Five Ways to Survive in Nigeria: EPISODE 1

<h4>Nobody sent you to be born here. But since you are here, since your mother pushed you out into this heat and somebody slapped your back and you cried your first Nigerian cry, we might as well talk. Because surviving in this country is not by luck alone. It is skill. It is strategy. It is knowing when to smile and when to run. </h4><h4> </h4><h4>So settle down. Take note. Class is in session.</h4> 1. Don't Die.I am telling you as a friend. Death in Nigeria is not rest, it is a handover. The moment your eyes close, an entire economy wakes up. Relatives will surface from local governments you cannot find on any map. Your neighbor, the one who has not greeted you once in four years, will be in the front row at your burial, crying in surround sound, pressing his chest like he is the one who suffered. And your money? Your property? That small plot you bought with tears and overtime? Shared. Divided. Settled out of court. You will be watching from wherever the dead watch from, powerless, as people eat your akara and argue over your mattress. Worse, you will still be spending. Transport fare for the guests. Canopy rental. Enough rice to feed a local government. Nigeria will bill your corpse and collect. So please, as a personal favour to your future self, do not die. Remain alive. It is the most affordable option. <h4>2. Own a Power Bank. A Big One. Not a decorative power bank. Not the one your cousin brought from Ekpo Abasi market that charges your phone to 12% and gives up. A real one. A serious one. One that can carry your phone through a full blackout and still have something left for your earpiece. NEPA, or EKEDC, or whatever they are calling themselves in your state this week, does not owe you light. They never signed that contract. You will be in the middle of something important, a payment, a call, a scene you were writing, and the light will vanish like it had somewhere better to be. Your power bank is not a luxury. It is infrastructure. Treat it accordingly. Sleep with it charged.</h4> 3. Always Have Biscuit Money.When you are going anywhere in this country, settle your transport fare and then keep something extra. Not for anything big. Just biscuit money. Because Nigeria will delay you. The appointment will shift. The road will hold you. The queue will be doing its own thing entirely. And somewhere between waiting and more waiting, hunger will arrive, quiet and determined. The person who has biscuit money buys a snack, adjusts, and continues. The person who does not have biscuit money starts making faces, taking decisions, saying things they cannot unsay. Biscuit money is not about biscuit. It is about keeping yourself reasonable in unreasonable situations. Budget for it always. 4. Eat Before You Leave the House.<h4>This is not advice. This is a commandment. You do not know what Nigeria has arranged for your day. The meeting that was 10am will become 1pm by the time you finish explaining yourself to the gateman. The generator will not come on. The bank will have a queue that seems to have been there since the military era. A hungry person in Nigeria is a person at risk. Hunger makes you emotional. It makes you snap at people who are also suffering. It makes you spend money you did not plan to spend, on things you did not plan to buy, at prices you should have negotiated. Eat before you leave. Even if it is just something small. Enter the day with fuel. The road will take enough from you as it is.</h4> 5. Know One Person Who Knows One Person.<h4>This is how Nigeria actually works and nobody will write it in any policy document. The official channel is real, yes, follow it, yes, but also know someone. Not for corruption, calm down. Just for clarity. Someone who will tell you which desk to go to, which day the office is actually open, whether the person you need is even around or traveled for something. Nigeria rewards those who have a name to call. Start building your network now, quietly, genuinely. Help people when you can so that when you need help, the call does not feel strange. This country is hard but it is full of people trying to make it, just like you. Find yours. They will save you in ways the system never will.</h4> That is five for now.<blockquote>And before you say it, yes, we know. Five is not enough. This country has more levels than that. So come back for Episode 2, because we are just warming up and the people, oh, the people, that is a whole other survival course on its own.</blockquote>

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