The Privilege of Forgetfulness

Even in "developing" or "third-world" countries like Nigeria, there is a kind of privilege accorded to a few; a kind of honour that pervades us.

I can go to the cinema, spend 1,000 naira on a movie ticket, get some popcorn and a drink and forget that the north eastern part of my country is largely uninhabitable because Boko Haram has been pillaging and plundering for 7 years. I can go on the internet, order a pair of shoes from Jumia, trust them to deliver within 1 to 6 working days and forget the thousands of Yezidi and Kurdish women held captive, as sexual slaves, by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. I can fuss about getting my nails done and about consuming the calorie-stuffed Pie Who Loved Me ice-cream from Coldstone, as though there aren't women in Mexico and Cambodia stuck in trafficking rings, being traded like comodities.

Nigeria is not so much of a poor and desolate country if we can afford to forget, is it? We aren't all wretched and hopeless if Olamide's latest stunt and what Rihanna wore yesterday invade our spaces and so easily draw our attention away from the millions of refugees dotted around the globe, fleeing war and conflict; from the girls who are discouraged from going to school, forced into marriage at ages as tender as 8.

A privileged society can afford to forget and therefore, "developing" and "third-world" as Nigeria may be, we are a privileged people -- those of us who do not reside in communities susceptible to conflict.

It therefore follows that, since we are not so poor, we need to do something about the state we are in. Since charity begins at home, what will we do about the 10 million Nigerian children who do not attend school, about our missing school girls, about the lack of power generation, about the diminishing value of the naira?

A lot of the time, we look to our government to "salvage" us, but are we willing, in our immediate cirlces of influence, to do something? How do we treat our domestic help, customers who walk into our businesses, subordinates at work? How much time do we spend following hot topics that trend for a few hours, as opposed to insidious issues affecting the lives of millions of people the world over?

We are not as hopeless a people as we think. We have resolve, resilience and privilege and therefore we can each do something to make our nation -- and the world at large -- a better place.

There is, of course, the narrative that Nigerians are masters at eliciting laughter out of the most painful incidences; that it is our coping mechanism -- Shuffering and Shmiling. But tell that to the man in an IDP camp who lost everything he owned and loved to Boko Haram, or to the 14-year-old married off as a third wife to a man old enough to be her father.

The crux of the matter is: it is time to do something.