Some years ago, I had a memorable encounter with a friend who possessed an unwavering thirst for freedom and hope. Whenever an aeroplane passed overhead, he would stop walking and fix his gaze upon it. The look on his face whenever he stopped to watch an aeroplane whirling by, no matter how intense our conversation was, landed in my mind recently. I saw that look of hope, of questions; a surging well of expectations; all at once reaching for that vehicle of desire—aeroplane—dreaming of a transcendence from his country, his birthplace, to a place he believes he would meet his freedom.
My recollection extends far beyond the individual experiences of my friend and myself; rather, it serves as a portrait of the Nigerian dream of freedom—freedom from poverty, from unceasing insecurity, inflation, scarcity of employment, disunity, nepotism, and more. As May 29, a significant date on our nation’s calendar, draws near, it is my fervent hope that the Nigerian people experience the freedom and inclusiveness that democracy portends.
There are many nations within a nation and these are the taxonomies of people occupying its space. I am a nation, you are a nation, and everyone, young or old, is pregnant with personal desires and dreams. Despite our private dreams, there is still a force that connects our spirits as a nation—the dream of freedom. We have watched our nation shapeshift into a seemingly uninhabitable zone; Nigerians quotidianly question the spiritual process that led to their birth in this space. Young people everywhere are losing the ideologies they stand for because they can no longer withstand the invisible earthquakes created by the state of the nation; they can no longer withstand their prolonged season of mental disasters. Our security has shrunk sub atomically. Hunger devours lives daily. The green in our flag is merely colour, many are searching for greener pastures. And just like my friend, several Nigerians gaze at the sky in hopes of a freeing day.
If I were to unfurl the Nigerian mind, I would find many reasons for this underlying quest for freedom. One of such is premised on private dreams: The desire to see one’s dreams fulfilled in an environment that nurtures them, from a young person’s perspective, overshadows what could have blossomed into a collective dream for the greatness of our nation. Dreams drive action; dreams require action; dreams haunt a dreamer when they cannot be brought to life. This hauntingness that our nation now possesses—politically and socioeconomically—is among the many reasons why the world outside poses as a pacific route; among the reasons why many Nigerian people including little children close their eyes and fantasize about the moment an aeroplane will thrust them out of the place that nature has found for them. Persistent insecurity in all its forms makes people wonder whether they can stay here for more years. The deteriorating quality of life scars Nigerian people inside and out. All of these, pitched together in the Nigerian psyche make the concept of freedom within our democracy and citizenship somewhat imprisoning. Just as a wrongfully convicted criminal strives to be free, Nigerians struggle for freedom while disconnecting from the elements of truth and nationalism passed down to us through our national anthem and national pledge. This leads me to question: Are we now patriots or merely endurers?
May 29 may hold the answer to the aforementioned question. The date, May 29, being a former democracy day, which is still ingrained in many minds, is a moment of national awakening and consciousness; a time for the incoming administration to acknowledge and address the pressing need for redemption across many parts of our nation. Nation building—and in this case, nation rebuilding—takes time but it has to start somewhere; it has to start from the very moment this administration begins. We don’t want our national trauma to persist; we don’t want to live like visitors in our God-given, nature-girded land. The incumbent administration has done the best it could but there are more concerns on the table for the incoming administration. Nigerians need to feel a sense of belongingness to their nation like never before.
It is the void of belongingness that has kept Nigeria neverendingly on the list of countries with some of the highest human trafficking victims in the world. It might startle you to realise that victims of modern slavery are not credulous people but individuals in desperate need of freedom. A research observed that 68% of those who died as a result of unsafe migration, attempting to migrate to Europe through the Sahara Desert in 2016, were Nigerian graduates. Graduates are products of universities (and other institutions), and universities train changemakers; however, these changemakers quickly lose their confidence in nationhood as they experience what Jacques Lacan would call “the real.” The real, in my understanding of Lacanian psychology, is a moment a person loses the protection of a mothering figure and confronts society as it truly is. Nigerian youths immediately turn toward unemployment upon graduation, which further fuels to their quest for freedom, salvation.
There is no savior among us unless one of us decides to become one. This is why we embrace democracy and elect leaders. Nigerians have been voting through the years of our emerging democracy and did not cease to participate in the February 25th election because there is still a belief somewhere that our current reality will not deter the future of our nation. I believe that the next administration recognises this and would raise that flag of hope, and internal freedom rather than solely relying on the external sense of freedom that has pervaded the Nigerian mind.
When the vision of a person becomes haunting it may delude them. They may be inclined to accept a distorted reality; being easily seduced by false promises disguised as freedom—modern slavery, scams, and more. The yearning for freedom persists within the Nigerian adults and even among Nigerian children. Poverty entices the mind into a desperate quest for survival and even though that survival presents itself as a trafficker or a scammer, the poor Nigerian does not cogitate anymore, he quickly plants his decision on the ground of his pursuit of freedom.
The Nigerian dream needs to be recalibrated and reinterpreted. For so long many have said that the common Nigerian dream is to leave the country. But how can that be considered a ‘Nigerian dream?’ A true Nigerian dream would stay and grow in Nigeria. A dream peculiar to Nigeria would aspire to bring glamour to the name of Nigeria; it would find security and support from the government; it would find freedom, stature and pillar for creative expression. A genuine Nigerian dream would prefer to build the nation before seeking external investments. I do not believe that the Nigerian dream is to leave the country. Instead, it is rooted in the innate desire for freedom, freedom from the socio-political traumas that plague our daily lives—freedom from poverty, nepotism, insecurity, unemployment, and other such challenges. This is why I hope that the next administration will set the stage for the redefinition of the Nigerian dream where Nigerian people no longer have to wish for freedom while gazing at passing aeroplane, but instead travel the world for the joy of exploration rather than as a desperate attempt to escape.
