The unfortunate circumstances that led up to George Floyd’s death elicited outrage throughout the world. George Floyd’s death saddened me deeply, but then, Nigerians started to passionately chant the Black Lives Matter mantra and I became distracted. I have a stiff reflex for online civility; in fact, I often wonder how total strangers can exchange such bitter banter on the internet and always remind myself that I never want to be so unchivalrous.

So when I started to read Nigerians’ reaction online, I avoided social media religiously because I feared I was going to get into a digital altercation with someone. As with most other things, time can act as an efficient pacifier. Your pain and animosity lingers, but your emotions aren’t as raw or even volatile, and so you have better control of your feelings and are much less prone to potentially catastrophic outbursts.

But still, Nigerians will not stop talking about this- not George Flyod’s death in itself, but racial discrimination. More pointedly, so many people have written to me asking my opinion about the situation. If I have ignored your prodding/prompt, it’s not because I wanted to be rude, but because as you will now find out, I have a contrary opinion. And while at times, I disagree with people just because I want to be contrarian, frankly, this time, I am confident of the way I feel.

I should clarify here that this essay is directed at disgruntled Nigerians. Not Black-Americans or anyone else. Noone but Nigerians, please take note. Thank you.

So if you are a Nigerian and you have felt dismissed, intimidated, wronged and so on and so forth in a foreign Country, and you got on that BLM movement, protesting against the US government and authorities, I want you to pay careful attention here. My first question to you is this: Why do you consider yourself, a person from a Country with rich oil reserves, extensive deposits of several marketable natural resources, favorable climate for agriculture, yet astoundingly poor-, why do you think you have the moral and intellectual virtue to tell people in the greatest Country on Earth how to run the show? Just why? Now, I do not support racial injustice in any form and I was particularly excited to see Nigerians complain, but it was grossly misdirected. Do your best to internalize this please: Except the US government invited you to relocate to their Country, I don’t think you should rant. You can either suck it up and live with it or relocate. However, you are not completely helpless or at least you don’t have to be.

To you, Mr and Ms Grumpy, Isn’t it curious that I should be breaking this to you: Your oppressor isn’t the white Man. No, not at this point, not in 2020. Your oppressors are the men and women who have mortgaged your future and that of your descendants by prodigiously squandering your resources and mismanaging your affairs to the point where nothing at all works.

Your oppressors are those people who were gifted oil wells and then brand themselves as noble, sophisticated role models. You do not protest those people. You adulate them, you even quote them and follow their ‘teachings’, on their birthdays, you shower them with glowing praise and benevolent wishes. You continue to give them audience and platforms to matter. You permit their grandiose self-aggrandizement and laugh at their dead jokes. Its either you are a hypocrite, a clown or just plain gullible! If someone bequeathed you or your father an oil well too, odds are you will be very wealthy. But can’t you see? Even if you follow those ‘teachings’ from now until the next decade, it might not lead to that sort of stupendous wealth. Can you not see that the pipeline to the middle class is now clogged or even downright dislodged? If you cannot see that, you should not continue reading this.

There is that stanza of our National anthem that goes: ‘Great lofty heights attain, to build a country, where peace and justice shall reign’. Yes, BUILD! You do not want to build, because you are lazy but you can invest your energies into touting a meaningless mantra. And yes, it is meaningless, if you cannot build your country. I have written about nation building in the past and do not care to repeat myself. You may see https://daraalegbeleye.com/2019/10/03/before-the-next-xenophobic-outburst/ and https://daraalegbeleye.com/2019/06/17/make-nigeria-great-now/. Anyone with even something akin to functional brain cells must by now know that racial discrimination is not going anywhere, if we cannot manage ourselves, as Nigerians. You want better treatment? You no longer want to suffer indignities?  More importantly, there is a seemingly good chance that somewhere in the next five to ten generations, one of your descendants will be mistreated, burned alive or somehow mobbed in a foreign Country. I hope that possibility bothers you at least a little and can spur you to emulate better organized systems and build your Country. We have what it takes and as I always say, it will take a very long time, but we must start now. Meanwhile, I encourage you to desist from being a hypocrite.