Over three decades ago, as part of a national essay competition with the title ‘what is good about Nigeria’, which I had to write, I spent days reflecting prior to putting pen to paper. It was difficult for my young teenage mind at the time, to overcome the inertia imposed by my mind as I perused the topic. The challenge was that each time I saw the topic, the first thing that came to my mind was the diametric opposite of the topic – that there was nothing good about Nigeria. I secretly wished that a miracle would happen, and the organisers would change the title before the deadline. So, for weeks, I struggled with the title and my immediate voice of reason because every other country appeared better than Nigeria to me. However, as the deadline approached, the essay title did not change and of course I needed the prize money like a vampire needs blood, so my brain went on a reboot.
Suffice it to say, that I began to see all the good things about Nigeria. I penned that essay and won the prize. Since then, it was as though my brain found the nut it was missing – the only thing I started seeing was what is good about Nigeria. Even at times when it seems to wane, something comes along to wax it. Like the man I ended up marrying – whose ‘green-rose-coloured glasses’ only sees how to work in our own ways and as teams to better Nigeria. When one is married to a man who qualified as a Neurosurgeon in the United Kingdom, Fellow of the oldest Surgical Royal College in the world, who took his super-specialised skills and actualised ‘Brain Gain’ by coming back home to Nigeria to be the change he wants to see in the Nigerian Healthcare Eco-system, then surely, Nigeria must matter to us. For his tattoo to be the universal medical symbol within our Nigerian map, it can only mean that the “Nigerian Patients Are Worth It” and that Nigeria doubly matters to us.
As Nigeria turns 62 years this October, and another Presidential election looms, let each of us Nigerians, at home and abroad, rewire our minds, pick up our ‘green-rose-coloured glasses’ and begin to see what is good about Nigeria. Furthermore, let us think about the tiniest thing we can do to be the difference we seek- how do we positively disrupt this 62-year-old table? It may just be by collecting our Personalised Permanent Voters Cards, PVC? Or by doing the next random act of kindness? Remember this quote as we celebrate another October 1st, “that a tree does not make a forest, but one tree can start a Forest”.
Dr Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor is author of the book, My Father`s daughter