Seeing Nigeria from My American Daughter’s Eyes

  By Farooq A. Kperogi Sometimes, it takes the unburdened and free-spirited perceptions of outsiders, particularly children, to appreciate t...

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

Sometimes, it takes the unburdened and free-spirited perceptions of outsiders, particularly children, to appreciate taken-for-granted cultural peculiarities. This fact came to the fore for me after taking my 8-year-old daughter, Ramat, to Nigeria for the first time, between May 29 and June 16.

Ramat, whom I named after my maternal grandmother, was born in the United States and, unlike her older siblings, had never visited Nigeria even though she has always possessed the most intense Nigerian patriotic fervor among my children. 

For example, she proudly identifies as “Nigerian” even to her American friends and classmates (which is not very usual for children born here), loves Nigerian food (“swallow” is her favorite food), knows almost every Afrobeats hit, and is an aspiring hafiza (i.e., a Qur’an memorizer), inspired by her grandfather, who passed away two months before her birth.

However, her classmates called her a “fake Nigerian” because she had never actually visited the country whose identity she flaunted at every opportunity and defended with all her might. That really got to her. Plus, she is the only person in the house who had never visited Nigeria.

So, she mounted immense pressure on me since 2022 to take her to Nigeria. I promised to do so but serially failed to keep my words for a whole host of reasons. On January 1 this year, the first thing she said to me was: “Daddy, I won’t forgive you if you don’t keep your promise to take me to Nigeria this year. Happy New Year!”

 I didn’t anticipate that forceful earnestness and directness from her. I had wanted for the whole family to visit, but our first daughter, a final-year engineering student, would be in Japan for a study-abroad program throughout the summer. 

So, I told my wife that we had to take Ramat alone and wait for another opportunity for the whole family to visit. I didn’t want to risk incurring Ramat’s youthful wrath. 

Given how much she idolizes and idealizes everything Nigerian, I was slightly apprehensive that she would confront a disjunction between the Nigeria she had fantasized and the Nigeria she would encounter, although I had given her a realistic portrait of our country, at least from my perspective. 

My apprehension was heightened when she asked me to pinch her as soon as our plane landed in Abuja. She wanted to be sure that she wasn’t dreaming. The pang of the pinch was the assurance she needed to convince herself that this wasn’t one of the many dreams she had had about visiting Nigeria only to awaken in America.

But the very first observation she made after we got out of the airport was that everyone seemed to be happy even though she didn’t see as much conspicuous material prosperity in Abuja as she does in the United States. 

The ever-present joy in people’s faces, the genuineness of the smiles of total strangers, the over-solicitous courtesies of a vast variety of people, and the unfeigned conversational warmth of people from an array of backgrounds registered powerfully in her and contrasted sharply with the customs of the United States. 

Everyday experiences in Nigeria further reinforced her initial observation. At a point, she remarked that it was impossible to be sad for too long in Nigeria. Because I was born and raised in Nigeria, I honestly hadn’t consciously thought about the bright, sunny, gregarious aspects of Nigerian culture as natural therapy for depression. 

I was particularly struck by the contrast she drew between Nigerian and the United States. After several days in Nigeria, she told me, “People aren’t enjoying life in America. People are not happy in America.”

She seemed particularly moved by the contagious communal gaiety of Nigeria. There is inestimable delight in the easy familiarity and sociability of friends and family. Countless cousins, uncles, aunts embraced her as if they had always known her. As someone who seems to have inherited my passion for genealogical connections, she was pleased to see relatives and eagerly took mental notes of how they were related to her.

She also met numerous important figures, the American equivalents of whom she could scarcely imagine meeting. This not only deepened her self-awareness and self-esteem but also reinforced her sense of belonging to Nigeria.

Even sources of existential irritation to Nigerians, such as power outages, are reservoirs of excitement for her. She spent some time with her cousins in Abuja, attended their school for a day, and quickly learned to cheer up, “Up NEPA!” whenever power is restored. The cycle of power outages and restoration became thrilling events for her.

Even our notoriously poor roads were stimulatingly enjoyable “bumpy rides” to her. Of course, she couldn’t help but notice that the roads in Benin Republic (which we visited) had the same quality as American roads. She has a precocious knowledge of world geography and knows that Benin Republic is poorer than Nigeria.

When she asked me why the Nigerian side of Borgu (which includes my local government of Baruten in Kwara State) had chronic “bumpy” roads while the Benin Republic side had American-quality roads even though Nigeria is way richer than Benin Republic, I had no answer that would make sense to her 8-year-old mind that has been caught up in uncritical Nigerian patriotism. 

 Despite this, she adored rural Nigeria as much as urban areas. She felt the village gave her a sense of identity unavailable elsewhere. Everyone greeted her—and each other—with warmth and familiarity, making her feel part of one big family.

She noticed that she resembled many people and that many resembled her older siblings. Her grandaunts told her she looked just like the woman after whom she was named, enhancing her emotional connection to an identity beyond her immediate experience.

Visiting the place where I grew up, meeting my mother, siblings, cousins, uncles, and aunts, profoundly connected her to a larger community, which enriched her sense of self-worth. She also met relatives from her mother’s paternal side that helped build a sense of rootedness in Nigeria that she cherishes deeply.

It often takes an outsider's perspective to remind us that what we routinely overlook can profoundly impact others. The ordinary, everyday aspects of our lives can hold extraordinary meaning for those who see them with fresh eyes.

 Ramat's reactions made me reflect deeply on how much of our culture and communal life we undervalue simply because we encounter them daily.

Life's meaning often emerges most clearly from contrasts. Experiencing Nigeria through Ramat's enthusiastic perspective showed me the powerful significance of contrasts--between plenty and scarcity, between convenience and challenge, between familiarity and novelty. These contraries lend life its richness and complexity.

For Ramat, the pervasive warmth and vibrancy of Nigerian culture filled an emotional void she didn't fully realize she had. Born in America yet deeply rooted in Nigerian heritage, she found her true self within the social fabric and lively traditions of our homeland. This profound connection underscores the importance of cherishing and preserving what we have.

I was deeply touched by how ordinary things I took for granted made her feel uniquely special and deeply loved to the point that she cried really hard when we had to leave Nigeria. She didn’t want to return to the United States! None of my older children ever said they didn’t want to return to the United States after visiting Nigeria. They were all born in Nigeria.