I will die on this hill

It is Sallah day after subh, and I cannot take the usual 2-hour nap before morning rush. Not because of the rooster, not because of the children already racing around in their new clothes, and not because of the smell of all the cooking drifting from the kitchen. No, I cannot sleep because I am […]

It is Sallah day after subh, and I cannot take the usual 2-hour nap before morning rush. Not because of the rooster, not because of the children already racing around in their new clothes, and not because of the smell of all the cooking drifting from the kitchen.

No, I cannot sleep because I am that same giddy child from 30 years ago, the one who did dress rehearsals on Sallah eves, wearing my cap with angles, practicing his most respectful greeting for the elders. As always, I spend my “Big Sallahs” amongst my extended family in Kebbi… and visiting and greeting elders has also always been a big part of the experience.

Yes, the one who believed that Sallah morning was proof that the universe could, on occasion, arrange itself into something close to a conspiracy. Yesterday  was that Sallah. But not the small one. Not the one that comes and goes with borrowed happiness. I am talking about the biggest Sallah of our lifetime. And I am not talking about the moon sighting. I am talking about the future.

Now, before you roll your eyes and mutter “another dreamer,” let me confess something. I am monotonous like that on special occasions. Boringly, predictably, embarrassingly monotonous. Everything I see, everything I hear, every catastrophe and every flicker of hope—it all hearkens back to the same ideal. The same dream. That Africa, our Africa, will rise. Not because of magic. Not because of foreign aid. Not because the rest will suddenly develop a conscience. But because we will unconsciously finally decide that we have had enough of being spectators in our own story. I know how tiresome that sounds. I know that after the hundredth time, even my friends want to change the subject. But I am prepared to die on this hill. So let them change the subject. I will stay here, waving my flag, slightly delirious from the sun.

Look around you. Darkness is everywhere. The Middle East is on fire—Iran and Israel trading blows while the rest of the world pretends to be shocked. The Strait of Hormuz is blockaded. And then reblockaded. Global oil prices are singing acrobatics. And here in Nigeria, the naira is gasping for air like a fish on hot pavement. The 2027 election looms like a storm cloud that refuses to break. Everyone is anxious. Everyone is planning their escape route. Japa has become a verb, a noun, and a prayer. But me? I am rejoicing. Not because I am foolish. Not because I do not see the blood and the tears. But because the Chinese Daoist philosophers got it right: you should rejoice when you lose and be afraid when you win. At the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. And Africa, my friends, has been at the bottom for so long that our necks hurt from looking down.

Recently, I went through something that cracked me open. A personal difficulty that I will not bore you with, followed by a spiritual awakening that I also will not bore you with. But the combination taught me something brutal and beautiful: you are nothing without principles you will fight for. Not principles you tweet about. Not principles you argue about at maishayi joints. Principles you will die for. Sentimental? Absolutely. Unrealistic? Probably. But there must be a place where you make a final stand and refuse to budge, come pain or come death. I have found my hill. It is the hill of African possibility. And I have decided that the most sadistic forms of violence—economic strangulation, political manipulation, cultural humiliation—will not move me from this spot.

Now, like Iron Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Fair point. Maybe I am talking tough because there is no gun to my head. Maybe when the real pain comes, I will fold like a cheap babbar riga. But I have to commit anyway. Because the alternative is to live without a hill. And a life without a hill is not a life. It is just a long, meandering resignation.

So, what do I see when I look at the chaos? I see evidence that the old order is dying. The United States, for all its bombs and bluster, cannot even control a strait. Israel, for all its military might, cannot eliminate an idea called resistance. The Western alliance is fracturing. The Global South is stirring. And Africa? We are the youngest continent on earth. Our median age is 19. Nineteen! While Europe and Japan are retiring into nursing homes, we are just learning to tie our shoelaces. That is not a disadvantage. That is a superpower disguised as a crisis.

I have seen it in Yola, where young entrepreneurs are building solar-powered irrigation systems because they are tired of waiting for the grid. I see it in Lagos, where tech bros are solving logistics problems that DHL would charge a fortune to ignore. I see it in the diaspora, where the best and brightest are beginning to realise that being a “token African” in a London boardroom is not the same as being home. The future inevitably belongs to us. Not because we are special. Not because God loves us more. But because demographics and desperation and the sheer unwillingness to remain on our knees will finally converge into something unstoppable.

It is Sallah morning and I am beside myself with joy. But not because of all the meat, even if that is a big part of it. It’s not even just a Sallah day thing. It is a staple of my being. My wife tells me to stop talking about it at dinner. My friends change the subject to Arsenal and Real Madrid. But I cannot help myself. Every headline, every crisis, every Sallah morning—it all looks like the pre-dawn glow before the sun explodes over the horizon. Yes, there is darkness in the land. Yes, despair is on the prowl. But morning comes. It always comes. And when it comes, I want to be on my hill, still standing, still waving, still unbearably monotonous.

So rejoice with me, my compatriots. Not because the battle is won. Not because the pain has stopped. But because we have finally found something worth dying for. And that something is the simple, radical, almost childish belief that we belong to a future we have not yet built—but will. And on the occasion of this Sallah, I am willing to die on this hill. Who is coming with me? 

Barka da Sallah.