When a system has been broken for decades, survival requires adapting to that ‘brokenness.’ If the system suddenly turns around and starts working perfectly, it would not just be a relief, but a massive destabilizing culture shock. Relating this to the Nigerian situation, do you think that when this ‘change’ finally comes, we will cope with it? That we all will suddenly embrace patriotism and become law-abiding?

We live in a society where corruption, tribalism, bribery and easy-way-out are the orders of the day, such that a citizen within twenty years of age sees these menaces as a normal thing because they were born in it. To a young Nigerian entering adulthood, paying a ‘facilitation fee’ (bribe) to an agent for a standard passport or relying on tribal connection to secure a university slot or a job is not consciously processed as a crime or moral failing but rather, as a norm and a survival instinct.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and you no longer need a ‘connection’ to get a passport, secure a job, or gain admission into a university. For someone who has spent his/her entire life mastering the art of hustle, a straight line will suddenly feel strange because we have been conditioned to believe that merit is a myth and that knowing someone at the top is the only real security. If the system suddenly becomes blind and fair, what will happen to the person who is used to jumping the queue or giving a bribe?

Worse still is the chronic cynicism that now stains our minds such that when the government presents an ideal (i.e doing exactly what it should), we see it as something ‘too good to be true.’ For instance, when a government delivers a public service seamlessly and for free, our immediate instinct will not be to celebrate, but to ask ‘what is the catch?’ or ‘is it because of election?’ We have been lied to for so long that we have developed an armour of distrust just to keep our sanity. When a clean system finally shows up, are we going to cope?

This widening chasm of distrust becomes even clearer when you look at how those at the top address the plight of the common man. Just recently, a viral video surfaced of the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, encouraging struggling citizens to embrace petty trading- suggesting that starting a business to fry ‘akara’ or roast corn or ‘kuli kuli’ does not require much capital. To those in power, this might sound like a practical grassroots empowerment. But to a twenty-year old youth who is drowning in inflation, searching for a real future, and watching the political class live in absolute luxury, such statements feel like a patronizing dismissal of their pain. It makes an average citizen ask: how can a leadership that is so insulated from our daily economic reality ever build a system that genuinely serves us? When the people offering solutions seem completely detached from the problem, the citizen’s reflex is to retreat further into survival mode, believing that the government has nothing real to offer them but empty rhetoric and roadside coping mechanisms.

To be more practical, many road users fail to uphold traffic laws and motor vehicle laws. Lots of unregistered vehicle run the streets, driven by unlicensed drivers. Many drivers disobey traffic laws especially when there is no sight of a traffic warden. Even when apprehended the survival instinct is to give a bribe which is happily received. In the advent of change, where cameras at every traffic light spot offending cars, where unregistered vehicles are instantly impounded, and where unlicensed drivers are actually arrested; can the current Nigerians cope with this?

Inasmuch as we clamour for a change, we must know that fixing the infrastructure of a nation is only half the battle; fixing the psyche of a people conditioned by dysfunction is an entirely different Herculean task. Indeed, Nigerians are known as the most adaptable people on earth, which is why we must prepare individually for the change we thirst for, so that it begins from us. For, if everyone plays his/her part, the society will be an ideal state where the system works and justice serves its cause.