Oooh the urge to be a Nigerian - by Oluwaseun Balogun

There are nightsI want to be Nigerian so badlyI could wear the flag beneath my skin. Not the Nigeria they put in newspapers. Not the one they reduce to elections,corruption,blackouts,and another road collapsing somewhere. I mean the one that taught mehow to make a celebrationout of almost nothing. The one that could lose electricityand somehow find light in a story. The one where children once chased each otherthrough moonlit compounds,where neighbours knew your namebefore they knew your surname,where somebody's mothercould shout your full name from three streets awayand somehow,you heard her. I miss a NigeriaI am not even sure I am old enoughto remember properly. Maybe that is what we do. We inherit memorieswe never lived. We inherit songs,languages,recipes,clothes,names,and the stubborn beliefthat somewhere beneath all this noisethere is a country worth loving. And God,how we love loudly. We carry our music across oceans. A boy from Lagoscan make an arena in Londonsing words born from a streetthat London has never seen. A Nigerian doctorcan walk into a foreign hospitaland save a life. A tailor can sit beneath a weak bulband make something beautiful enoughto cross an ocean. Our mothers sell beneath the sun.Our fathers build with tired hands.Our students study through darknessand still submit assignmentsbefore the deadline. We are strange like that. We complain about the countryin the morningand defend her before foreigners by evening. We say,“Nigeria is finished.” Then somebody succeeds abroadand suddenly “That is my person.” My country. My blood. My own. Perhaps patriotism is not alwaysthe clean thing they teach you in school. Perhaps sometimesit is loving somethingwith your eyes open. Because I have seen the potholes. I have watched generators becomethe soundtrack of childhood. I have watched people leavewith their lives compressedinto two suitcases. I have watched talented peoplebecome experts at survivingwhen they should have beenbuilding. I know. I know why they leave. I know why some of usdream of passportsbefore we dream of houses. I know why “Japa”became more than slang. It became a prayer. And still put me in a roomwhere the Nigerian anthem begins. Watch me. Something in me changes. The room disappears. The arguments disappear. The politicians disappear. For a moment,there is only that green,that white,that green and a strange little boywho once believedthe world was bigger than his streetbut somehowhis street was still worth loving. Maybe that is the urge. To walk into foreign roomswithout shrinking my name. To wear the fabricthey once called ordinaryuntil somebody calls it beautiful. To speak my languagewithout translating my pride. To carry the rhythm of homeinto places that never knewwe had one. Because before the worldlearned to pronounce our names,we were already here. Before they discovered our music,we were dancing. Before they discovered our food,we were feeding ourselves. Before they discovered our cocoa,we were growing it. Before they discovered our oil,we were living above it. Before they called our creativitya global phenomenon,we were creatingbecause creating was how we survived. And maybe that is what I want. Not a perfect Nigeria. I don't want to lie about the darknessjust to prove there is light. I want the darkness gone. I want the roads fixed.The lights on.The classrooms full.The hospitals breathing.The young to stop treating departureas their greatest achievement. I want a countrythat doesn't force its childrento become successful elsewherebefore it believes in them. But until then I will still carry her. Not because she has earnedevery ounce of my love. But because somehow,through all the disappointment, she put something in methat refuses to die. A rhythm. A stubbornness. A certain audacitythat makes me look at the worldand say, you have no ideawho you are dealing with. So call us third world. Call us corrupt. Call us whatever makesyour statistics comfortable. I know what I come from. I come from peoplewho have learned to buildwith broken things. People who can turn hardshipinto humour,scarcity into invention,and a borrowed microphoneinto a stage. I come from a placethat has broken my heartmore times than I can count— and somehow, I still hear its anthemand want to stand. That is the partI cannot explain. That is the partI cannot cure. That ridiculous,beautiful,unreasonable thing the urge to be Nigerian.

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