Hard choices, no easy options
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ISSUE: 11/08/07 > Opinion > Hard choices, no easy options
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Managing editor Adaeze Elechi is a junior Journalism major. |
I’m Nigerian (West Africa) and the comment that usually follows my declaration of nationality (aside from “Your English is really good”) is, “Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to go to Africa!”
When I tell people I’m from Nigeria and they tell me they’ve always wanted to go to Africa, I usually smile and nod. I tell them what they want to hear, “Nigeria is sunny. Nigeria is warm. Yes there are beaches and no the lions don’t prowl the streets. They’re in zoos.”
When people say they want to go to Africa (and I always want to remind them that it’s not one large country), they want to go to the Africa Disney has shown them: the one that doesn’t really exist. They want to see Mufasa, Timon and Rafiki romping around. But there are some things they seem to forget: the people, their poverty and their pain.
When tourists go to Nigeria they don’t see the lepers that line the streets or the corpses that lie under the bridges for weeks, forgotten. They don’t see the 9-year-old children who have to quit school to sell oranges on the street just so their families will have somewhere to live and something to eat.
Unlike people who don’t live there, I see all these things. Most of all, every day (whether I’m at home or not) I struggle with the question, “Live in another country after I graduate or return home?”
Being from a Third World country, the relationship I have with Nigeria is a love-hate one. I love it because it is my home and at the same time I despise it because the leaders are corrupt and almost everyone suffers for it.
But my country wasn’t always a Third World country. There were great times when the Naira (national currency) was stronger than the U.S. dollar, times when there were jobs available, and times when the universities were top-notch. But after we got our independence from Britain in 1960 and fell into a three-year civil war, things went downhill and they’re only just getting a little better.
Because the situation at home is so bad, young people (like me) run overseas to get some kind of a decent education (which is one of the few differences between me and the child selling oranges on the street). As much as I feel that there’s nothing wrong with that, it presents an issue: most people who get out don’t come back.
At 11 years old, while I watched CNN’s “Exodus from Africa,” a documentary about the African brain-drain phenomenon, I was so confused by how people would leave their homes to live in countries where they would almost always be second-class citizens or less. And here I am debating staying here and working after I graduate, moving to another country to work or going back home. When I started college I knew the answer: “I’m going home after I graduate and I’m going to help Nigeria get back on its feet.” Now, as I look at how broken and how permanent some of its scars have become, anywhere but home is looking more and more attractive.
I’m a journalism major and I believe that making the news media completely independent will cure many of Nigeria’s issues. So you see why I don’t want to leave a country that I care about so much and live in a country that I feel doesn’t really need me. I also know that living in Nigeria for the rest of my life will be the bravest and hardest thing I will ever do. I know that it will be frustrating and impossible to live a life free of bribery and almost every known form of corruption, but that is my home and I feel I need to be there.
When I see Belmont students living life everyday, not having to worrying about staying in this country and going through a grueling process of getting a work visa, or going home to a broken country, I think, “How lucky they are.”
I have less than two years to make a decision that will be tough to deal with either way. If you are an American citizen, be glad and appreciative that your home is not a place that you have to run away from.
