What it is to be Nigerian (2)

11. Keep Nigeria Clean: The garbage can is too far away for any and everybody, on any given day. The street corner and the main roads are the perfect places to dump your trash; from nylon bags to old tires. And you can always just fling stuff out your car window.

12. Road Rage: Nobody in Nigeria has ever been to driving school.

13. Double Standards: You can only put up with the products of inefficiency when you're in Nigeria; once you're beyond the nation's borders, you better suck it up and be quiet. From delayed flights to power cuts - only complain about inefficiency when you're outside Nigeria.

14. To Each His Phones: The average Nigerian has at least two phones and three sim cards. In a nation with five well-known network providers, you still need multiple sim cards because neither of the five are very reliable. You hear stuff like "I can't hear you. Na network. Let me call you back" very often.

15. Tweet fights: ‘High caliber’ Nigerians like generals of the national army and World Bank officials will spend quality time on twitter exchanging words with each other when half of the country is at war and 2,000 innocent civilians died just last week.  Don't be too shocked. Take it in your stride. This is Nigeria.

16. Justice: Governors who laundered money in the UK, ran away while on bail to Dubai - dressed as a woman - before being bundled back to Nigeria to serve prison time, will receive presidential pardons and then proceed to be honoured at the high tables of the weddings of affluent Nigerians' children. No, I didn't make that up.

17. Ministry of Sha-yo: Ministry workers will sell DaViva and lace out of their car boots 93.5% of the time they are supposed to be working for the 'ministry'.

18. National Youth Service Corps: As you serve your country as a young, fresh graduate, prepare to be seen as less than human by the NYSC officials who get paid monthly to officiate your year of horror. In addition, if you schooled abroad, you might not be granted permit to serve. Why? Because, for example, the names on your degree certificate and on your passport do not match; e.g.: your certificate says Olayemi J. Okoro and your passport says Olayemi Jude Okoro. That J could stand for anything. Jolomi? Jonny-Just-Come? Sorry. Please come back next year.

19. Customer care: Neither the salesgirl at the store nor the nail lady at the salon seem to like your face. They look at you and respond to your questions as though you're the reason they still haven't found a man to marry them or you're the landlord who is showing them hell at home or the boyfriend who jilted them. Never mind that you're bringing money to their businesses. They just don't like your face.

20. Change: You're better sitting on a bus and waiting till the end of your journey before telling the conductor that you don't have the fare, than giving him a thousand naira note for a seventy naira journey. Yawa go just burst.

[This is a two-part post. You can read the first part here.]