s cool! And if I may ask, how does it feel being a part of this world? How does it feel particularly being a Nigerian? There was no darkness in mom’s womb right, or was there? I know there wouldn’t have been such thing as “traffic” or “go-slow” in the tommy world? Was there food there always? I mean, did you ever voluntarily miss your breakfast so that your lunch and supper may be adequate? Maybe there was no noise pollution and deafening cries from any neighbour’s generator at the lull hours of the night in there? Maybe — just maybe — everyone and everything within the placenta wall was so self-sufficient that hardly was anybody or anything pestering you harrassingly for his daily bread? I guess you had a good time during those nine months. So, again, I will ask: how does it feel being a Nigerian now that you have spent two whole months with us?

You know, I thought I should let you see what lies ahead of you; how your sojourn would be eventually; and how the sojourn of every Nigerian has always been in Nigeria. Soon, by that age you could say disjointed words like ba-ba-ba-ba, Baba, your Dad, would get you enrolled in a crèche. There, you would meet wonderful growing lasses like yourself. “Twinkle twinkle little star,” your day-care teacher would sing, and if you would ever satiate the usual curiousity, you would notice how thunderous voices of your peers would overshadow hers. Your teacher at this level would be a woman, obviously, who would spank you for not echoing the rhymes she chant so loudly to her auditory senses. By then, you wouldn’t have made much sense out of most of those poems but I guess you would be jubilant over being the fiercest choruser of them. And then, Dad would get you into the nursery school, and then into the primary and later to the secondary school.

If you would be a very brilliant and smart student, these days of schooling would pass for like a lightening. If you were a dullard — God forbid! — you would know a worse abyss than hell. Ramzia! So, which more honoured path would you tow? In which more distinguished lane would you tread? Let me tell you what might become of a failure so you can choose wisely. Let’s say Joe is the name of your classmate who was an academic failure. Now, here is what would happen to him: he would keep failing in his academics and if he was ever in a good school, he would eventually repeat a class or two. His original classmates — your types — would leave him behind and he would be stigmatized nay stereotyped a failure. But let me wow you a bit! Joe could “pick-up” eventually at about the time he would sit for his SSCE and JAMB examination. And you know what? He would by then have caught up intellectually with the perceived bright minds. He would then have been so ready to cover up for his lost paces. Actually, friends who left Joe behind at the outset might eventually not be as successful as him in the Jamb test, so they would wait for University admissions where he would meet them. Now, let’s think of the worst scenario for Joe; let’s say this your primary school mate never caught up in due time. You know what would then happen? He would in the long run become a school dropout and transform into one of several things: he could become a street urchin or a tout or a bus conductor or a successful vulcanizer or a brilliant mechanic or, as most likely if he takes himself seriously, a business mogul. If Joe was ever any of those latter options, my dear, and you were in the “successful” category — students who have never failed for once in school — he would eventually marry before you do, nurse his children before you and count his riches before you were ever done schooling.

For the successful schoolers like yourself — I know this is the option mom would want for you — here is how you would row your boat! Your chronological age would always tally with your cognition as you ascend the school classes. I mean, you wouldn’t be twenty years old and yet be unenrolled for WAEC examination. You wouldn’t be twenty-five while you remain a varsity undergraduate! You would pass out always in flying colours — you could have a first class, you know? — and then, by then, every classmate of yours would be full of the assumption that you would become the next “Bill Gates”. It is after school, however, that the reality of life would dawn on people like you who were never failures. Ramzia! That life is unfair to some people in life, as they would claim, is an argument that holds no water. Let me tell you, there is nothing fairer than the treatments we receive as tenants here in our current worldly apartments. Those who were initially luckier than Joe, the one who was a failing schooler and a successful businessman, have not had his own traumatic experience. And by the world natural order, their own “bad times” too must come! These are what manifest in the forms of unemployment, marriage failures, stillbirth, job loss and what have you. They — if they were ever survivors of the worst tragedies and are females — might suffer from barrenness. And as for their male counterparts, impotency might loom! So, the points I am making, my dear, are that: one, your success in life would never be hinged upon your level of education. Successful people, if you don’t know, are those who have only been destined to be. And secondly, do not write people off as failures for you know not what tomorrow holds for, not only them but also, you.

Now, my little girl, may we take a pleasant walk to the streets? You see, this world you have come is topsy-turvy. The Nigerian choice that you have especially made would even make matter grow worse. It is in this realm you would see people smoke under the midday sun and while what we call cigarette had been designed originally to drive cold away. I ask, what cold grills you under the midday sun? It is in this place, funny as it ever has been, that you would see two lovebirds romancing each other at the vantage point of a shopping mall, since we never have a love garden and their love emotions must flow. It is in Nigeria that you would see a lady of twenty-seven, half-clad in a clothe that was never going to be the size of a seven-year-old. For the reason of sabotaging wretchedness, however, some strange girls have gone into prostitution. You would know them with the kind of attires they don, that is half-way up and same way down. Provocatively as these “dresses” — let me borrow that word — may appear, they would arouse the interests of the very undisciplined men. Please, dear niece, do not be like these people whose senses of pride have been snatched and forever carted away. Do not join the bandwagon of those who would later solicit our supports by the year 2050, to help them raise funds so they could cure their skin cancer. They would have bleached and rotted away in their primes and by the time they were ever back to their senses, what is already dead may never rise again. So, my dear, be humble and be noble! Be prayerful and be faithful! Be religious and never be promiscuous! Be compassionate so you won’t be unfortunate! Of course, there are evils across the lengths and breadths of the world but my dear, the good news is that you could always choose between indulging in them and avoiding them! Be like Moma and shun vices for good!

Yours truly,

Uncle H.