To Really Keep Your Sanity In Nigeria Is To Live In The Intersection Of Two Circles – Realism & Idealism -By Oluseun Onigbinde

Our expectations of Nigeria is a long spectrum. It differs. Some dream it in incrementalism, others see that we can make it in quantum leaps.

What Dubai achieved in decades, London built it in centuries. We choose our path and live with the decisions.

As you age, you realise that Nigeria will not move in blazing speed because there are structural questions that the country is not yet ready to answer.

Who’s a Nigerian? What’s the incentive for a Nigerian govt apart from crude rent, distributed monthly? How monetised is our politics? And has public service not being branded a way to get rich when it is meant to be of service? How productive is a Nigerian in today’s world?

You will dream a Nigerian with thriving tech industry with global talent but your government thinks why not Alhaji Shittu? You hope a stem-to-root reform in education but Adamu Adamu did the campaign work? However, graduates with poor education or limited opportunities, get government adjusted realism of N-Power.

You might be frustrated with the choice of the majority and think it’s all over. It isn’t. To really keep your sanity in Nigeria is to live in the intersection of two circles – realism & idealism. I mean live in two worlds, patience – that we are in a very long game that might not happen in our lifetime – and impatience – that we are already late.

However, our idealism protects our value spectrum. It must form a bigger part of the intersection. No matter your hunt for power, don’t be the one who rigs elections, justifies killings of Nigerians or the harbinger of hate speech.

Don’t be emotionally detached because Borno people voted Buhari and the next crisis won’t bother you. Keep your values close.

Please always check your value spectrum and have firm values that can’t never be negotiated, no matter the opportunity.

Whoever you support, let’s not lose optimism. Let’s abound more in idealism than brisk pragmatism.

It’s the only way that humans progress. Let’s do more to hold our leaders to account.