By Nifemi Sola-Ojo
It’s funny and really cool how we Nigerians can insult our country all day but will lose our cool if a non-Nigerian does the same.
If you (non-Nigerians) by any chance attempt to insult Nigeria on social media, especially on Twitter, you will be up against a united front of Young Nigerians.
Reminds me of my rift with my then social media Ghanaian girlfriend. We were almost in love and one day, I decided to really be old fashioned, so, I wrote and posted her a handwritten letter and I used the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).
Well, she didn’t get the letter and she finally asked me to check with NIPOST whether something went wrong. Just like that, I lost it. Don’t judge my temper, I was fairly young and mostly unreasonable then.
I replied, “how about you check with your country’s postal service? My country’s postal service is just fine”.
Before you know it, a very heated argument started. She was mentioning;
how incompetent and corrupt my county is/was…
Our erratic power supply,
the atrocities Nigerian troops committed in Liberia,
the Boko Haram insurgency etc.
our irresponsible presidents
Her statements didn’t sit well with me. I responded and I wasn’t nice. I’m not proud of the things I said, so I won’t be writing them here again.
I defended my country blindly that day to the extent that I was willing to lose a potential love of my life for the sake of my country.
Considering the way Nigerians get so defensive when non-nigerians states the negative obvious about the country to our faces, you’d think Nigerian must be a country full of young patriots right? Well, think again.
I spoke about some great things my country have done that day;
Our contributions in ECOMOG
Our role is the liberation of South Africa from Apartheid
Our world-class entertainment industry
Our supposed military strength (the reputation of the Nigeian military hasn’t been totally shredded at that time ).
Source: Quora