Dear Dairy,
September 01, 2025
Fear came feeling unstoppable in the light…
Until NEPA off light.
It had arrived like it owned the place—buff, bold, and Bluetooth-connected.
Chest out. Voice loud. Standing in full daylight like, “Today na me and you.”
But then… PHCN did what PHCN does.
They off light. Threw fear into darkened silence.
And even fear looked around and whispered,
“Ah. Omo. I no do again.”
Because that’s the truth.
To be Nigerian is to wake up daily to a system engineered to humble your confidence—
and still make you show up with eyebrows done, CV updated, and hope packed in a Ziploc bag.
We dodge potholes like prayers.
Queue in fuel scarcity wearing office clothes.
Zoom from data bundles.
Smile in traffic.
Speak in tongues on Monday.
Negotiate contracts on Tuesday.
And live like heaven is watching—because it is.
We survive both poverty and police.
We push past stereotypes, side comments, and the constant “Where are you from again?”
And still show up present, prepared, and sometimes even with jollof rice in our bags.
We don’t flinch.
We may panic for a moment, but in the end we throw our hands in the air as we lean back in the chair saying: “You think being Nigerian is for the faint-hearted? No. It’s for the naturally charged.”
And that brings me to Olú.
A Nigerian girl. PhD student. Studying law in Europe.
Not just abroad—Europe abroad.
The land of soft-toned disagreements and polite rejections.
Where people say “interesting” when they mean “nonsense,”
and smile while cutting your point into pieces.
She didn’t just carry her textbooks—
She came with fire, faith, and fufu energy.
Back home, she was unstoppable—
Quick with her words, sharp in class, raised to “speak when it matters.”
She knew how to argue her point with facts and fire—
and still tell you “God bless you” while doing it.
But abroad? Everything was soft-spoken, smile-wrapped in “Let’s revisit that later.”
Silence was currency.
Politeness wore suits.
Confrontation was seen as aggression.
Her passion got labelled “too much.”
Her name? Mispronounced—sometimes on purpose.
She had to learn that “interesting” sometimes meant “never say that again.”
That “I see where you’re coming from”
actually meant “I’m completely ignoring your point.”
One day in class, a professor asked for opinions on a human rights case.
Olú gave hers—brilliant, bold, clear.
It was so good, it could win in court and still get retweeted.
Silence.
Ten minutes later, another student rephrased it—
with an unidentifiable British accent and three extra commas to ensure he didn’t miss Olú’s point.
And they applauded.
Olú just blinked.
She didn’t shout.
She didn’t roll her eyes.
She smiled the kind of smile only Lagos traffic can teach you—
and wrote down her next point—hotter, stronger, sharper.
Because she knew something they didn’t:
She wasn’t raised in comfort.
She was raised in torrents of current that comes and goes.
And you learn to shine — with or without light.
She understood what it meant to be overlooked—but overqualified.
They might not see her now. But she still showed up with the mindset:
“I’m still the blueprint.”
Did it hurt? Yes.
Did she confront them? Not every time.
Did she still top the class?
Let’s just say… the transcripts are loud.
Olú struggled not to shrink.
She overtime learnt to adjust the voltage—hot, hotter or just wiser.
She learned when to speak.
When to smile.
When to fold her arms and let the silence cook.
She learned that being Nigerian wasn’t a flaw to unlearn—
it was a superpower to carry with grace.
She wrote her thesis.
She asked bold questions.
She submitted ideas that got rejected, rewrote them, and got cited.
She let them whisper.
She let them underestimate.
Because that’s the thing about Nigerians:
We might walk into systems not designed for us…
But we walk out with the certificates, the scholarships, and the extra plantain for home.
So yes, fear will come.
But the next time it shows up Loud. Well-spoken. And wearing oversized Western Wi-Fi confidence—
Let it meet your NEPA-trained spirit.
Let it know your Tiger generator soul.
We don’t fear closed doors—we knock louder.
We don’t fear rejection—we redirect.
We don’t fear darkness—we glow in it.
Because we were not trained in comfort.
We were raised in chaos and carried by grace.
And if you must, look fear dead in the eye and say: “I may have been born in the dark. But I run on charge.”
Yours-from-the-dark-lighting-up-with-glitters,
