This Is Not Normal, Even If We’ve Normalised It.

Hello, you all. 🤗
Welcome you here once again.
And here I am to discuss a few things that I've noticed amongst us all, including me.

Now, it's about Nigeria again, especially for us, the citizens of the country. I noticed we don't react to things like we used to; I'm talking about the various happenings in the country that are bad. And thinking about it, I understand that it's because these things aren't new and they happen too often, so we just see it, hear about it, and just continue with our lives.

Take light, for instance; we don't even ask or cry for better anymore. We don't count it as anything; we've gotten so used to the darkness that electricity itself now looks like a stranger or visitor to us. We now feel somehow, when we have stable electricity, as if it's not something we should have as a norm. We go to petrol stations to fill up our cars or generators, and when we find out that the price has increased, we shout once and then go ahead to buy it. We go to the market to get foodstuffs and other necessities only to find out that prices had tripled; we sigh, shake our heads, and still go ahead to buy it.

What I'm saying is, we act as if... It's normal. We say we are Nigerian and can survive anything, yet we keep getting drained, and we seem not to know it.

Have you checked the ratings recently? Have you checked the statistics? Nigeria is not in a war, and we rank amongst the top five amongst the most terrorized and unsafe nations. Nigeria, with all that we claim to have, has over 140 million people living in abject poverty.

Is it getting better? Are we improving? Should we now continue like this...?

Check out our roads and see what they look like; we get home at the end of the day and start feeling body ache because of the shaky bus/keke that keeps falling into potholes. Visit our hospitals and see how things work there; it's worse. Check our schools out too and see what we call schools. And we still joke with all of these things at the end of a fast day as if they were funny... Is it?

The insecurity that's hitting us hard now does not even have an effect anymore. We hear of new kidnap victims and just act like it's nothing; another bomb blast somewhere and we are not bothered. The most we do is discuss it for a few minutes and continue with whatever we are doing.

We have become so familiar with these happenings, and it scares me. I'm scared even of myself, and that's why I'm writing this. I was eating when I heard the news that some set of people was kidnapped earlier today. Guess what? I just sighed and said, "It is well," and continued eating my food.

It now feels like we are losing it, like it's nothing. Something is this bad, this worse, yet we're living inside it.

I know we are tired, I know we are just pushing it, and I know we are waking up trying to adapt and adjust. I know. But then take a minute of your time to imagine if the country were working the way it is supposed to. Imagine if electricity were stable. Imagine if our roads were good. Imagine if there were good jobs, imagine if the prices of things were not this much, imagine if the minimum wage were good... Just imagine it all and think about if your life will still be like this or if it would have been different.

And like I will always say, these things will continue for as far and as long as we allow it. We are the people, and we are way louder and much more numerous than those in power. They are meant to serve us, yet they and their kids don't even partake in the systems they claim to build for us, thy use private jets, they get treated abroad, the school abroad and most of their family members are even staying there...so what are we even saying.

We shouldn't be forced to accept this as normal. This is not the way it should be. And we shouldn't continue to allow it. We should as well make sure to use our little voice and whatever small platform we have to speak up and demand for better...or for whoever is in power to step down.

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Images are AI generated.

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