Column No.6 The PTSD that comes with being Nigerian

Hello there! My column last week, titled ‘On the PTSD that comes with being Nigerian’ attracted a variety of responses. Some were eloquent and thoughtful, and some strong and opinionated. Heck, some even had a dash of profanity, too. But being the democratically-minded individual I am, I will reiterate here again that I welcome all views, even those that are not in tandem with mine. However, insults and unprintable words will not only guarantee your feedback isn’t shared here, it also earns you a block on my phone number and/or email. That aside, this week I want to share an interesting response. Not because it somehow tallies with my stand, but because it takes it further. Enjoy. – Abdulkareem

To be honest, when I saw you begin your column titled ‘On the PTSD that comes with being Nigerian’ with the actual definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I knew there was trouble afoot. And I was right. I say so because you then proceeded to echo sentiments many of my friends and I have about the current state of the nation. I go through my fairly comfortable life worrying about others not as fortunate as I am, not because I have a complex of some sort, but simply because it’s the human thing to do. And maybe that’s how I was raised, or how I am wired. You get my drift. One would think having empathy and a caring heart would be good things. But in Nigeria, it’s actually a curse. It’s probably why President Muhammadu Buhari is so concerned about insecurity that he has vowed to end it before handing over next year, after seven long years of not having done so.

Anyway, day-to-day life in Nigeria is, quite simply put, hell. Like you, I feel no need to list the many areas of the lives of Nigerians that qualify as that, and any random one you pick would give you the same result. Let’s take, for instance, this ‘fuel scarcity’ currently plaguing Abuja. Queues scar anywhere there is petrol for sale, and Harmattan seems harsher wherever there’s none to sell. Like the filling stations that are adorned by desperate ‘black market’ sellers, usually youths who are unemployed and hang around busy environments looking for an honest – or sometimes even dishonest – naira. It’s become part of our culture, even, that whenever you hear ‘fuel sca…’, before the second word is complete, the black market boys flood the streets with plastic gallons and hoses, smiling at this manna from heaven of sorts. 

Still on fuel scarcity (probably because I bought 10 litres at N4,000 this afternoon), it persists. At least till yesterday, as I typed this piece. The most ridiculous part of it all, more ridiculous than the price, even, is the fact that I bought the petrol right in front of the NNPC headquarters in Central Area, Abuja. Is it that those in charge of mitigating such situations have zero shame? Is it that they, too, are suffering from a twisted version of reverse-PTSD? Or am I even overthinking all of this? And is the overthinking a result of the PTSD I have by sheer dint of being Nigerian? I’ sure you can notice the fearful symmetry in my outburst. If you can forgive corrupt government officials in spite of our widespread suffering, then you can forgive my PTSD-induced outburst.  

While you did justice to the security aspect of things, I think you might have not tackled unemployment extensively, especially how a good chunk of it is linked to the ridiculously deplorable condition of our power sector. That in turn has affected our manufacturing capabilities, leading to the severe scarcity of jobs, or even self-made businesses that rely on electricity. In the same breath, add tribal sentiment whipped up by the politics of questionable politicians, as well as the division brought about by extreme positions on religion, which force a severe ‘otherness’ on anyone not like us. Am I the only one seeing the cause of all these, the PTSD of it all? I don’t think so.

A list of the causes of our collective PTSD as Nigerians would be as long as the wait for President Buhari to name ministers when he was first sworn-in the year two-thousand-and-something. But it is there, and it is manifesting in some of the deadliest ways possible. I daresay it is the reason why more and more Nigerians are in the news for doing truly atrocious things. There is murder, rape, kidnapping, terrorism, and much more, every single day. The problem is that there’s no solution in sight, and the assailants ensure that there’s a good amount of trauma going around, enough to share with, say, Ghana even. I will stop by echoing what you said about a dire need for true leaders, and go a step further to advise us all to vote wisely come 2023.

Abubakar wrote in from Jahi, Abuja.