TWISTED

When I say certain things to fellow Nigerians, they sneer and call me holier-than-thou. But these things I say are usually simple things that an average sane normal human being would easily be able to do or relate with. 

The problem with us as a people is that we have found ourselves in a rotten society where it's easier and more commonplace to be wrong than to be right. It's now part of our culture for people to be twisted and think upside down. And it has become so suffocating that an average Nigerian now has a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Some people do not like to be wrong and twisted, but the society seems to require it of every individual, so people are forced to be that way. When you see a fellow Nigerian, you expect him to also be twisted like you and if he isn't, which is not so common, you tag him a hypocrite or pretender because you now see being wrong and twisted as the status quo - a normal, a necessity. It's in you and you expect it to be in everyone else in Nigeria (even though you know it probably exists nowhere else), just as much as other Nigerians expect to see it in you. Such wrong and twisted characteristics include everything from corruption to dishonesty to substandard products/services. Doing these things make you feel normal and accepted by all, because that's what everyone else is doing, and you're not so wrong.

A family member would always tell me, "you have to do things that will make people 'respect you'". It doesn't matter if it's wrong or right, the most important thing is respect. In my experience, respect in Nigerian terms is hardly ever a good thing. It either means fear or popularity. And being popular in a twisted society can only mean that you're twisted. You earn respect because of how much government money you have stolen, how many women you have played, how much violence you have enacted and how much fear you have inspired. Such people almost always grow up to be leaders in the society at all levels. They become traditional, religious, government, security and political leaders. That's why the country has remained twisted: because the people, society and leadership are all twisted.