In our society, even middle-class comfort feels like a crime. Here, the idea that every hardworking person deserves a holiday sounds like fantasy. We have built a system whereby only those in the good books of the powerful can enjoy the simplest pleasures. Vacations, decent homes and good schools have become privileges, instead of rights that honest work should earn.
Whatever you think of Western societies, one thing is clear: They have built systems whereby people can speak freely without the fear of losing their livelihoods or offending the powerful. In those societies, you can disagree with your leaders, criticise government policy, or express your views on national issues, and nobody will blacklist you or call your employer to threaten your job. That is the difference between a society that has developed and one that has not. Sometimes I do not believe in the term, “developing society.” You are either developed or you are not. Development is not about skyscrapers or luxury cars. It is about whether people can live freely and hold their heads high without the fear of punishment for simply being themselves.
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In our part of the world, that freedom does not exist. Ordinary people must constantly seek the approval of the powerful to live decently. To get a good job, you often need someone’s recommendation. To travel abroad with your family, you may need to beg for a favour. To rise in your career, you must often please people whose only qualification is that they are close to power. In such a society, fear becomes the currency of survival. In developed societies, the story is different. There, hard work speaks louder than connections. In many parts of Europe, it is part of the culture for families to travel during summer holidays. It is normal, not extraordinary, to take time off to rest and see the world. Teachers, factory workers, cleaners, and office clerks all make plans to travel. Nobody thinks they are trying to show off. It is simply life.
In our society, even middle-class comfort feels like a crime. Here, the idea that every hardworking person deserves a holiday sounds like fantasy. We have built a system whereby only those in the good books of the powerful can enjoy the simplest pleasures. Vacations, decent homes and good schools have become privileges, instead of rights that honest work should earn. In Nigeria, for instance, one might need to become a Vice Chancellor of a public university before being able to afford a family trip to Europe. Before reaching that office, it may have been impossible. Once the office is gone, that possibility vanishes too. That is how fragile comfort is in a system that does not reward merit.
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…many Nigerians abroad, like Mustapha, are afraid to post pictures of their homes or family lives online. They know what will follow. Someone back home will accuse them of showing off. Someone will say they are trying to intimidate others. They hide their happiness because they understand the resentment that poverty breeds. Our people back home, crushed by hardship and years of frustration, often see another person’s comfort as an insult.
Contrast that with Professor Farooq Kperogi in the United States. He is not a vice chancellor, nor does he aspire to be one. But he can travel to anywhere in the world with his family whenever he wishes. He does not need anyone’s approval or favour to do so. He works, he earns, and he lives. That is what true freedom looks like. People like Kperogi understood early that they did not have the temperament to tolerate nonsense, so they built lives where no one could threaten their livelihoods.
Take another example. Mustapha Abubakar, a government worker and researcher in the United States, lives in a house that a Nigerian minister earning only legitimate income could never afford. His comfort is not the product of privilege but of a fair system. But many Nigerians abroad, like Mustapha, are afraid to post pictures of their homes or family lives online. They know what will follow. Someone back home will accuse them of showing off. Someone will say they are trying to intimidate others. They hide their happiness because they understand the resentment that poverty breeds. Our people back home, crushed by hardship and years of frustration, often see another person’s comfort as an insult. They mistake the normal life of others for arrogance. Out of insecurity, they accuse those who live decently of trying to make them feel small.
It is one of the most tragic things about our society. Even when our people leave poverty behind physically, they cannot escape its psychological weight. The poverty of the material life has become joined with the poverty of thought. The result is a mindset that punishes success and mocks decency. Some Nigerians in the diaspora cannot even enjoy peace in America or Europe because they are still haunted by the accusations of envy and suspicion from back home. They cannot simply live their lives without the fear of judgment. Western societies, on the other hand, have built an order whereby nobody can intimidate you simply because they have money or power. There, knowledge and hard work command respect. You can be a bus driver, or a professor, and you still have dignity. Nobody looks down on you for earning your living. Nobody can threaten your job for speaking your mind. Nobody can humiliate you because you lack political connection.
In the West, people are not necessarily happier because they are richer. They are happier because they are freer. They can criticise their leaders without fear, plan their lives without begging for permission, and enjoy the fruits of their work without shame. They do not need to pretend to like people they secretly despise just to survive. Until we build a country where people can live without fear of losing everything for speaking honestly, we will keep mistaking privilege for progress.
In our society, dignity has been replaced by dependence. Merit means little. Hard work rarely pays. What matters is who you know and how well you can flatter them. Those who gain favour from politicians grow rich and powerful, then distribute crumbs to others, while pretending to be generous. They build followership by feeding people’s desperation. They use wealth to create fear and loyalty, not inspiration. That is why many Nigerians worship those who oppress them. They call them “leaders,” celebrate their birthdays, and defend their crimes on social media. The more corrupt they are, the more people rally around them. Poverty has stripped many of the courage to think independently. People have been taught to believe that their survival depends on staying close to the powerful.
Meanwhile, in the societies we like to criticise, ordinary citizens live with quiet dignity. A nurse in Finland or a schoolteacher in Canada can travel abroad every year with their families without anyone accusing them of showing off. They do not need to bribe anyone for promotions. They do not need to flatter governors or ministers to keep their jobs. Their lives are predictable because their systems work. The tragedy is not that Nigeria lacks resources. It is that we have built a country where fear replaces fairness, and where people’s worth depends on who likes them. We have turned power into a weapon of intimidation, instead of service. Those who hold it use it to control, while those below live in the constant anxiety of losing what little they have. That is not development, but a social imprisonment disguised as normal life.
In the West, people are not necessarily happier because they are richer. They are happier because they are freer. They can criticise their leaders without fear, plan their lives without begging for permission, and enjoy the fruits of their work without shame. They do not need to pretend to like people they secretly despise just to survive. Until we build a country where people can live without fear of losing everything for speaking honestly, we will keep mistaking privilege for progress. A nation that fears its own freedom will never truly develop.
Mohammed Dahiru Aminu ([email protected]) wrote from Accra, Ghana.
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