"The Three Rs and Three Cs "About My Country By Whitestallion

Three Things I Love About My Country and 3 Things I wish I Could Change

Wow, how do I begin to speak about Nigeria my beloved country? Hereon, I will give a summary of the geography of my country before I relay what I love and the changes would love to see. It is expected of every citizen to have the interest of his country at heart. By so doing, defend the interest of his country when the need arises. Anyway, the journey of a thousand miles starts with but just a step. Nigeria is a blessed West African country with an abundance of wildlife and vegetation. Some of the wildlife parks include the Cross River National Park and Yankari National Park. My country is multilingual with different languages coming from several parts of the country. The country is divided into four primary segments; North, West, East, and South. The capital of my country is Abuja. Aso Rock which houses the president of the federation is located. In the northern parts of the country, we predominantly have the Hausa people in states like Borno, Bauchi, Jalingo, and so on. For the record, Nigeria is made up of 36 states. Furthermore, the South-Western part of the country is made of the Yoruba folks, the East is predominantly made up of the Igbo folks. Nigeria became independent in 1960. Since then, we have to strive and try to make progress. About our climate, we have two seasons annually the rainy and dry seasons. During the dry season, we have some moments of north-east trade wind prevalence known as 'harmattan'. On a lighter note, this is the season when folks get a lot of dusty and cracked skin because of the signature dry wind and hot temperature. Anyway, let me cut right to the chase.

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Three things I love about my country

• Good Food

Hahaha, I suppose you are wondering why food is the first thing on my love list but, I need you to understand that it is number one for a reason. Listen, it does not matter where I travel to in this world, I am going to search for a restaurant that has Nigerian delicacies on its menu. I am Nigerian so I enjoy a variety of indigenous food. Our delicacies are a combination of various ethnic dishes made with the best available spices. So, groundnut and palm oil are major ingredients in the preparation of these delicacies that tend to greet your taste buds with some high-level sweetness. We have our characteristic pepper balls that make food taste bland when absent, salt, seasoning, herbs, and spices. Furthermore, we enjoy pounded yam, garri which is gotten from Cassava that is processed, maize flour which is turned into a delicacy called 'Tuwo' for folks in the northern part of Nigeria. Furthermore, we have our tasty Jollof rice which has been a subject of debate with our neighboring country, Ghana. I hold the position that our Jollof tastes better, hehe. There is something special about Abacha. This meal is carefully prepared by mixing in the right proportion of bitter leaves, garden eggs, some pepper, seasoning, and the Abacha substance that is extracted from Cassava. Interestingly, you could add some slices of roasted or fried fish and hide.

• Good Music

I could beat my chest wherever I find myself in a bid to claim that Nigeria is blessed with good music and musicians. Globally speaking, we have mainstream artists who have hit the walls of the music industry. As we all know, some artists hug influence and wealth then decide to leave the country they were born and raised to some new place to brew their talents and potentials more. Nigeria has produced enough music artists to organize a global music concert. Wizkid and Davido have proven through a good track record that, if you are diligent and excellent at what you do, you will be recognized globally. Burna Boy won the ‘Global Music Album’ Grammy award with his Twice as Tall album. We have other artists such as Brymo, Rema, and so on who keep hitting our ears with sound waves that are global standard. We have a mixture of rap, RNB, Afro-pop, and other genres of music. There is always a sound for whatever occasion or situation you are in. There is something about indigenous rappers and singers who use traditional languages such as Yoruba, Pidgin, and Igbo to communicate sounds to the world. This is something I love about my country.

• Interpersonal Relationship

It may be the same elsewhere, but I have personal experience about the extent people from Nigeria can go out of their way to show you courtesy and love. If you happen to have a problem ranging from personal to cooperate levels, my people will leave what they have to do and attend to your challenges till they are satisfied with your comfort. Over here, if you happen to not have food at home, if you happen to have no money in your bank account and you speak with people about your condition, certain folks may not singlehandedly solve all your problems but you are sure to have a crowd of support and well-wishing. You could just head out to college or some park and you would meet lovely people who will not hesitate to be nice to you. Landlords over here are humane. When there is a delay in your payment, property owners don't just take the case to the police or the court. They try to come to an understanding with you and in some special cases, permit you to stay until you can make provide funds to settle the rent. Furthermore, the smiling faces you get to see on your way to work every day is something you don't get to see everywhere. People are always dealing with their problems, for you to see some random folks smiling nicely at you is not a regular occurrence.

I have spoken a little about what I love about my country. It is now time for me to talk about what I wish could be changed for the better.

• Insecurity

This may sound ironic but, understand that I love my country but there are certain things that I cringe about. In the Northern part of the country, there are sects of terrorist organizations. These terrorist groups have taken it upon themselves to massacre rural community dwellers who don’t do anything but farm. These subsistent farmers also engage in pastoral farming. It is an ugly scene to see infants, 5-year-olds, and 10-year-old-year-olds sliced open with knives and machetes by these unruly people. I have been bothered by this for a very long time and I wish change could be effected in this regard. We have lost young soldiers who were killed because they enrolled in the Army to serve their country. There is no single day that passes without you seeing on the news that someone who shot or a community was attacked. You can make your research, Niger and Kaduna state are seriously under siege from these bandits and terrorists. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the cases of kidnappings. Human beings are taken from schools and roadsides. Their families are contacted and a ransom is demanded before the release of the innocent individuals. I wish the government could take better proactive measures to curtail this.

• Corruption

All things being equal, Nigeria is blessed. We have enough landmass and mineral resources to cater to the need of the country and neighboring countries but, we are living in gross lack. We were recently rated to have some substantial poverty level. Do you understand what they mean? It means regardless of our resources, we are poor. We are not poor, our leaders have been busy siphoning and redirecting funds. Some public funds find their way into private accounts thus, the masses keep suffering while the elite keep getting rich. Government workers retire from civil service and don't get paid their retirement benefits. All of these are because of the high corruption level in the country. Speaking about police brutality, it is on a high rise. Cops keep harassing young folk for no special reason. I hope this changes for the better. I envision a country where all funds get properly appropriated and cops protect citizens as they should be.

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• Power supply

We have two major rivers in the country. The River Benue and Niger. These rivers are enough to power hydroelectricity for the country. We have other water sources like dams. We have all these in combination with intense solar radiation that could be used for solar energy sources, but we still lack a quality power supply. Just last month, the country was in a serious petrol supply shortage. People would queue at fueling stations from as early as 4 am just to access fuel. Some parts of the nation do not have an experience with how the power supply is. They have never had power. Some parts have power supply for just 3 hours daily; business owners suffer because of this. The fish business demands a constant supply of power, without it the fish would get spoilt. However, you could decide to run the business using generators but you may be at loss. I stay in hope that we will see changes in the above-listed areas.

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Conclusion
I have spoken about what I love about my country. These things make my stay in this country fun and loving however if we swing the pendulum to the other side, there are things about my country I would love to see changed. In case you are contemplating visiting my country for tourism, you would have a good time because of the vast wildlife and reserves we have over here. I love Nigeria regardless, at least our Jollof rice is worth it, hehe.