In Which I Wade into the Nigerian Anti-Gay Law Debate

Nigeria has made herself the enemy of the West by banning same-sex marriage, same-sex unions and same-sex associations, with law-breakers facing 14 years in jail.

CNN (International) - Nigeria's premier news channel broadcasting on every, and I mean every, flat screen TV in every bank, shop, office and public area in Abuja 24/7- is particularly pissed about it.

I noticed how much CNN had been pushing the pro-gay agenda prior to this law. One report I remember was when famously gay singer Elton John and famously gay tennis star Billie Jean King spoke to Christianne Amanpour about the recent brouhaha over Russia's anti-gay stance during the Winter Olympics this year.

Will there ever by a Gay Marriage in Nigeria?

And of course CNN's Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon are gay (and Becky Anderson maybe? I always though she was gay. I like to think my gay-dar is strong.) I'm pretty sure they and probably the gay/lesbian CNN producers make sure to highlight injustices against homosexuals around the world and promote gay rights advances wherever it occurs.

Western movies, TV shows and music have also being promoting homosexuality as a 'normal thing,' with gay dads and their adopted daughter on comedy Modern Family and almost every other student coming out as gay in high school musical comedy Glee.

So when Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan came riding rough-shod over the Western media’s delicately-handled ‘Operation re-educate the world about homosexuality’ PR exercise, by passing the 'anti-gay' bill into law earlier this month, the West was livid. They threatened to withhold their aid, spoke strongly against the law calling it a violation of human rights, and Canada even cancelled Jonathan's visit to the country in protest.

CNN led the charge against Nigeria. I'm sure the channel is aware of its huge following here as the most watched and most trusted news station in the country, way ahead of the supposed national news channel NTA, which nobody watches, including me, because the picture quality and sound harkens back to the 1970s and the content is drab and mostly government-sponsored.

Nigerians also invest a huge amount to advertise on CNN International. You would think it was a national station the way Nigerian-sponsored adverts for mobile phone networks like Glo, MTN and Etisalat ,and random door and furniture stores advertise heavily on the station, and I hear these ads are not cheap. The CNN (International ) we watch here is also shown in the UK and other English-speaking African countries (America has its own version), but 50% of the adverts are Nigerian.

Plus almost every other personality on the channel's African Voices is Nigerian. Talk about dominance!

So CNN used its popularity in the country to make a point and ran extended news features decrying Nigeria's latest law, with breathlessly apoplectic journalists reporting from Lagos on the various gay-rights abuses they'd heard about. Christianne Amanpour even interviewed Bisi Alimi, the first man to come out on national TV in Nigeria, following which he had to seek asylum in Britain. He spoke passionately and eloquently on the issue; if I was gay I would have been so proud of him as the spokesman for Nigerian gays.

Bisi Alimi, Nigeria's first man to declare himself gay on TV, on CNN a few days ago

As the debates rage on, if you’re in Nigeria you’re in one of these four camps: 

1. Gays and Gay-lovers: Yes! At last, the gays and lesbians have a voice! Roll on happy gay marriages across the nation and civil rights for gay people everywhere! Today debates, tomorrow full acceptance, maybe even a gay President!

2. The Homophobic Majority: God bless Jonathan for putting those nasty gays in their place! If I catch any of those dirty men ehn, I will...Hmm. Imagine leaving the luscious beauty of a woman and handling the nether regions of my fellow man? Tufiakwa! Abeg, if they even dare to protest I will be the first in line to beat those men-chasers. Imagine!

3. The Ignorant Minority: Wait, there are gay people in Nigeria? Since when? I thought it was only a white man’s disease. Wonders shall never end...

4. The Casual Observers: Wow, all this talk about gayness. I don’t really care if they want to bum each other, that’s their prerogative. They want to marry too? Umm, OK, but just NIMBY (Not in my back yard) please.

The emerging voices of Group 1 loudly drowned out by the distaste of Group 2 has taken over the airwaves, with nary a voice from Group 4 even acknowledged.

Group 3 were previously in the dark about matters of same-sex relationships thanks to the culture of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ prevalent in Nigeria, and only came across images of homosexuality on Western TV, hence its association with white people. (Which is naive of course, because there have always been homosexuals all across Nigeria - I hear the North plays a major role in this scene too - and it's an open secret that some top politicians are men who like to sleep with other men for homosexual/political/spiritual/financial reasons *cough cough*)

I am firmly in Group 4, whereby I am distinctly nonchalant about the whole discussion. As a non-homosexual with no ties to homosexuals and a balanced view of the Bible, I am blasé about the issue.

I’ve had friends that were gay, and I've read testimonials written by secretly gay Christians who are completely tortured by their desire for the same sex and have prayed, fasted and had counselling to dispel it, some even married and had children, but still they can’t shake it off. If they could take a pill and become heterosexual tomorrow, they would do it in an instant. They often question God in tears asking him why He would inflict them with such a reprehensible affliction.

So I’m sympathetic to their plight, and the desire for those who are happy to be gay to live without discrimination. But I'm concerned about their growing confidence and demand for not only acceptance, but full immersion into the mainstream and for their lifestyle to be accepted as alternative rather than deviant.
Lawmakers used the law to say: “No thanks. The West can legalise homosexuality and go to hell in a hand-basket if it wants, but as for we Nigerians and our country, we will serve the Lord (and punish those homos with their anal activities).”


Africans in general are vehemently anti-gay. It's in their blood. The African man that is pro-gay has either spent some time abroad, is well-read and well-versed in Western culture, or is gay himself (much to his own initial horror and shame probably.) But there are also men who tick all three boxes but who remain outwardly homophobic and inwardly tormented.


Then there are small pockets of Nigerian intellectuals and free-thinkers who argue for the rights of homosexuals in their small enclaves of enlightenment. They have been vocal on Twitter and I've also conversed with a few. They are the well-read, often (but not always) foreign-educated young idealists who are embarrassed by the hate spewed against homosexuals by their fellow countrymen, and often regard such homophobes as inadequately-educated religious zealots.

But Jesus never said a thing about homosexuals. Not one thing. He spoke against greed, pride, the love of money and adultery (all of which occur in spades in Nigeria and around the world), but not a jot about gays, which leads me to believe that in heaven's assessment of sin, homosexuality is not number one. Besides, it was pride that got Satan thrown out of heaven, not homosexuality.

But I do believe that being gay is an unnatural aspect of humanity; a glitch in the matrix, a defect in nature. I compared being born gay to being born without an arm once, and somebody took offence. All humans need eyes and all men and women were given sex organs that compliment each other to enable procreation and pleasure; some are born without eyes, and some are born gay.

To put it in another (more crude) way, if all was well with homosexuality sexually-speaking, why would gay men still need 'a hole' and lesbians an 'artificial penis' to satisfy? The normal way works best after all right?

Though some that are born gay (there are children as young as nine who tell their parents they're gay, and gay adults say they've been aware of their sexual orientation for as long as they can remember), but others become gay following homosexual abuse by the same sex in their childhood. I also believe there is a spirit of homosexuality that can rest on some families, i.e. the issue of the man who has three daughters and two of them are lesbians. I was like, wow, in one family? That's got to be a spiritual thing.

So I have a little understanding of the plight of gay people but a distaste for their demands. They are not normal in the full sense of the word, and no I would not want my child to be gay, simply because I wish for my children success, marriage, family and normalcy. And I want grandchildren the old-fashioned way. I don't want my child to be different all their lives or to be ashamed to face God because they feel innately inadequate.

What I don't have is hate for gay people. Why should I hate them simply because they are gay? I've known some lovely gay people, and they are often highly intelligent and hugely hilarious. What they do in their house is their business, but I don't want them to push their agenda or force me to accept their lifestyle as good and pleasing, because I believe it's still wrong to mate with your fellow sex. It's not normal. But if you're gay, it's absolutely fine with me. 

A gay acquaintance and I once quite happily co-existed in a plain of mutual unspoken disapproval about something hugely important to us: he disapproved of my faith, and I of his homosexuality. As long as we didn't go there we got on just fine. I would, for instance, watch a Gay Rights march with some interest, but not join in or cheer. But if one of the marchers got hurt in any ensuing violence, I would call for help and tend to them. I don't support what they do but I support their right to live, work and be.

And I believe there are Nigerians out there who are also viewing these hot debates with a pinch of salt. The world will not end if gays got married, but we don’t want to see them canoodling in the back-row at the cinemas either. The law has come, good, if it is repealed tomorrow, fine.

Recently I had dinner with a group of ex-pats and other returnees to Nigeria, and one of the women, upon hearing I was Fulani, asked me if the Fulani men she's seen dressed flamboyantly in tight, colourful tops and trousers, with their thin waists, long hair, pretty eyes enhanced with eyeliner and delicate ways are gay. I remember asking the same question myself when I came across a group of similarly-dandified Fulani young men. I am told they're not gay, they just like to dress that way. Fine. Odd, but fine.

They are also not, as far as I know, yan daudus, which are effeminate men from the North who dress like women and are mostly gay. No, this class of Fulani men just like to dress prettily, that's all.

So as a card-carrying member of the Casual Observers Group, I declare that nobody should be lynched or beaten or insulted or discriminated against for being gay, but homosexuals should also temper their demand for acceptance with sensitivity: not everyone likes what you do, so if you must, do it quietly and don’t make a scene.

That is all.

No Validations from Fulanis Required

When I first started this blog, I posted one of my blog posts on Nairaland, a popular website where Nigerians everywhere come together to discuss both serious and fun subjects relating to their country.

It was on that site that I enjoyed the acerbic Nigerian humour and saw that no matter where they were in the world, family, marriage, money, religion, patriotism, education and tribe remained important for Nigerians. Nairaland was my online entry into Nigeria before I physically arrived, and I landed at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe airport equipped with knowledge about my countrymen.

I learnt a lot from the Nigerians on that site, but one interaction with a Fulani man in particular influenced my view about Fulanis and myself.

I’d posted a link to my blog and in response, the Fulani man proceeded to dismantle all I held sacred about my Fulaniness, calling me a fake, a fraud and a fool and regarding my religion as the greatest and most distasteful barrier towards my acceptance into Fulani-land. He stated that a Yoruba Muslim was more of a kin to him than me, a Fulani Christian, and other unpleasant things. What he said and what I felt gave birth to the post ‘You are a Fake Fulani.’

I started this blog to provide a Fulani voice in the plethora of Southern Nigerian voices online, and part of me also wanted to call attention to Fulanis out there and say: “Hey! Here I am! See, I’m just like you! Kind of anyway. So, what’s up? Let’s hang out.” I wasn’t in need of affirmation but I wanted to be welcomed, as if from a long journey away, and for them to say “Hey, sister! Welcome. Sit down, have some Fura da Nono. You look so much like our cousin Halima...” and other forms of easy acceptance. For them to say “We know you’re not quite ‘it’ but it’s OK. Fulanis of all kinds are welcome here.”

But that was before the Expert Fulani’s comments on Nairaland. It hurt. And it also made me stop requiring acceptance. I became Fulani all by myself: a rare, unique offshoot not seeking reintegration but just flourishing where I am.

Other Fulanis were happy that I was out there blogging, and I’ve since received a ton of kind words, with many Fulanis from around Africa happy to converse with kin online, a place where Fulanis rarely entered (or if they did, they were male or communicated in French or Arabic).

I’ve become pen-pals with some and even met a couple off-line. They’ve added immensely to my knowledge of myself and Fulanis (thank you all so much). Some have tried to convert me too, and my reticence in broaching the subject of religion with Fulani Muslims remains. I always feel like they feel I’ve done something terrible in becoming a Christian, and the issue is often so raw and immense and bigger than me that I avoid it altogether. Mostly Fulanis I meet online understand that I don’t need their approval, I’m just happy for their presence and acknowledgment and knowledge.

The funny thing is that my Fulani identity was rarely brought to the fore prior to my blogging. In England, being Black, being female, being a Christian, being British, being a journalist, being from South London and being Nigerian were all far more active parts of my being than being Fulani. That aspect of my identity was relegated to the background and only emerged as an act of will on my part, when I realised that I came from a little-known (in the West at least) yet highly admired people that were known as much for their beauty as their remoteness.

The exoticism of it all, and the pride in being able to claim as mine this almost mythical tribe of nomads – who settled in various African countries and had a distinct look that harkened to a history of migration from outside sub-Saharan Africa – was fascinatingly wonderful. Now I understood why I didn’t look like or behave like the usual Nigerians and why I took to Britishness better than others: there are aspects of Fulani culture, like the reserve and the modesty, that compliment British middle-class culture.

My family spoke little of our heritage. My father was no longer alive and his side of the family was largely unknown to me, and my mother was immersed in her Britishness and wasn’t given to talk of ‘the old country’ except to criticise it. My siblings didn’t care and we didn’t live among other Fulanis, so I got information about Fulaniness from an aunt and her husband, and at the time I was also dating a Nigerian with a Fulani mother so I got to know about various aspects of my culture. But there were also traces of my culture that was inherently known to me, I don’t exactly know how, and the more I read and heard the more I knew that I knew it. Like hearing the whispers of past generations or imbibing the instincts and culture that swirled around you invisibly, or receiving knowledge passed down through your blood and DNA.

I always knew I was Fulani, but I didn’t care until months before I started this blog.  

So to have someone shatter this new mirror I was now looking at myself through was not nice, but because being knowingly Fulani was a recent addition to my already robust identity, it wasn’t so bad. I’m pretty solid in my internal sense of self to not need external validation.

So I got over it, and over the years of blogging my Fulani identity evolved: at first it was a thirst for knowledge, then I married a man also of Fulani heritage who opened my eyes even more to Fulaniness so that it became a familiar enough reality to put to one side, like a new present at Christmas you receive and explore with a hot desire that cools by Boxing Day.

Then a recent comment on the ‘You’re a Fake Fulani’ post by Raji Bello brought back memories of the earlier rejection, only this time my reaction was anger, not hurt. He  said that I was of Fulani origin but I was not Fulani, and my claims to being Fulani were weak. I was like, wait, do you presume to think that I need your permission to be who I am? Later I realised that he didn’t mean any harm, and the truth was that ‘authentic’ Fulanis will always raise their eyebrows and say ‘Hmmmm’ when they hear my story.

Then a follow-up comment on the same post by Aliyu Wali, which spoke about the difference between how I saw myself and how Fulanis see me, brought it all home: I will never be Fulani in the full sense of the word.

Now on the one hand it’s sad, but on the other hand, it doesn’t matter at all. Mostly because such intense discussions of my Fulani identity only occur online; I haven’t surrounded myself with full-blooded Fulanis in the real world (besides, rejection in person would be harder to take), and everybody else in Nigeria sees my Britishness more than anything else. But even if I got their acceptance, what then? It wouldn’t make me taller or wealthier.

I’m loved by God and wonderful people, that’s what matters. I’m just happy to have people reading and learning and enjoying my blog and engaging with me, and I’m even happier to discuss these things with other Fulanis, because I’d never heard their opinions on anything before.

So today, one part of my Fulaniness is an unquenchable glow within, and the other part is fragments I’ve gathered and stuck together. It’s incomplete and crooked and fragile and not as whole as other people’s, but I cherish it and I wear it on my lapel along with the other badges of my identity. The Fulani badge is one of the smallest but often shines the brightest, and sometimes I even forget it’s there, hidden amongst the more robust identities. But when I remember, I touch it and smile.

Yearning for Christmas Spirit in Abuja

This year, come December 25th, Christmas will happen, but not as I know it. In fact Christmas in Abuja is pretty much exactly like any other day, except for the knowledge within that it is Christmas, and perhaps the larger than usual presence of family and friends around, and extra helpings of Jollof rice and fried goat meat.

Christmas Nostalgia

I was supposed to return to England this December, but sadly, a perfect storm of disappointments means I'll be spending my second Christmas in Nigeria. My first was in 2011 when the novelty of heat and sunshine on Christmas Day made it exciting, and a lovely picnic at Millennium Park and a visit to Jos on Boxing Day made for a lovely time.

I was back to London for Christmas 2012, where I gained a new-found love and appreciation for the English version of the occasion, and this year I yearn for that again. This is also because Abuja as a city is absent of any discernible Christmas spirit. There are feeble attempts here and there at marking the occasion, with lights and Christmas trees decorating random shops and homes, and even a snowman display at Silverbird in Abuja, but it all rings false, because there's lack of a national conviction about how to celebrate the event in a Nigerian way.

Snow scene at Silverbird Galleria, Abuja

I've spent Christmas in America and Spain and they all add their own distinct flavours to the Western concept of Christmas (in Spain there's a greater emphasis on the Three Wise Men with festivals and processions celebrating them). But what I see in Abuja are half-hearted attempts at imitating the Western idea of Christmas, with hollow, misunderstood efforts at manufacturing an atmosphere that doesn't fit the region, and attempts to ignite a collective feeling that just isn't there.

The Christmas traditions of particular Nigerians seems to only be exhibited in towns and villages away from the capital, where cattle is slaughtered and the roasted/fried meat is shared out, families and well-wishers gather and rice is the grain of the season. My parents and older relatives speak fondly of their childhood memories of Christmas in Nigeria, but such festivities are harder to replicate in Abuja, a city of wealth-seeking immigrants from other parts of Nigeria who arrive to the city called 'No Man's Land' to work, leaving their traditions and extended families behind in their native state or village.

I've downloaded Christmas carols to listen to and pore over pictures of my younger siblings, nieces and nephews in their various nativity plays to help stem my Christmas homesickness. I could kiss the people behind the BET channel on DSTV for allowing those in Africa access to the British TV adverts they run, which at this time is on Yuletide overload. I'm sure I'm also boring the people around me with "at Christmas in London, we usually..." observations. I'm rarely usually homesick, but this year, at this time, I miss the UK.

Here's the Christmas I'm used to:

One month before Christmas: Shops start stocking Christmas products, much to the chagrin of some newspapers who splash pictures of the too-eager retailers. The nation is abuzz with conversations about Christmas parties, Christmas holidays and 'Where are you spending Christmas?' questions as the countdown to the day begins, with the growing frenzy of 'Only 32 days left to Christmas' and 'Only 28 shopping days left!' all over the streets and the media. It's already pretty freezing outside, and TV guides and television adverts start advertising their special Christmas programming.

On the radio, Christmas carols start playing and Christmas controversies, events and news are discussed, and kids in schools all over the country start their Christmas carol evenings and Nativity plays, where school children dress up as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, sheep and the inn-keeper to recreate the birth of Jesus in their own cute, hilarious and heart-melting ways.

12 Days before Christmas: You've handed out Christmas cards to colleagues at work, having purchased either the Bumper Value Packs of 20 or 50 to give out en masse (you buy a few individual, more expensive ones from Clinton's to give to 'Special people'). You've smirked at the the usual jokes about kissing underneath the mistletoe sprigs hanging over the doors, and repeated the story of where you'll be spending Christmas (at home with the family) dozens of times. There's a Christmas tree with fake gifts underneath and other decorations in the office, and Christmas-related emails and discussions occur.

Bumper Christmas Cards

Office Christmas Party
The Secret Santa gift-giving has yielded much laughter, appreciation and gossip, and the Christmas party has either happened or is about to happen, either in the office specially decorated for the occasion or in a swanky location. There's usually lots of wine, colleagues looking slightly unfamiliar in fancier clothes, a Christmas sit-down dinner/lunch; Abba, Christmas carols and other feel-good music afterwards and merriment or embarrassment ensuing depending on how drunk some colleagues become.

Christmas cards: With the usual designs of the nativity, Father Christmas, Reindeer, red-breasted Robins, snow-covered cottages and Holly and Ivy

Stores and businesses across the country put up their Christmas opening times and the Royal Mail announces it's last posting date. Public transport companies release their Christmas service times, and carols and Christmas-tinged announcements are heard through the tannoy systems in tube and train stations. Billboards and signs all wish everyone a Merry Christmas, with 'Victoria Station wishes you a Merry Christmas' and similar messages scrolling across the electronic timetable system in stations.

Christmas Shopping
Every business relays a Christmas message to its customers and clients and every store you go into on the high street plays Christmas carols, and there are lights, trees and decorations inside the majority. Signs advertising 'Christmas sales or Special Discounts abound, all designed with Christmas iconography. Price tags, shopping bags and store receipts have been re-designed for the holidays and red and green is the colour of the season and is worn by people, animals and inanimate objects. Christmas accessories, advent calendars and sections for Christmas presents For Mum, For Dad, For that Special Someone and gift wrapping sections spring up in stores, with sales girls wearing the ubiquitous red woolly hat with white furry trimming and bobble.

Christmas deocorations outside Boots in London's Oxford Street

Everybody looks forward to the Christmas and New Year sales, and tons of Christmas wrapping paper depicting seasonal imagery is bought at 'Two for Three' or 'Buy one get one free' discounts. People rush around getting presents for family and friends before the shops sell out or shut, although stores open till late for the holiday season. Things are cheaper or more expensive for Christmas, but either way there's a feeling of rush and capitalism-inspired sentiment in action.

Christmas inside stores

Christmas in the Media
Every other Television programme is a Christmas Special or Celebrity Christmas Special of the usual show, and the Channel icons are festively-decorated and TV presenters wear Christmas hats and allude to other Christmas paraphernalia, clichés and stereotypes (Scrooge, Tiny Tim etc). Billboards also advertise Christmas deals, events and products, and on TV, print and radio adverts for Christmas food and gift ideas are everywhere, with advertisers adapting well-known carols and jingling bells to suit their brands' message. The light jingling of the Christmas bells becomes the soundtrack of the season.

My favourite Christmas TV advert song is by Coca Cola, with the lyrics: "Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming, watch out, look around, something's coming, coming to town, Lalalalala...tis the season it's always the real thing, always Coca Cola." I look forward to it every Christmas.

Holidays are coming...my favourite Christmas advert by Coca Cola

Newspapers and magazines bring out their Christmas editions packed with Christmas-themed programming, articles, features, news, coupons and adverts, and at the theatre, Pantomimes take over with festive adaptations of classic fairy tales.

Christmas Edition of Radio Times TV Guide

Family film classics like Mary Poppins and It's a Wonderful Life start showing on TV, including animated favourites like The Snowman and Wallace and Grommit. Christmas songs are heard everywhere, one of the favourites being Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas. Music artists release Christmas albums and singles, and the Christmas Number one in the Pop Charts receives much media attention.

Christmas Lights
The switching on of the Christmas lights in Oxford Street by the biggest celebrity of the moment is a major event and crowds gather to count-down to the moment the sky is colourfully illuminated with ever more elaborate neon lighting, and the scene is replicated in city centres across the country. 

 

 

The lights in Oxford Street 

 

Christmas lights are put up in almost every home, with the media getting excited about 'The Most Lit-up Street in Britain' or 'The Man who Spent 30, 000 pounds on Christmas Decorations.' The shorter days and longer nights are illuminated with twinkling, neon Christmas lights, which light up the houses in many areas. Some houses have elaborate displays complete with fake snow and a Father Christmas mannequin riding a sledge fixed on the roof, to simple lights with a Christmas wreath hung on the door.

A house lit up for Christmas

 

Carol singers (is that Father Christmas joining in?)

Christmas Carols
Churches around the country hold Christingle and special carol services, and listening to choirs singing Handel's Messiah in a cathedral in London is my favourite thing to do, along with going to numerous carol by candlelight services, where mince pies and mulled wine is served afterwards. Since I learnt dozens of carols in Primary school for various nativities and Christmas choir events, most of them are stuck in my head, and repeated listens every Christmas further embeds them into my memory. My favourites include 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' 'Once in Royal David's City' and 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. But I love them all really; the power and depth of the words, the distinct melodies and the sanctity of what they represent; singing them en masse becomes a spiritual experience.

 

My Favourite

Christmas carol singers gather outside many train and tube stations to sing carols for charity, and men and women dressed in Santa outfits collect money for their charities, wishing you a merry Christmas as you drop a coin in their coin-collectors.

Christmas Traditions
'Ho Ho Ho' and 'Merry Christmas' are the most used phrase this season. There are also visits to Santa's Grotto hosted by various department stores, ice skating, the brilliant Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and various Christmas markets and fairs. Chestnuts roasted on a semi-open fire by the road sides are sold on high streets, and Christmas-only drinks like egg-nog and mulled wine appear.

Wrapped up in all this is the chill of December, meaning coats, boots, scarves, gloves and woolly hats are necessities. Although it rarely snows on Christmas Day, there's often snow before or after. A fireplace, heaters, hot water bottles and cups of tea keep you warm inside the house.

Christmas Day: Some go to church in the morning, but almost everyone begins the day very early when everyone, still in their pyjamas, excitedly open their presents that have been waiting under the Christmas tree for days. For some, this is the best part about Christmas.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree!

After everyone gets dressed, Christmas lunch is laid on a table decorated with special crockery, Christmas table-cloth and Christmas crackers. There's turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, gravy, brussel sprouts and other vegetables (in our house we also have jollof rice, fried rice and chicken) with Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, mince pies, ice-cream and custard for dessert. Large tins of Celebration or Quality Street chocolates are also quaffed, the Christmas crackers are pulled apart (Marks and Spencer's make the best), the little gifts that come out of it scrutinized, the jokes are read out and the paper hats worn on the head - the one day in the year when everyone happily wears flimsy paper hats around the table.

Christmas Lunch

Photos are taken, songs are sung, and the big Christmas movie plays on TV, as does the Queen's Christmas Speech which everyone tunes if for at around 3pm. Then some take naps, others plays games and make Christmas visits and phone calls, text messages and emails wishing the receiver a Merry Christmas. Tomorrow at boxing day the leftovers of the feast will be eaten, the gifts further explored, more TV will be watched and trips to shopping centres with friends to explore the Boxing Day sales will be made to spend the Christmas money you received.

Christmas Feeling
The usual activities - tinged with sadness if loved ones are missing, or excitement if new additions are present - also adds to the uniqueness of the occasion, but apart from all the activities, there's a Christmas glow, a warm fuzziness illuminated by neon lights, a heightened excitement, a feeling that is hard to express and even harder to manufacture outside of the season.

There's the cosiness and the coming together of family mixed in with the anticipation of gifts and frantic preparations for the day; the buying, wrapping and labelling of presents and writing in cards, and the buying, storing, preparing and eating of the mountains of food. You become soaked in Christmas, it's all around you and  permeates almost every aspect of normal life, until it is over and the new Year comes round.

However, the reason for the season, the birth of Jesus Christ, is often lost amongst the presents and turkey and tree, much to the consternation of Christians everywhere. But I think the fact that the occasion is still so well observed, and an emphasis is placed on family, love, sharing and giving marks the original event well enough.

The reason for the season: The birth of Jesus Christ

Christmas is an occasion, but it's also an emotion fuelled by long-held traditions, national events and the anticipation and excitement that surrounds it.

I shall miss all that this year.

How Adichie Fell Off Her Pedestal

Throughout the history of my blog, I've always revered Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. And In a recent post in which I praised her writing and excitedly looked forward to reading her latest book Americanah, I also spoke about my reticence about meeting her face to face. I’d heard her speak live twice but each time I always left (or hid) rather than meet with her or have her sign my books. This was because I didn't want my image of her – an image in which she is a gloriously brilliant and noble genius devoid of any human failings or flaws – to be ruined. 

I didn't want the real Adichie to disappoint me.

But this past week, I've read many things that have knocked Adichie off the pedestal she occupied in my mind, and the truth is, I saw it coming.

In a recent interview she did with American blogger Aaron Aden, Adichie came off as intelligent, measured, forthright and accomplished, but also condescending and egotistical. She described Elnathan John, a Nigerian writer who had attended one of her writing workshops (and who, by the way, has has THE best ‘About Me’ Blogger Intro I have ever read) in a manner that belittles him and exalts her. Here’s the offending part of the interview:

AB: I would love to ask you about the Caine Prize. I find it interesting that so many Nigerians are on the short list this year—that it’s four Nigerians out of five . . . 

CA: Umm, why is that a problem? Watch it. 

AB: Well, none of them are you! 

CA: Elnathan was one of my boys in my workshop. But what’s all this over-privileging of the Caine Prize, anyway? I don’t want to talk about the Caine Prize, really. I suppose it’s a good thing, but for me it’s not the arbiter of the best fiction in Africa. It’s never been. I know that Chinelo is on the short list, too. But I haven’t even read the stories—I’m just not very interested. I don’t go the Caine Prize to look for the best in African fiction. 

AB: Where do you go? 

CA: I go to my mailbox, where my workshop people send me their stories. I could give you a list of ten—mostly in Nigeria—writers who I think are very good. They’re not on the Caine Prize short list. 

This condescension irked Elnathan, who wrote a passive-aggressive retort to Adichie in his blog. Nigeria’s literary community were also irked, and took to newspapers, blogs and Twitter to vent. I only heard about the beef via a Twitter link to a story written by Sylvia Ofili in response to Adichie's comment that the best in African writing where found in her mailbox. 

Nigerian writer Elnathan John and Chimamanda Adichie

The reverence, accolades and praise she has been showered with since her debut novel Purple Hisbiscus seems to have elevated Adichie’s sense of self to a level where she now looks down from on high on the rest of us. Many reader comments in response to the Elnathan Caine Prize Beef have also confirmed my fears, as many of those who have met her state that Adichie is cold, distant and smiles with her lips but not her eyes during meet and greets. One girl recalled how, after she met Adichie in London following a talk, the writer scolded her for wearing a weave.

It is sad, but not surprising, to see that brilliance has been marred by humanity. But isn't that always the way? I never expected her to be perfect, that was why I preferred to admire her from afar. I never wanted to see this unpleasant side of her. I caught glimpses of her personality from the female characters she writes about, from Ifemelu to Kainene to Ujunwa, who are almost always quietly acidic and saturnine. This characteristic reminds me of a couple of friends I have, who are also brilliant, accomplished and loyal friends, so it didn't bother me. But I think she crossed the line by belittling Elnathan, who also stated in his blog that she emailed him scolding him for tweeting against her natural hair, and refused to speak to him afterwards despite his apologies. Adichie had also scolded a Nigerian magazine for referring to her as 'The Glamour Girl of Nigerian Writing', stating that it was an inappropriate description because she was past 30. Fair point. Yet she called a man above 30 ‘one of her boys.’

So Adichie has now come off the pedestal I had put her on. But it’s OK. I still love her writing, and Americanah was sublime. I loved the acerbic commentary on what it means to be Black in America, but not only to be African-American, but American African. I loved the dissection of liberal America both white, Black and other, loved the way the book weaves in the British Black experience too and the breezy but hard-hitting blog posts. The books says EVERYTHING I've felt, thought, said and experienced about race and Nigerian life and wealth, and much more that rang true, and the love story wasn't too bad either. 

Americanah felt so familiar. And unlike most people who read it that are either American, British or Nigerian but cannot always identify with all three cultures, I can identify with it all. I understood and recognised the American idiosyncrasies as well as the British nuances and the Nigerian ways, even the subtle and overt privileges of being an 'Americanah' (a Nigerian with experiences of living abroad). 

The best part for me was when Ifemelu described the initial shock of having to go into a capsule-like enclosure whilst entering and exiting a Nigerian bank. I laughed out loud whilst reading it, because I felt the exact same way when I had to do that for the first time, it was like "What the hell? What's going on here? How do I get out? Get me out!" 

If Americanah was a person, we would hit it off instantly and be best friends for life, because I so get it. Adichie writes very well. She says she spends a lot of time to construct the best sentences, and it shows. How’s this for a truth so well told:

“What I've noticed since been [in England] is that many English people are in awe of America but also deeply resent it,” Obinze added. “It’s the resentment of a parent whose child has become far more beautiful and with a far more interesting life.”

The best review of Americanah I've read is by Katherine Schulz (read it here) which does well to express Adichie's success in the ambition and scope of her book, as well as the fact that she captures and perceives race in America and Britain so well because she is an outsider.

Adichie is still, for me, the best writer of our generation that Nigeria has produced. I will not cut my nose to spite my face by denigrating her completely due to my new-found dislike for her personality as expressed in an interview and other exchanges. And although these are but minute insights into her character and in no way account for the totality of her as a person, it is enough for me to shake my head and lament on the damage our egos can cause. The praise she receives is justified, I just hope that in future she will speak and deal with her fans with more diplomacy, humility and wisdom. 

I, for one, now have an empty pedestal in my mind. And it shall henceforth remain empty because no human being can ever be above reproach.

Religion in Nigeria: God vs Money

Writing about religion can be a touchy subject, but it's too all-encompassing in Nigeria to ignore. I’ll focus more on Christianity because it’s what I'm most familiar with.

Religion and National Identity

OK, so in Nigeria, there is no such thing as being an atheist. You’re either a Christian or a Muslim. You may have back-slidded or are no longer active in the religion you were brought up in, but everyone identifies with one faith or the other. When it’s time to marry you choose a Church or Mosque, and when asked what religion you are (if it isn't obvious by your name, appearance or tribe) you know which one of the two to answer.

Atheism is a Western construct born of contentment and too much leisure time to contemplate unknowable things. But many Nigerians are still trying to make ends meet and the belief in God consoles in the face of hardship. Unbelief is an expensive luxury. Yet even the wealthy fully retain their religious identity and take pride in contributing gifts to their church/mosque and publically thank God for all their wealth (no matter how ill-gotten it is). It doesn't occur to us to question if there is a God, because there’s hardly an arena from which He is absent.

From the Senate to Aso Rock, Christian and Muslim prayers are said every morning and politicians sprinkle their speeches with scripture. The country’s first lady gave a public testimony in the Presidential Villa’s chapel recently thanking God for keeping her alive through her illness, and the President is often filmed in church services. He was once pictured kneeling in front of a prominent pastor who prayed for him.

President Goodluck Jonathan kneeling in front of Pastor Adeboye who is praying for him 

The division between Church and State is both impossible and undesirable and the lines are often blurred, with pastors running for President and church ministers moonlighting as government ministers.

Religion also strongly permeates the workplace. I was shocked to learn that you had to not only state your date of birth, country of origin and marital status prominently on your CV, but your religion also. Coming from the UK where such personal details are expressly banned so as to avoid discrimination, it was alarming.

Companies have churches and mosques in their premises and Muslims take time off to pray during the day. During Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting) last year, Nigeria’s (and the world’s) richest Black man Aliko Dangote – a Muslim – donated bags of his company’s rice, sugar and spaghetti to all the Muslims in my company. It’s normal to invite your boss to your church and have lengthy, passionate discussions about spirituality with your colleagues.

Businesses have names like ‘Grace Abounding General Store’ or  ‘God’s Favour Hairdressers’ and many vehicles have religious inscriptions on them: ‘With God Nothing is Impossible,’ ‘My God can Move Mountains.’ Religion is present at every birth, marriage and funeral, and at an open air garden I visited where people gather to drink alcohol and watch live entertainment on a stage, a group of dancers performed to popular Church songs and the MC punctuated his announcements with religious phrases as freely as if he was at the pulpit. 

Religious phrases seep into daily conversations: 

How’s work? Oh, we thank God. 

Wow, you really wrote this great article? Yes, Glory to God.  

Will you come tomorrow? Yes, by God’s Grace.

The Nigerian national football team pray together before and after every match, football fans call radio stations imploring God to help the teams they support, thank God when their team wins and consider how “God was humbling the proud” when they lose.

In Nollywood and Kannywood movies, much of the storyline is religion-centred and the credits always include variations of the phrase ‘To God be the Glory’. Musicians talk about their faith on Twitter, comedians espouse on the hilarities of religion in their acts and televangelists take over the airwaves every Sunday, with lengthy Christian and Muslim sermons broadcasted during special national events. In interviews, everyone from politicians to celebrities brim over with praise to their God.

Religion isn’t a private hobby like in the UK, where the former Prime Minister Tony Blair famously said ‘We don’t do God.’ Here God is an ever-present reality and everyone knows Him personally.

Serving Two Masters

Yet I’ve never lived in a city where the pursuit of money is an obsession. Money not only guarantees you respect, better services and dignity, it also opens doors that merit and excellence cannot. Money is king and you’re nothing without it. This fresh, hot desire for wealth clashes with the fervent Christianity in that the faithful are supposed to uphold higher virtues like joy, peace, goodness, generosity and humility, yet all everyone prays for is for more money.

Prosperity preachers are drawing millions of people (and money) to their churches with promises that God will bless their congregation, not with gifts or fruits of the spirit, but with more money, houses and cars. One prominent preacher owns four private jets and a for-profit university that most of his worshippers cannot afford, and a church I went to surprised the Pastor with the gift of a brand new Jeep, and everyone walked out of the church to gather around the car, taking pictures and praising God whilst the Pastor joyfully prayed for the donors and encouraged everyone to have faith so that theirs will come soon.

Pastor Oyedepo in one of his four Private Jets worth N4.5 billion ($30 million) 

Instead of flaunting ostentatious wealth that’s out of step with the majority of the country, aren’t Christians supposed to be spiritual and content like Jesus was and be able to identify with the poor? But how can a jet-owning, Gucci-wearing, Bahamas-holidaying, Lexus-driving ‘Man of God’ relate with a tomato-seller?

Except for special occasions, I’ve stopped going to church here. The materialism was too much for me. Sure I strive to earn more and be more, but I hate seeing the flagrant exaltation of money in the pulpit, where those that pay tithes are venerated by the Pastor, and I don’t want to listen to a sermon about ‘How to Succeed in Business’. There are business seminars for that. I came to church to feed my spirit not bolster my pocket.

However, Pastors are only giving people what they want. Everyone wants to be rich and hear that ‘This is your month of Increase.’ Then there is the transactional nature of it all: If you sow seeds of cash you reap material rewards, in effect, pay the pastor and God will pay you. As if God’s only gift to a Christian is riches. 

After all, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?

The Bible says that you cannot serve both God and Money, but in Nigeria every knee bows to both.

Witches, Charms and all that Jazz

In Africa, God and his angels exist as much as the devil and his demons. The belief in spirits and witchcraft has not being totally eradicated by organised religion, and Juju or Jazz is real for Nigerian Christians and Muslims. Even the churches have deliverance services for repentant witches and hold prayers to break generational curses.

The influence and effects of dark arts is common knowledge and incidents of bewitchment and spells are spoken of as casually as discussions about the weather.

I've heard all kinds of stories from people and the media, of live animals buried in front of shops to lure customers in; people engaging in spells to close someone’s womb, win someone’s heart or kill a rival; children and adults dismembered for ‘money rituals;’ a secret room housing a human head that vomits an unending supply of money, and tribes were the dead walk themselves to their graves.

One newspaper reported on an old couple who were left terrified one night when a naked woman fell from the ceiling unto their beds, despite the room and house been locked. The woman confessed to the police that she was a witch flying to India but got lost.

What am I to do with such stories, told by otherwise sane people? I know Lucifer and his angels are real enough, but he seems really busy in Nigeria. Witchcraft disappeared from England centuries ago, and it’s like the devil relocated to Africa, or just became more adept at subterfuge in advanced societies but takes off his disguise and runs free in Nigeria.

Religion as a National Pacifier

I do think though, that religion weakens the resolve for justice. A doctor breaks the leg of a newborn whilst pulling it out of the womb carelessly, but the new parents and their relatives are against ruffling feathers and say, “Thank God the baby is healthy, we’ll leave everything else in the hands of God.” Why not sue or complain so that the incompetent medic is prevented from causing further harm to other innocent babies, and so the hospital can compensate the family for the extra medical bills? Preventable misfortunes and accidents are accepted without complaint because ‘God is in control’ and people remain passive, resigning themselves to poverty caused by governmental ineptitude. ‘Suffering and smiling’ as Fela sings.

A church in Abuja, Nigeria

That Nigerians topped an international poll as the happiest people on earth is both laudable and sad, because most don’t have a lot to smile about, but the comfort and resolve they get from God fortifies them and keeps their disposition cheerful.

If the famous sociologist Karl Marx was right and religion is the opium of the people, then Nigerians are high on their addiction, much to the satisfaction of the ruling elite. The collective national crutch that is religion quells revolution, maintains the status quo, and keeps everyone’s mind on personal advancement. Money is the answer to every prayer.

Nigeria is a country where God reigns, but it is the Almighty Naira that rules.

Chimamanda Adichie, Natural Hair & Me

I have a crush on Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. Never has a writer so captured my heart, mind and spirit like this Nigerian author, whose words represent all I want to be said and all I wish to say. Yet twice I have ran away from meeting her, shaking her hand and telling her how much I enjoy, appreciate, love and admire her body of work; from Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck and her latest novel, Americanah.

I was at the London Southbank Centre in 2009 where she read excerpts from the then unreleased The Thing Around Your Neck in her powerful, regal tones, uncorrupted by a fake foreign accent. She was by far the most intriguing of the ladies reading from their works up on that stage, and I will be eternally disappointed that I was unable to make it to her reading of Americanah at the same venue a few weeks ago.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The way she captures the Nigerian identity today, the nuances and pretences and false beliefs and hopes of our parents, ourselves and our society, of how strong-minded, globally connected and aspiring Nigerians grapple with embracing our broken motherland despite the allure of the US, which represents both greener pastures and a lesson in self-awareness that leaves us straddling between two cultures, neither of which fully satisfy.

Her heroines are epic: saturnine, brooding, melancholy, passive aggressive, intensely cerebral women who quietly bear the pressure they're under, until the day they snap and walk away from what is supposedly every Nigerian woman's dream: the good but uniquely flawed man, the dream job/opportunity that eats away at your soul, the chance to live or stay in America but betray yourself.

She is the voice of the upwardly mobile Nigerian today, just like Chinua Achebe (their names will forever be linked in reviews and editorials) was the voice of his generation. The late great said of her:

“We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. [She] knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless.”

He is spot on. It must be so fulfilling for Adichie to have someone so worthyunderstand her work so well. Her poise – one interviewer described her as ‘contained’- is obvious and her sense of self is empowering.

Yet I ran away from meeting her. The first time was after the book reading at London Southbank Centre, where I left afterwards instead of lingering behind to shake the hand of the woman ‘endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.’ Then during another event at an arts venue near Clapham Junction station a year or so later where she did a book signing afterwards (I have a recording of her talk on my phone) I’d taken my copies of her books for her to sign, but I could not face her. A friend had to take it to her for her to sign for me, whilst I literally ran away to a corner of the auditorium and hid. I'm not entirely sure why.

My friends tried to physically pull me to where she was but I refused to see her. So she signed it, plus, Plus! she spelt my name right. A name that is usually spelt with two Ls but mine is with one L, and many don’t know that, but she did. That confirmed to me that we were kindred spirits. Just like Achebe ‘got’ her, she got me, and I get her.

Adichie with her second book, Half of a Yellow Sun which won the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction

Adichie is one of the very few people I will pay money to go see. Music is not my thing, but books are, and her books are my favourite. She is to me what Beyonce or Michael Jackson is to music lovers. It would be Adichie's poster I would have on my wall and it would be her concerts I would go to and it would be her CDs I would know all the words too. I love to see genius; that honest, unbridled, natural and seemingly effortless ability, humanity and humility certain great people have. So imagine my joy when that person is a female Nigerian young enough to be my contemporary, with similar experiences of traversing both the Western and African continents? I positively reverberated with excitement when I learnt more about her. 

As a fellow writer and commentator on race and belonging, her works and her words in the many interviews I’ve read of hers are what mine would be. Her thoughts on the poor reading culture in Nigeria and her efforts to open a library and literary centres around Nigeria are my thoughts and desires. Her view on ‘The Dangers of the Single Story,’ which she spoke about so eloquently during the now well-known TED Talks is exactly how I feel about the media when it gives only one view of a place or a people, and the ripple effect of not knowing the full story.

I used her words as part of my Masters dissertation, mostly because it matched my subject of study and also because I loved what she said and how she said it. Listen for yourself here.

Then there is a subject she espouses on at length in much of her writing, especially in her latest book Americanah: her love for natural hair, something I too feel very strongly about. 

Adichie and her natural hair

But my natural hair journey did not begin with any strong notion of expressing my Africanness by eschewing the false notion of beauty that meant having straight long hair sewn into mine (I’ve never sewn a weave into my hair in my life) or the fallacy of relaxing my hair straight by burning away its natural curls. But six years ago I decided against spending £60 every month to 'fix' my hair and spending six hours in a chair getting it fixed, so I simply stopped relaxing it and waited for my own hair to grow long enough so I could cut off the relaxed ends.

Thankfully my hair is easy to comb out, but the early stages of having a boyish short cut was challenging until it grew long enough to style, although sadly it never grew as long as it once was. Now in Nigeria I get compliments by women who wish they could ‘go natural’ but can’t because of their receding hairline resulting from too many tight braids or because their natural hair is too tough. Now I love my hair; it’s cheaper to manage and takes little time to do up in the morning. It’s how God created it and its texture is just the way He wanted it to be. Fulani women are usually less likely than other Nigerian women to wear weaves anyway, because their hair is usually longer and softer with finer curls, and also because they mostly cover it up and are not under pressure to show it off in different styles. This in itself is a shame, i.e. the women with the loveliest hair are the ones that cover it up.

There’s a saying that ‘If there’s something that makes you unique, don’t change it just so you blend in.’ My natural hair is unique in a sea of Brazilian weaves, hair extensions and relaxed hair. Although I’ve worn wigs and had braids, mostly during the harsh winters in the UK or just for a change, because there is something incredibly feminine about having long hair skimming your shoulders. But my natural hair reigns supreme.

And of course Adichie understands the importance of Black women freeing themselves from the pressure of wearing synthetic or another woman’s hair, which they deem more beautiful than their own. She said:

“As you can see, I have natural, negro hair, free from relaxers and things... From when I was three years old I already had the idea that straight hair was beautiful and my hair was ugly. But then when I went to America, I suddenly found out I was Black! Suddenly I started thinking, why do I want my hair to look like a white girls’ hair? This is absurd.”

Then she said:

"My hair is in tiny cornrows; I have a big ponytail on the top of my head. I quite like it. It is natural. I am a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to black women's hair. Hair is hair – yet also it's about larger questions: self-acceptance, insecurity and what the world tells you is beautiful. For many black women, the idea of wearing their hair naturally is unbearable."

In Americanah, Adichie describes her main character Ifemelu getting her hair relaxed:

“She left the salon almost mournfully; while the hairdresser had flat-ironed the ends, the smell of burning, of something organic dying which should not have died, had made her feel a sense of loss.”

I was also happy to hear that Adichie is now married to a fellow Igbo doctor based in America. I’m a traditionalist, so no matter how great a woman’s achievements are and no matter how much I admire them, I always feel sad for them if they are unmarried and childless. Like Condoleeza Rice, the former US Secretary of state who got her PhD aged 26, is an accomplished pianist and speaks English, Russian, French, Spanish and German fluently, but is childless and single. Or Oprah Winfrey, who I adore and was bereaved when her show ended, and loved her even more after watching a documentary about the OWLAG school for girls she opened in South Africa. Yet I feel she is incomplete for never having married or raised her own kids. Although in her case (and probably Rice’s too) she might not have achieved so much if she were a housewife.

But marriage seems to have added nothing to Adichie: she was whole since writing Half of a Yellow Sun. After reading her first novel Purple Hibiscus, I could see the writer emerging, but by Yellow Sun Adichie had arrived. And she remains in a state of ‘arrival’ and will continue to be a fully fledged, composed and confident writer.

Her powerful prose, the fact that she writes about the reality of straddling multiple cultures, the way she views whites in the West without sentiment or ass-kissing and her rendering of fully-formed characters who see and question life like real people do is right up my street.

After The Thing Around Your Neck, I waited for more. Then forgot that I was waiting. Then I heard the news last week that her latest novel will be out in a couple of weeks (Where was I?? I’ve dropped the ball on my Adichie-watch. In the UK I googled her endlessly and had read every bit of her online writing and interviews up until a certain point) and I was elated.

The premise of Americanah, of two high-school sweethearts in Nigeria finding themselves in different continents, one in US the other in UK and their resulting experiences of race, employment, relationships abroad, identity etc has gotten me so excited. I can’t wait to read it.

Adichie's new book: Americanah

But one thing Adichie said encapsulated my feelings, but in the opposite way to how she meant it:

“I like America but it’s not mine and it never will be. I don’t really have a life there. I travel and I speak and I sit in my study trying to write, but in Nigeria I have a life. I go out, I have friends, I feel emotionally invested in what’s happening.”

This. This is how I feel, but about the UK. I like Nigeria but it’s not mine. Alas, dear Adichie, this is where we disagree. Where Nigeria is home for you and the West is a sojourn, I feel the opposite. But we’re still related you and I. We still share an understanding of the world and an appreciation of the important things that make us African women in a globalised world. I love your audacity to write about what’s real to you, not what will bring you money. You speak for all of us and say it with maturity and knowing and humour and power.

Long may your pen continue to write. We may have lost Achebe, the father of African writing but we still have you, a daughter of today’s Africa who we can claim for ourselves. Write and write until you can write no more, because for every word you write there are many like me who devour them with relish.

Perhaps one day I will overcome my innate Fulani shyness and come face to face with you. I might cry, I might laugh, I might stare at you motionless and remain mute, coming off as aloof when inside I’m dancing. But whether I meet you in person or not, I will continue to meet you in your books.

Americanah here I come!

UPDATE

I've now read Americanah, and it is all I expected and so much more. I absolutely loved it! My review will be up soon once I've had time to fully digest it and formulate a worthy articulation of its brilliance and particular resonance with me on so many levels.

A Brutally Honest Account of my Life in Nigeria

Nigeria has to be lived to be believed. It’s no good getting one’s feet wet by dipping it sheepishly into the ocean that is our great country, then running off the minute the water gets too cold or too hot, like many of my friends do who visit Nigeria on holiday and enjoy the food, clubs, parties, family and weddings on offer, then rush back to England before Nigeria gets under their skin and they can’t wash it off anymore.

I’m talking about how I immersed myself into the country head over heels until, thoroughly soaked through and dripping wet with Nigeria clinging to my clothes, I returned to England a full 14 months after first arriving in Abuja, blinking under the lights of Heathrow airport and feeling once more the icy cold of December in London. I got used to seeing white people everywhere again and remembered Nigeria only in flashes of hazy, Technicolor brilliance.

Stories of Injustices Abound

I had to go back to England and after two weeks, return to Nigeria again before I could put into perspective what it means to become a Nigerian.  And it’s no longer all happy stories of self-discovery in the Motherland and chin-chin and smiling Fulanis. It’s a collage of sweaty nights, mosquitoes, noisy traffic where horns blare each and every second and paying N400 for a DVD that others in the know pay N100 for. It’s a mixture of the freedom of not having to pay to park everywhere you go, sweet, gorgeous treats like Choco-milo and Fura da Nono and the immediate fascination you encounter simply because you’re British, all mixed with the agony of reading about a man imprisoned for three years for stealing a goat whilst the man responsible for stealing N32 billion worth of pensioner’s money got away with a N750,000 fine. 

 Former Pension boss John Yusufu, who stole N27 billion from Nigeria's Pension Fund 

Or hearing about a pregnant woman who died in front of watching nurses who refused to help because the woman’s husband didn’t have enough money to pay for her treatment. Or a colleague telling me how she got into a taxi, was harassed by the men inside who snatched her handbag and pushed her out of the moving vehicle. Or the gas explosion near my house caused by the same gas canisters used for cooking that friends of mine use. Or the parents who lost all their five children in a fire as neighbours struggled to help because the fire service were not available. Or the dozens of dead bodies found floating in a river one day, and the lack of forensics or police might meant that no one knows who they were or how or why they died.

The daily injustices, unnecessary deaths and unfair suffering those around me endure that is in stark contrast with the 20 houses and millions of naira worth of cars owned by just one person is enough to make me want to grab my red passport and board the next flight back to civilisation. But yet I stay.

Nigeria for me was a challenge, a lesson in survival, a desire to see what all my education and work experience will get me in my own country, and a longing to live in a society where I’m not a second-class citizen simply because of the colour of my skin.

My Eyes Are Open

But there are times when I've hated the very people I was a few months ago delighted to be among. It’s only in Nigeria that I’ve seen the pure wickedness one man can have for another, and the ravenous greed that drives men to steal money allocated for schools, which forces young students to take their lessons under a tree, defecate in the open and sit six to a bench in the pursuit of an education that in the end will get them nowhere unless they have a relative in high places that can give them a job when they graduate.

Nigeria has opened my eyes to the worst of humanity, and sometimes I’m appalled to call it my country. But as it is for other Nigerians, the national pride and hope for better sits alongside my repulsion at what my fellow countrymen are capable of.

The young men hawking dried fish, newspapers, puppies (yes puppies), milk and mops in traffic for hours under the hot sun has become an everyday sight now; I barely bat an eyelid. Recently though, I saw a boy whose entire jaw was jutting out of his mouth so that his face was unnaturally elongated downwards...he was weaving in and out of traffic begging along with his chaperone. Another time I saw a little girl, naked except for her underwear, with a huge tumour on her back. I was so angry my eyes turned red. Angry that we the motorists had to be subjected to the sight of such deformity, angry that there was nothing for her to do but beg, angry that her ‘chaperone’ left her to walk about in the sun almost naked, and angry that such a horrible thing was happening.

All this and worse Nigerians have to see and yet somehow continue our day. I constantly have to ask, to no one in particular, "Why do they let this happen?" and I'm met with shrugged shoulders and shaking heads.

'Runs' Girls and an Ode to a Dog 

Then there is the issue of young girls selling their bodies to the highest bidder, sometimes for as little as a BlackBerry phone, other times for houses, millions and cars given to them by their wealthy benefactors. And you know what? I don’t blame them. Even if they had the brains, if they don’t know the right people they will never get far. So why not use their bodies to get what they want? Virtue is affordable only to the rich, or those from stable societies where you can make it based on merit. But when you grew up dirt poor in a village where you ate only once a day, and you come to Abuja and there are hardly any jobs available, and men are willing to sleep with you in return for wealth, only the best among us would reject that offer.

And, I remember once watching as a dog with dirty, patchy, white fur walked alone around a rubbish dump, no owner, no home, nothing. It had sad eyes and as I watched, for reasons inexplicable to me, I fell in love with it and wanted to take it home. A dog! Not the tiny, long-haired urchins I see every day, but the dog? I watched it for about ten minutes until it ran off, and my heart went out to it and I pitied it and I wrote an ode to it in my mind; wondering where it slept, what it ate, where it was born. Afterwards, I reviewed my behaviour and laughed. Nigeria was getting into my head.

Here everything I’d learnt about fair-play, honesty, humility and politeness had to be thrown out of the window. In Nigeria, up is down and down is up as far as universal standards of behaviour is concerned. If you want something, pretend you don’t otherwise you pay more for it. And you have to be mean to your subordinates so they respect you, because the minute they see you’re nice they disrespect you mercilessly. And never discuss your upcoming successes, because there are many ready to put a spanner in the works. And I’m ashamed to admit it; I’ve also learnt to lie. Because in this upside down society, lies open doors and the truth gets you in trouble.

Nigeria, dear readers, has brought out the villain in me I never even knew was in there.

I’ve also noticed, and it has now begun to exasperate me, how many hours and column inches is devoted to deconstructing ‘The Problem of Nigeria’, where brilliant minds express eloquent ideals and ideas about how to fix the country. Everybody and their mama has a solution for Nigeria, yet here we are. So why do it? All that talk, and trust me, it’s a daily occupation with Nigerians, gets us nowhere.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 

I wanted to experience everything in this country. So I rode on a motorcycle (Okada), which is a mode of transport for many who can’t afford taxis, much to the dismay of my friends. No matter how you do it, it remains undignified for a lady to mount a bike, and dismounting it was equally ungraceful. I also rode in a Keke-Napep, visited crowded markets (and I was overcharged every time) and walked through the ramshackle villages in the outskirts of Abuja.

I’ve also stayed in expensive rooms in Transcorp Hilton and Sheraton (smarting at the cost of the privilege and annoyed by the unbridled fawning of hotel staff towards foreigners and the wealthy) and grand houses in Asokoro and visited shockingly extravagant homes in Maitama where each and every piece of furniture was imported from Dubai or America and there were flatscreen TVs in every room including the kitchen. I’ve eaten at expensive restaurants and local Mama Puts. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and there is a lot of ugly, and my conclusion is that Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted. It is better experienced the way white people experience it: through the windows of air-conditioned SUVs as it speeds from the airport to a nice hotel, never seeing the dirty underbelly and believing the lies your hosts tell you about how the country is improving.

Like the lies the Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told CNN’s Christianne Amanpour during his infamous interview, especially the one about electricity improving.

CNN's Christianne Amanpour interviewing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan

It might be improving, but at a snail's pace inconsistent with the billions the country makes in oil. I find many things I enjoy in Nigeria, including the delicious variety of food and treats which suits me fine as I'm a foodie with a sweet tooth, the gregarious humour of the people I meet and work with everyday and the indomitable human spirit to be found in every Nigerian that says, despite the injustices, I will smile. Still, I will rise.

I've met truly delightful people, and many others who are just tainted by their environment who I feel would soar to great heights in countries like the UK where their attributes will be valued.

But Nigerians are also the most patient, most forgiving, most industrious, most animated, most greedy, most wicked, most generous, most desperate and most exasperating people I have ever met. I now have a healthy love-hate relationship with them and with the country. But I wouldn’t swap my experiences here for anything in the world.

Like my brother-in-law told me when I went back to London, “You left England a girl and returned a woman.”