My father and I were on our way to visit an aunt when we got into one of those quintessential Lagos face-offs at a 4-way stop. No one wants to let anyone else go and the people who decide they want to be mature and take the high road regretted it instantly as allowing any space means that some other genius can poke his car’s nose (or wheeled contraption) into it. After about 45 minutes of swearing for people and their ancestors we wiggled out of the situation with my father still fuming uncontrollably. As I tried to calm him down he utters that inevitable sentence “that’s how Nigerians behave!”
I hate that statement, being a blind patriot and nationalist aside, I hate that people use it as though they are not part of the qualifier that they have just grouped the people in. Tell someone about how you almost got robbed “That’s how Nigeria is” or about how you got into an argument at the bank because you were frustrated and just wanted to go home- “is it not Nigeria?” It doesn’t matter the offence; no one wants to hear both sides of the story. The conclusion is standard- you were right and everything that went wrong was Nigeria’s fault hence “that’s how Nigerians behave.”
So I thought about letting the statement go, my father is stuck in his ways but then I re-think because hey! This man is going to impart wisdom on my children and I don’t want him telling my children that Nigerians behave any certain way. So I go on a rant of how this statement alone creates an inferiority complex in our people and why the people that use it remove themselves from the problem so they don’t feel a responsibility to fix it. As I found my stride in my argument about to reach a denouement that could only be perfected by the national anthem I heard my father snore quietly in the front seat. I tap him in disbelief “Daddy, are you sleeping?! He smiled and said “Sorry sweetie, what did you say?!”
“Don’t worry- that’s how Nigerians behave...”
