A popular colloquial statement used in Nigeria whenever an individual has to bend the rules or do something wrong because of the conditions prevailing at that moment is: “Na condition wey make crayfish bend.” A male university student is caught defecating on the floor of the toilet because the toilet bowl is already filled to the brim with faeces as is often the case and he simply says:
“Come see toilet wey you want make I use. Abi, you no know say ‘na condition wey make crayfish bend’.” Another is caught with ‘chokes’ or ‘expos’ beneath his desk during examinations, an action he claims to partake in because he had to miss lectures for ‘personal’ reasons and he utters the same thing.

A police officer when asked by a friend why he should accept bribe from a criminal in his custody and let him go scot-free and he mutters the following words: “Ogbeni, na condition wey make crayfish bend, they no wey pay us well.” The financial secretary of a committee or association is rebuked by someone for accounting on paper for less money than what should have been accounted for and he fires back with the very same words. We could go on and on because the instances are inexhaustible.

Na Condition wey make crayfish bendNigerians are die-hards, I must confess. We have never ceased to amaze the world with how ‘creatively’ and ‘cleverly’ we survive in the midst of all kinds of hardships even though, we cause most of them for ourselves. From the pre-colonial era to the colonial epoch and down to the present contemporary times, we have faced and have conquered so many seemly insurmountable situations such as the Jihad war of the nineteenth century, the Period of the Slave Trade and the Biafran Civil War of 1967 to 1970 which not just claimed so many lives but left a great mark on our history.

The unfortunate part of the tale is that recuperating from the wounds caused by these historical events has since been a great challenge. Nigerians are today known as “people who can do ‘anything’ to survive,” a tag being a result of the injuries from our past. At every international airport outside and even within Nigeria, it is no more news that we are checked and searched for the greatest amount of time; we can’t even trust ourselves. Foreign investors and businessmen who would partner with individuals from other parts of the world while sleeping come down here and when they agree to partner with us, do so with their eyes open. There is a global lack of trust for us and in what we can do.

National and Societal Reformation can only begin first with individual change and transformation. We cannot continue to blame the actors or active participators in our past such as our colonial masters. We cannot also continue to blame our past and present leaders because every leader was once in the shoes of a follower. Personal transformation begins when we take responsibility for our challenges and decisively do something about them even when they have been caused in the first place by others.

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