MICRA. ALONG, DANFO: THE MANY COLOURS OF THE NIGERIAN HUSTLE

The time is 12:40 am

I cannot sleep

Worry consumes me. Fear makes me incapable of doing something productive. Why is it so hard to be young and Nigerian? In my first life, was I a wicked slave driver that the universe decided the best I could be in this life was Nigerian?

Keffi, Nasarawa - An Introduction to Loss

The first time I travelled up north, it was in a Marcopolo bus, surrounded by friends and colleagues from the faculties of law of OAU, OOU, and the universities of Lagos and Ibadan. From Ile-Ife to Nasarawa, Abass Oyeyemi would not stop talking. It was his own way of making a long and unbearable trip a little better for everyone. Unbearable because, in the manner of Nigerian university students, we had crammed ourselves onto the bus. 

The year was 2017. We met up at the Faculty of Law basement with our bags packed, prayed for safety, and that was it. Recounting this experience, I don’t think I would have been on that bus if things had been the same way they are now. My father is a pensioner please, we dinnor have plenty money.

I wonder just how many experiences young Nigerian students miss out on because travelling is now an extreme sport. Today, I remember that trip because I am reading about students of Nasarawa State University, Keffi, who were kidnapped. In the desensitised Nigerian way, we have simply moved on with our lives.

Keffi is far away. Yet, it is so close to my heart. It was my first taste of the North. My first exposure to a different culture. A culture that had a lot of seasoning and sweets, one that held so many extremes in delicate balance. The first time I saw Masa; it was in Keffi. The first time I ate on the roadside; it was in Keffi. The first time a man paid for my food unprovoked; it was in Keffi. The first time I fell in love; it was in Keffi, and the first time I realised the extent of Oyeyemi’s clownery; it was in Keffi. And when I realised I never really let myself process his death, it was because I had heard Keffi in the news. Now, I understand this unease that won’t let me go to sleep. Today might not be the 25th of the month, but sooner or later, that date would come with the weight of Abass’s spirit. 

I will never forget the moment I first came to the acceptance; the acceptance that "Abass is dead". I was writing my final papers. Smack in the middle of writing about the sociological school of jurisprudence, while an air conditioning unit in the exam hall caught fire, all I could think of was, Abass really is dead.  

I was lying on my bed in Moremi Hall, surrounded by all the signs of the monthly period depression, when I first heard. A loaf of banana bread, some sweets, a plastic container from dinner, all neatly arranged on a small laptop table while I lounged on the bed lazily scrolling through my phone while nursing the pains of menstruation. It was quite early in the morning, and within minutes, the OAU community would be turned around. A star had fallen, and then the clouds darkened for the rest of the semester. 

About a month later, I processed this profound sense of loss as an intrusive thought while defending Erlich’s philosophy of law in the exam hall. The mind is indeed the biggest clown there is. 

What stage of grief is this again? 

Ile-Ife - Last days at Ogbafemi 

Our problems started when a certain person decided to contest for FYB chairman. Months later, they went AWOL, and FYB plans just sort of spiralled after that. So, there goes the excitement of leaving school. 

Lecturers also decided we would not leave school without suffering, so they decided handwritten assignments were the next best thing after random grades. And then came the law school brouhaha that meant that more than half of my class could not enrol at the law school except they had some deep connection to someone who could help lobby. 

I think this was my first taste of the power of nepotism. You see, we were tricked into believing that the selection would be based on merit and that people within a certain grade point average would be prioritised. It was a bald-faced lie, a mockery of effort. I was disappointed, then angry. Disappointed at the level of anyhowness and angry that I was not a beneficiary of a broken system. No, it was never about fixing it. Even I must admit the askewness of my moral compass. 

When you get into your final year in university, everyone tells you about the celebrations, the unending farewell dinners, the last dance around campus, and the signing out of a system that has held you hostage for whatever amount of years. What they always conveniently fail to mention is that there is a bigger world out there where you have to do this dance with fate all over again. 

For some people, the dance starts early—volunteering, building a LinkedIn profile, freelancing or whatever. For some others, privilege sets the ball rolling for them. For me, I was somewhere in between being prepared and being shocked at the urgency of it all. Did we not all just dance like fools around campus yesterday? Did we not all just parade the hostels so juniors can pour water on our bodies? Were we not all just complaining about having to round up our theses so ASAP at Uncle Paul’s photocopy stand last week? What do you mean you are happy to announce that you are starting a position at UNICEF? Is that Bloomberg I see on your profile? No be so o.  Una no drop update for us.  

Where do we go from here? 

Guzape, Maraba, Gwarinpa - Along the Capital City 

After a short trip to Abuja in May 2023, I became fixated on the idea of living in the capital city. Somehow, it felt like my bad-bish dreams might be actualised in this city (I still think so; Lagos is too ghetto for my brand of baddie). So I got an internship, actually, I begged for an internship in Abuja, got it and then used the first half of my savings to buy a plane ticket to Abuja. I would later use the second half to buy a ticket to go back home before finishing the internship. Go hard or go home? I chose home-ish

Until I started to work, I did not realise the extent of my passion for the health sector. So much so that the work that we were doing in gender, as amazing as it was, did not just inspire me enough. And before you go, you don't have to like your job as long as it pays your bills.

Sorry to break it to you, but entry-level jobs are jobs that should do something for you because they are not designed to pay your bills. If I had to rent a place and feed myself, I would have to stop bathing and brushing and start contributing to the general stench in the air because I would not be able to buy soap out of my current income. And forget what you see on Twitter; most of us work for peanuts. We are all just posturing because posturing helps us get a better job in the long run. Maybe I shouldn't speak for you all, some of you are actually rich.

The point is I liked the job but didn’t care enough for it, and that meant letting go. The decision to let go became calcified after hearing about Keffi. In the development sector, you learn to be comfortable with your small wins while focusing on whatever systems change you are working towards. But, my big systems change was not in gender. That much I was sure of. I am not feminist enough, and I hate having to explain the most basic things to people. What do you mean girls in Afghanistan might not even want to go to school or that Roe v Wade should never have happened in the first place? 

Bro, I understand everything is not okay at home. The economy is bad. Your wife has reduced the amount of rice she serves you, and there is no meat in your stew anymore, but you are well past the age of development. So, I am assuming that whatever nutritional deficiency you are experiencing now should not impact your cognitive function that significantly. Is it a new problem that you can't think? Or are you naturally stupid? 

Where was I?

Keffi. No Abuja. 

Would I even return?

Becoming a Bad Bish in a City with Body Odour

Lagos smells. Lagos is dirty. Lagos is chaos. Lagos is that girl whose makeup starts to crack after thirty minutes in the sun. Yet, Lagos is aspirational.

On a hot afternoon, the day after I turned twenty-three, I landed in Lagos. Within minutes of leaving the airport, my Uber was stopped by a traffic police officer. I lost five hundred Nigerian naira in the transaction that followed. Is this the land of opportunities? 

Lagos is one self-assured bitch, if you ask me. No matter how many times in your life you declare “I hate Lagos”, if Lagos wants you, she gets you. If anyone had told me that in January 2024, I would wake up at 5 am every Monday, dress up in a suit and boots, wear sunscreen and lipgloss, and sit in a danfo for two hours to go to work, I would have physically harmed them. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my life now. The shocking part is that I am enjoying it. Not the poverty (I could use a car and some money in my account); I meant the work. If I had to explain how my job ties to my bigger dream, you would get confused. Even I, the dreamer, am confused. But clarity comes from doing, they say. The summary, though, is that I am working in health. Also, my managers are bad bitches, so there is a lot to look up to. 

Lagos seems like a rite of passage that I must go through now. Is it the ideal place? No. But it has what I need at the moment. This road to becoming a bad bish is actually somehow, but we move. Every day, we wake up and do the work, screw up sometimes, learn every day and pray against getting robbed, kidnapped or falling inside a gutter in Lagos. Allah, please. Those green things. Auzubillah!!!

But this is what the spirit of hustle is about. Realising that your "it can never be me" can quickly become a statement of delusion in the face of superior forces like hunger. That humiliation is sometimes part of the deal, and Nigeria was not built to help you. It is holding the weight of your dreams in one hand and the acknowledgement of your privilege in the other. It is realising that we are all hustlers and we are always hustling. No matter who we are or where we are, to be Nigerian, is to never have enough.

Sidenote: I might just get a Ph.D. later in life. So when people say Dr Tèmítọ́pẹ́ of WHO, they assume I know what I am doing all the time, and I understand what the fuck epidemiological transition means (I actually do, wanted to show off, and wanted you to get curious enough to look it up). Isn't that what having a doctorate is about? Show off.

Àlàkẹ́ Akọ̀wékọwúrà🍒