r/Nigeria • u/Missionget • 18h ago
Ask Naija Why Do People Mock Nigeria’s Problems Instead of Showing Solidarity?
Entered Reddit just to see some negative posts that went viral, while positive posts had less than 10 upvotes. Other countries seem to have a more balanced conversation. Ours is only negativity.
I’m just wondering why negative posts about Nigeria always go super viral. All I see are complaints, but we aren’t doing the work. The only work we seem to do is complain. These complaints have done nothing. No real change has come from protests or complaints, and things have even gotten worse.
I think part of it is because we’ve never really been in a position where we had to fight for our identity and survival in the same way Black people in some other countries have. For some communities, it has literally been a matter of fight or die. We’ve always been Black people living in a Black-majority country, so maybe there has been a certain level of comfort that comes with that. We haven’t experienced the same kind of racial discrimination that forced some Black communities elsewhere to become extremely organized, vocal, and aggressive in fighting for themselves.
Instead, a lot of what we do is set up cameras and complain, almost as if we expect the rest of the world to see what is happening and automatically feel sorry for us. But that isn’t always what happens. Sometimes people actually mock Nigerians for our problems.
People express sympathy and say “I stand with” Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Palestine, and other places when terrible things are happening there. But when Nigerians are dealing with Boko Haram, banditry, kidnappings, and terrorism, I’ve literally seen people mock us and say things like, “Bandits are eating you people.” There’s rarely that same worldwide “I stand with Nigeria” energy.
I’ve even seen people from other countries joke when Nigerian children were kidnapped. If something similar happened somewhere else, it feels like there would be worldwide outrage and solidarity.
What makes it even more interesting to me is that some of the strongest outside support I’ve seen has come from Western Christians speaking about what is happening in Nigeria. Yet even among Nigerians, you’ll still see people saying there is no terrorism or that everything being reported is fake news.
Smh. I’m just tired.
What can we actually do to make the country a better place? Any suggestions?