Confusing Backwardness for Culture

Because of where we’re coming from as Nigerians, which is not unique in and of itself, we tend to mistake backwardness for culture.

Many people are returning from villages around this period and I see them lauding stuff like swimming in streams, fetching water from rivers, bathing in make-shift bathrooms, hunting for squirrels, cooking with firewood, etc.

This is all fine if it’s just for banters, but romanticizing village life to spite modernity is nothing short of shortsightedness.

The other day I stumbled upon an old Korean movie and a depiction of their village life as at then, before their progress. I could only smile.

It’s nothing new, these villages existed in old England as well.

That you had to eventually leave your village to come back to the city should give you a sense that the modern life is in fact a luxury that many (young) villagers aspire to.

I have often said that there is no such thing as the Nigerian exceptionalism. There’s absolutely nothing that’s happening to us that has not happened elsewhere.

What many call culture is simply backwardness, and with better governance more and more of them will be in the distant past.

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