Usually, emotions are very hard to understand. It’s almost impossible to fully unfold what emotions can be especially when they are true. True Emotions can be very embarrassing because it is compulsorily expressed. There is a kind of pain with a depth in which the heart keeps falling and the feeling gets as real as a piercing. There is a kind of joy where you feel so empty and it seems all the butterflies living in your stomach have finally gone with the wind. There is no middle lane. I do not think so.
Here is what I’ve found while I lay quite still on my bunk bed this morning. There is nothing as obvious as the fact that Nigeria has a lot of problems, scary situations, and the type that critical thinking cannot kill. As a child, probably six or seven, I always got the assurance that I had nothing to worry about. I’m afraid even now, I give myself that assurance. I’ve gone over twenty years in a country that is originally mine but it doesn’t feel like I belong here because it’s too problematic and complicated. Erase the sentiments; the ones you truly feel because there is a need to show off your stand and the ones you feel only because a class assignment suddenly requests you to bring forth two hundred and fifty(250) words. Once you’re real enough to notice the mess, you should be real enough to know that in all honesty, you are only a hypocrite. I may not break down the H-word into smaller pieces in order to show you how the big acts you condemn are clear traces of the tiny little secrets you have in your wallets but ‘once small’ is the other definition of the ‘now great’ and we all know it. I’ll only tilt towards what will best describe what I found while attempting to wrap my entire self in the Nigerian flag. I found something after all. I found something interesting.
So, the news went out that day about some missing girls/young women in Borno State and there have been efforts by the government to reverse the news but all we have is the hash tag ‘bring back our girls’ flooding the social media. The sect is now very popular and well mentioned on the newspapers and sometimes the leader is caught, a member is nabbed, the commander or director is arrested, by different police correspondents and the next newspaper highlights yet another bomb blast. If one of our comedians should translate this into a joke it’ll pass for one. It’s incredible how I could be a graduate soon and some young ladies couldn’t even get to the tertiary level somehow but who is truly concerned? I would like to connect three things briefly. I wish to connect the sense in posting a hash tag and making a joke out of the emotional breakdown of the first lady. I wish to connect the age range of the missing persons and that of the pupils and students who are having a supposedly swell time in other schools. I wish to connect how long the missing girls have been gone to how much fun an average Nigerian still has in the possible places when rest is quite important. I’m just taking some time to connect your emotions to Nigeria, could you help? The hash tags on bring back our girls could pass for a band wagon form of patriotism which could also earn a person more followers while the whole essence of this article is to find myself some good marks ahead of a sound convocation. However unimaginable, the true feeling of a loss remain with the direct relatives of the average missing young woman who is somewhere in Nigeria or a close by continent and does whatever. The true feeling of ‘lost citizens’ is not in so many Nigerians who are not national in the critical sense of it. Nationality is more emotional than it seems. It’s expressible and can be embarrassing when expressed because it is real. It’s not an article, quote, or placard kind of expression. It may be very close to that almost meaningless type of reaction that can pass for a joke. How close or real does the whole ‘Chibok girls could be me, you or your sister’ sentence sound to you? When you have read the sentence again and personalized it too, does it still feel awkward, untrue, impossible, and exaggerated? Will you say you felt pain? Will you swear you really care?
I found Complacency. I gave it a deep thought and I realized most people really live the day the way it appears. The things that are said to seem like there is a feeling somewhere are easily said to avoid looking different. It is very possible that this is the same attitude the Nigerian Governmental officials are giving to the situations. A Nigerian young lady knows about the news and understands it’s been over a hundred days with the missing girls’ story but it doesn’t TRULY affect her lifestyle, values and the kind of future she wants for her own self. Why is it hard to say that the young women kidnapped were unfortunate even when that is the realistic thing to affirm? It’s because despite what you truly feel, you think there is a need to show some concern since no one is in your heart anyway. It’s clear. It’s not hard to understand especially when you are farther away from the area in question. For the South Western Nigerian Business Man, his shops are safe from bomb blasts because his head office is in Oyo State. For the Northerner, his safety is believable once he has moved away from home and settled with the South Eastern Nigerian. Supposedly you are rich enough; the best bet becomes the other continent where it seems there is a reasonable amount of tranquility. Que sera sera make it even harder to see the future. This article will not exceed two hundred and fifty (250) words trying to motivate or inspire anyone to make their emotions true, no. It won’t encourage anyone to be more nationalistic. It won’t dispel the tribalism in you. I just want you to clearly understand hypocrisy as a gradual process as much as tribalism traces down to your lack of tolerance when another Nigerian language is spoken freely around you. Sometimes, the real you cry out for the native speaker to stop talking, the tribalism in you. Now Complacency is found so easily too. You will never truly understand the story enough to write on it or express true emotions about the entire situation until the so called ‘Boko Haram’ gets to University of Ibadan and you narrowly escape being kidnapped. Whatever kind of goose bumps you see on your skin will clearly define how much of true emotion you can afford for a formerly Nigerian situation that suddenly becomes your own story.
(Excerpts from Nancy Nwachukwu)
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