A few years ago, while on the New Jersey Path Train on my way home from work, traveling from World Train Center in New York City to Newark Pen Station in New Jersey, I sat across from a middle-aged African-looking lady. Sitting beside her, was a pleasant-looking younger lady, I presumed to be her daughter. The younger lady who must be in her early twenties began staring at me the moment I sat down. Later, I could also see her mother spying on me intermittently, though disdainfully. I couldn't fathom what I must have done wrong. I decided not to care. Thank God I had on my dark glasses, she couldn't have accused me of talking to her daughter with my eyes, I said to myself.
When we arrived at the Newark Pen Station, they accosted me as we walked down to the arrival hall. On approaching the exit door, I stopped momentarily. The woman, still holding on to her daughter's hand, stopped, also. She looked at me, and without even saying hello, she said, "You must be a Nigerian?" And, excitedly, I said yes, madam, good afternoon, I added. I greeted her politely, awaiting a cordial response from her. None came. However, hearing her accent, and before I could conclude by asking her if she was from Ghana or Liberia, she went ballistic.
Looking at me straight in the eyes, she said, "We know you are a Nigerian the moment you entered the train. Pointing at her daughter, she said, this is my daughter, I just brought her from Ghana a few weeks ago. Your boys, your Nigerian boys, are busy impregnating our girls all over the place in Ghana, and I thank God I was able to bring her here." She grabbed her daughter's hand and walked down the exit door of the train station. I stood motionless, nonplused, wondering what must have hit me. You could feel with your bare hands the weight of the hatred she had against me and our boys in her native country.
In hindsight, the xenophobic incident that occurred in South Africa a few years ago must have been directly connected to or motivated by the dominance of the romance and social scenes by Nigerian guys in the affected areas of South Africa. Because, while that genocide was unfolding in South Africa, numerous video streams were coming from the affected towns and cities, similar to the one playing below from Kenya. They are all connected to a romantically related vendetta against Nigerian guys. The ladies in the videos, no matter the country, are telling credible stories, the same stories, amidst the scourge of emotional strain and serious deprivation.
I didn't realize, though, that the Kenyan Law enforcement agents had begun to copy the Ghanaian model in their hostility and indiscriminate arrest and deportation of Nigerian men over trumped-up charges.
The Nigerian story in African countries is the same. It is not much about criminality or breach of the peace, but having the upper hand in commercial activities, dating culture, and marrying the most beautiful of their children. And that's the crux of the matter - the genesis of the anti-Nigerians horrors.
The obsession for Nigerian men is real and incurable. No one can deny that. They work hard, party hard, spend hard, and dress expensively. Our strong work ethic is one of the most appreciated all over the world, especially in the medical field. And I can also attest to that strong work culture for the ten or so years I worked at some Law firms on Wall Street - starting work at 8 AM and going back home at midnight, consistently for years.
We are always the ones willing to remain at work for the "time and a half overtime payment," when other workers are calling it a day. And that's the source of the spending power Nigerians enjoy overseas. It is the same story with all the Nigerian entrepreneurs and merchants all over African countries.
Call it envy, and you would be right. You can't emasculate the inherent braggadocio - the I'm on top of the world attitude - the Nigerian men so effortlessly display abroad. And it explains the open hostility the Ghanaian American lady visited on me emotionally on my train ride from New York World Trade Center to New Jersey Pen Station - transfer aggression at its worst.
The obsession with Nigerian men is an emerging culture no government or undue aggression can stop, especially now that our young men and women are colonizing the world through our indomitable Afrobeats. It's high time the African Union intervenes and stops the indiscriminate arrest and deportation of Nigerians who are lawful residents of any given African nation. Deporting them and making their children fatherless is a sin against humanity.
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