It was the year 2020 and I had just returned from studying at Oxford. I was spending a few days in Lagos before heading to my parents’ in Makurdi. Nigerians had had it up to their throats with the government’s lackadaisical attitude so ‘we’ took to the streets of Lagos and to social media to protest the brutality of SARS. The air was thick with hope and despair. The major roads were blocked, traffic and commute times more than doubled but we didn’t mind. This time, everyone wanted to be a part of this, we hoped they’d be a change. It started as a way to end the unjust profiling of young tech professionals as criminals but it became evident as the hours passed that the frustrations were about so much more. We hoped that the government might understand that not answering our cries was a bad idea but we were wrong.
On one of those nights in October, I was in a taxi on my way to visit a friend in Oniru Lagos. I sat in the same spot for over 45 minutes but it was in that spot that I got the email that confirmed I would be moving to Washington DC in 2021. I was excited. The days before the confirmation came, I watched the despair of Nigerians lose the fight to their hope for a better Nigeria. The ENDSARS protests were managed with so much care because it was clear what they represented – our future. I didn’t protest on the streets but I saw as those who did were deliberate to clean up after themselves, to make sure people were fed at no cost, and the protests were transparent and incorruptible. I was proud to be there at that time. Proud to support any way I could. I was hopeful.
I didn’t accept the offer from DC till late October 2020 but from the moment the offer was made, I knew I was leaving. In the beginning, I was not running from a failing country nor was I looking for ‘greener pasture’ in the literal sense of it. In the beginning, I was going on an adventure. I thought to myself;
When is a better time than now when I have no family or children to hold me back, to move half way across the world? Besides, Nigeria is always home, if this fails, I can always come back home
and so it began.
I left Lagos and few days after arriving at my parents’ home, the protests in Lagos became violent – armed men opened fire on innocent Nigerians at the Lekki tollgate. No one knows who sent them, what their orders were, and why the person who sent them thought it appropriate but they did. Even then, despair had not won the fight over hope. When people began to go missing, get picked from their homes, and when accounts began to get frozen by the government, despair was still losing the fight but as the curtains closed on 2020 and we tried to forge ahead, I began to see the malicious hold of those in power. At first, it was the recommencement of the conversation about the social media bill, then it was the actual requirements to connect sim cards to an ID and the subsequent implications on communication in the country.
All this time, the move to DC was moving farther away. I occupied myself with work and travel but when I reflect on it, I know that even though the call for me from the other side of the world was not very loud, I had no choice but to answer because my hope no longer battled my despair, it battled my anger, frustration, and helplessness and it was just time to go!
