How To Be Nigerian No. 7

No. 7- Laugh and create memes on everything

To be Nigerian, you have to know how to laugh at everything, funny or not. Just a little mistake and the whole Nigeria is rolling in memes and jokes. Like the case of the teacher in Edo state that couldn't properly read a letter and had to be corrected to the point of exasperation by the governor, in the  background, several people were laughing, forgetting that this was a national embarrassment and a call for a serious look into the state of education in that state and the nation as a whole, or that case of "spended" or "my fellow widows" that's on one hand.
On the other hand, you have to get used to the term ‘suffering and smiling’, it was a term coined by one of the greatest Nigerians that ever lived.

You see, as a perfect Nigerian, you have to laugh and end your complaints with “na wa o, na real wa.” When things that call for utmost seriousness come, since you haven’t been built with the sense of patriotism to your nation, laugh, create memes, express strong opinions on social media but most importantly, take no serious action.

We are deep in recession as it is, the ogbono we bought for #400 is now #2000. Here’s what we do, we create memes that show someone running and caption it ‘when you hear that the price of Ogbono can now buy 13ltrs of fuel”. We create jokes that read: This recession in Nigeria is no longer funny o. Today I heard a woman pricing school fees “Aunty, How much if we remove geography and Physical Education? I want him to become a doctor not a traveler. Ok, what if he comes to school only Monday, Wednesday and Friday?  Only in Naija. Imagine! An accident occurred and the minister promised to offer #5,000 to the injured and #6m to the dead for their funeral. One of the injured got up and laid where the dead were, one of the dead got up and shouted “Bros go back to your place, no bring confusion here, them don count us o!” We experience black out for a whole month despite having paid electricity bill, we get angry, discuss how useless our nation is, then we create a meme showing two people holding weapons, standing at the bottom of a ladder that has a Nepa official at the top captioned “My mood when I see a Nepa official”. For the first time in the history of an African nation that well above 50 years old, we have a president that rules us in diaspora, guess what we do about it: we feast on pictures of senators and governors that have visited him in the Abuja house that is not Aso Rock, some Nigerians in that country also visit him, we express strong opinions on Social media platforms, we create supposedly hilarious riddles that read – “I am the first Nigerian UK based president, who am I?”, rhymes that go “ Old Buhari is sick and went to London, hum haa went to London. He left our beloved country and travelled abroad, hum haa travelled abroad. The sickness turned worse and he never returned, hum haa never returned. There came angry Nigerians who rumoured his death, hum haa rumoured his death. There came his speaker who said he’s alive, hum haa said he’s alive. The next week came and he never came back, hum haa never came back. There came a musician to hold a protest, hum haa hold a protest. Old Buhari called him and threatened his life, hum haa threatened his life. Which made the musician to run hiperty ho, hum haa hipperty hop.” And then we LOL. And when out president, His Excellency finally comes home, a huge crowd would throng to the airport to welcome him, and then ‘baba when you were away would trend on Nigerian twitter.” People find it hard to feed, clothe and pay bills. Then as typical Nigerians we create memes and rhymes.

We see that India is importing Garri, did you get that, GARRI, to Nigeria. Now that’s really outrageous and in line, we express outrage on social media of course, who wants to die for a nation that has offered nothing but suffering. Or didn’t you see what they did to Uncle Brother 2Face idibia and Boss Audu Maikori? Please, we cannot come and die. Pass the cookies imported from Germany, we’re hungry.

A couple of times, our strong opinions expressed on social media helps, like in that case of that crippled man on camouflage that was brutalized, that woman that was killed by her husband. Like that case of the budget for hdyucb that the vice president cancelled. It has even helped us to quickly know about the looted billions of dollars by separate individuals, we just don’t know what those monies are invested in.

All I’m saying is to be Nigerian, don’t fight back until you are the edge of the cliff like the case of the removed subsidy versus protesting Nigerians. So I hope you get the point of this number? Being Nigerian means suffering and smiling. Accepting what is and smiling. Creating memes and laughing. If you are not about to fall off the edge, don’t fight back, that’s what makes you tough.  As I always remind you, being Nigerian is not a lifestyle that I can totally teach, you have to experience it to learn it. che

ck online for more cases on this number. Till next time, stay Nigerian!