by Daniel Nkado
As we celebrate Nigeria’s independence today, I begin to see it again.
That very clichéd, very overused phrase:
Nigerians are strong.
They are a resilient people.
They can bear anything.
As much as I consider this statement very misleading, shadow-casting, the phrase in its entirety is insensitive.
Stop using “resilient” or “strong” or “hardy” to describe Nigerians.
That we don’t have statistics doesn’t mean we don’t have millions of people out there that this country has broken.
Wrecked and reduced to rubble.
Saying we are a strong people every time a Nigerian problem is brought up is a great dishonor to all of us who at one point or the other had fallen under the sharp claws of a nation’s insensitivity.
Happy Independence Nigeria.
But may we rise above the patronizing adjective of strong or hardy to being described as a nation where it would not ever be suggested every day that people have to be a special kind of strong to survive in.
