By Donu Kogbara

A foreign girlfriend told me last week that she never ceases to marvel at the docility of the average Nigerian. To illustrate her point, she talked about a recent experience at one of our airports.

Shortly after she arrived to catch a flight that was supposed to take off at around 11am, it was announced that the flight had been postponed until 1pm.

She was irritated by this hiccup because it would disrupt her plans. She was heading to Abuja to attend an important work meeting that had been scheduled for 4pm and had hoped to have lunch with a colleague beforehand.

The two-hour delay meant that the lunch would have to be cancelled, but since it wasn’t crucial, she decided to grit her teeth and quietly tolerate the delay.

At 1pm, another announcement notified passengers that the flight had been “slightly delayed” and would now leave at 2pm. My friend started to panic at this stage because if any further delays ensued, she would miss her 4pm meeting.

So she anxiously cornered some employees of the airline and asked them whether 2pm was the final-final deadline. They assured her that it was.

However, at 2pm, another postponement was announced. And my friend went ballistic. She started to berate airline staff for deceiving her and ruining her day and was further enraged when they barely apologised.

The flight was eventually called at 4.15.

While she was queuing up to board the plane, still seething, she turned to a Nigerian woman who was standing behind her and said that she had noticed that she was the only passenger who had made a fuss during the long delay period and wondered why others had not joined her in complaining bitterly.

“We are used to it,” said the Nigerian woman, shrugging.

This type of reaction is very normal here. Whether we are facing seriously toxic dysfunctions that cost lives or relatively minor inconveniences, Nigerians have a habit of shrugging philosophically (or bovinely, to use a less flattering word).

Form of entertainment

Even when we whinge about companies that are ripping us off or making us uncomfortable and whinge about public servants who are stealing us blind or simply failing to perform efficiently, it’s just whingeing for whingeing’s sake.

I would even go so far as to say that our whingeing is nothing more than a form of entertainment – something we do to pass the time when we are socialising.

Sometimes, we have a jolly good laugh about ministers, governors, etc, who think that they are pulling the wool over our eyes. Sometimes, we even make excuses for them because they come from our geopolitical zone or seem charismatic or whatever. Often, we show up to cheer when they make public appearances.

There is no real commitment to rejecting the status quo. We aren’t sufficiently outraged by misconduct. We don’t insist on change. We don’t put our feet down and say that guilty parties MUST be jailed /sacked/ boycotted.  In this sense, most of us are part of the criminal conspiracy that is holding Nigeria back.

It is often said – by foreigners and Nigerians alike – that there will never be a revolution in this country, a) because we are so willing to put up with poor service, bad governance, corruption, etc, and b) because the only major miscreants who get into trouble are those who are disliked by their superiors.

Our leaders victimise their enemies for personal rather than ethical reasons, allow their cronies to get away with massive misdemeanours and take us for granted because they think that we are too lazy or too daft or too risk-averse to get off our backsides and get around to saying “NO” to their shenanigans.

And I used to share the widespread view that Nigerians would never rebel against the authorities for more than five minutes. But I’ve changed my mind.

I used to be sure that no Nigerian would be able to stomach the idea of suicide bombing. But suicide bombings are, alas, now taking place regularly. And it has gradually dawned on me that anything can happen anywhere at any time.

Who would have guessed that a few un-armed, placard-waving ordinary citizens could drive Viktor Yanukovych, the now-ex President of Ukraine, into exile?

Or that the mighty Ghadafi – who successfully ruled Libya with an iron fist for decades and gave powerful Western governments huge headaches – would wind up being dragged off his throne and assassinated in a dirty ditch like a dog?

In other words, one day begins a story. And a new story can start unexpectedly.

Just because something has never happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen tomorrow or at some point in the not-too-distant future. Just because a ruling class looks secure at the moment doesn’t mean that it will always be secure.

I urge President Goodluck Jonathan to ignore those who encourage him to be complacent and transform himself into a reforming hero who cannot be toppled.