The unenviable lives of Naija diaspora

But rather than coast home in a blaze of glory, you dread the question and answer sessions. You are probably decked in your national costume, one thing that even your clueless leaders have now internationalized. You may be freezing but you are feeling elated. Then a cheeky reporter or member of the audience suddenly commends […]

But rather than coast home in a blaze of glory, you dread the question and answer sessions. You are probably decked in your national costume, one thing that even your clueless leaders have now internationalized. You may be freezing but you are feeling elated. Then a cheeky reporter or member of the audience suddenly commends your erudition, your beautiful boubou or embroidered ‘nightgown’ and a coy smile arches your brow – until they drop a few bombs.
How come that smart people like you let idiots run a country as blessed as yours? You don’t want to ask for specifics, because you know that calling your ruiners names is an honour granted only to the Naija. Foreigners are not allowed that privilege. They ask: how come your country cannot hold elections even when it had four years to prepare for it? How your president could not visit Chibok in empathy with parents of 300 kidnapped girls but could get nearby twice to campaign? How could a legislature representing the people allow such a president to hold his office without impeaching him if he lacks decency to resign?
A charitable one recalls your nation’s long history of participation in global UN-peacekeeping operations with remarkable success. They ramble on about its role in liberating Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe; destroying apartheid then quelling insurgencies in Liberia and Sierra Leone yet unable to defeat an army of urchins like Boko Haram? They ask how an army that makes tactical manoeuvre in battle for six years hopes to do it in six weeks.
By now, the sheepish smile disappears but you dare not frown for the cameras. A persistent one asks – what is it about the museum pieces passing as railways and being touted as dividends of democracy in your country and why are the most beautiful buildings caged-in with iron grill? Is it true that you guys cannot generate electricity even though you have unmitigated sunshine twelve months in a year? Is it also true that you import rice and chicken with 95% of your land being arable? Are you feeding your president with more money than you grant to universities; how come those schools are closed for a whole year and the government does not resign? Is it true that you guys are making distinctions between corruption and stealing?
Suddenly, you, the erudite one of moments ago, the one who just delivered a speech to standing applause, are left trying to find not just your tongue but your speech. You are not allowed; by the rules of civilized conduct to ask them to keep their noses of Naija’s ‘internal problems’. They had assured you the questions were for just for their personal education.
So, you try to explain how brave our soldiers are in defending the nation, so brave they have stopped elections. You remind the audience that the systemic failure of several years arising from the amalgamation of several nationalities drag down the nation. You even blame their government for accepting corrupt money to be laundered into their system and giving visas to children of the corrupt to attend elite schools and hold raucous parties. If the kids attended local schools, you reasoned, the crisis in the education sector would have been solved.
You explain that the election postponement was necessitated by the same trouble that has kept Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and even Ukraine from peace. You remind them of the protracted struggle between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland even though they believe in the same God. You tell them of the giant strides Naija has made in agriculture and that even northern farmers contributed N50 million to the campaign expenses of one of the frontrunners in the presidential election. You reassure them that the insurgency would end in six weeks now that the arms embargo appears to have been lifted, trying to avoid the disastrous trip to South Africa. You assure that government is working on wealth redistribution to address crime and criminality and that steel gates and grills are for aesthetic beauty.
By now they are looking at you with the same level of bemusement and pity in your eyes when you last dropped a coin into a beggar’s empty plate. You quickly make excuses that you couldn’t field more questions because you have a plane to catch. The moderator wraps up by thanking you and making excuses that they have no siren-blowing outlaws who could cut through the worst traffic to get VIPs to the tarmac. Your taxi driver tries to chat you up on the drive to the airport, but you pretend to be busy on your phone or iPad. This is how much it sucks being a Naija expat in the diaspora.