I used to believe in unity in Nigeria the way children believe in fairy tales, wholeheartedly, without question.
It was during my NYSC year that the idea began to crack.
I was posted far from home, to a small town where the language felt like a wall and the food tasted unfamiliar. One evening, I sat outside a roadside buka, trying to eat quietly, when a group of young men nearby started talking. At first, I didn’t pay attention—until I heard my tribe mentioned.
They laughed.
Not the harmless kind of laughter. The kind that carries weight. The kind that tells you that, in that moment, you are not “one of us.”
I lowered my spoon.
They didn’t know me. They didn’t know my story. But somehow, where I came from was enough to define me.
That night, I walked back slowly, my chest heavy with a question I had never really asked myself before: If we cannot accept each other within one country, what does unity even mean?
But the story didn’t end there.
A few weeks later, I fell seriously ill. No family, no close friends nearby. Just me and a body that refused to cooperate. The same town that once felt cold suddenly changed.
My neighbor, a woman who barely spoke my language, started bringing me food every morning. The buka owner refused to collect money from me for days. One of those same young men I had heard laughing? He showed up with drugs and insisted I take them.
No one asked where I was from.
No one cared.
They just showed up.
And that confused me even more than the rejection.
Because in one moment, I was “different.” In another, I was simply “human.”
That’s when it hit me, Nigeria’s unity is not a straight line. It’s a contradiction.
We are deeply divided, by tribe, language, religion, and history. We argue, stereotype, and sometimes push each other away.
But at the same time, there’s something stubborn beneath it all. Something that refuses to completely break.
A shared understanding. A shared struggle. A quiet, unspoken connection.
Unity in Nigeria isn’t loud. It’s not always visible in politics, borders, or big speeches.
It shows up in small, unexpected moments
when a stranger feeds you,
when someone defends you,
when help comes from the least expected place.
So, is there really unity in Nigeria?
Not the perfect kind we like to imagine.
But something real. Something flawed. Something that still has a chance, if we choose to build on those small moments instead of the divisions.
Because the truth is, unity isn’t something we already have.
It’s something we keep deciding, every single day.
