THIS DAWN — A popular Nigerian street proverb, now elevated into a philosophical reflection, says: “If Nigeria is explained to you in a way you truly understand, you could go mad.” It is humorous on the surface, but beneath the laughter lies a piercing diagnosis of a country struggling with contradictions. In a recent essay, public intellectual Prince Charles Dickson, PhD, explores this paradox through everyday experiences that reveal how Nigeria’s systems are routinely undermined by the very people meant to sustain them.
At the centre of Dickson’s reflection is a seemingly ordinary incident on Kubwa Road in Abuja. A pedestrian bridge, designed to prevent accidents and save lives, stands unused as pedestrians cross the busy highway underneath it. What transforms the scene from mere negligence into national satire is the presence of a uniformed Road Safety officer actively stopping traffic to allow people to cross illegally beneath the bridge built to prevent exactly that behaviour.
According to Dickson, this is the precise moment when “sanity resigns.” The officer, rather than enforcing the law, enforces survival. He prioritises immediate safety over institutional order, choosing to prevent death in the moment rather than compel compliance with the system. While humane, this choice quietly erodes the very foundation of rule enforcement. The message becomes clear: laws are optional when enough people ignore them.
Dickson describes this as “tragic kindness” — a defining Nigerian condition. Systems are built, but emotional and social pressures conspire to sabotage them. Infrastructure exists, yet is treated as a suggestion rather than a rule. Pedestrian bridges become monuments, traffic lights decorations, and zebra crossings symbolic artwork rather than functional safety tools.
Excuses for ignoring the bridge abound: it is too stressful to climb, too far from bus stops, unsafe, or inconvenient. Yet Dickson notes the irony that those who claim physical limitations suddenly find the energy to sprint across multiple lanes of oncoming traffic. In Nigeria, inconsistency is not punished; it is often rewarded.
This leaves enforcement officers trapped in moral dilemmas. Arresting pedestrians risks confrontation, public backlash, or viral accusations of cruelty. Allowing illegal crossings saves lives in the short term but trains society to disregard rules. Nigeria, Dickson argues, repeatedly chooses short-term good at the expense of long-term institutional stability.
The Kubwa Road episode is not isolated. It reflects a broader national operating system where paradox is normalised. A polite police officer becomes a surprise. An honest politician is treated as myth. A year without strikes in the health sector is headline-worthy. Armed bandits negotiate peace deals openly, sometimes flaunting their activities on social media, while institutions struggle for legitimacy.
In this environment, criminals often enjoy better public relations than the state. Bribery permeates critical systems — from examinations and university admissions to employment and public services. Even social events reflect this dysfunction, where access to food or basic dignity depends on connections. Grief itself, Dickson observes, has gatekeepers.
Yet, amid this dysfunction, national political enthusiasm remains intense. Citizens passionately debate presidential politics while remaining disconnected from local governance structures that directly affect daily life. Councillors, ward leaders, and local administrators — those responsible for roads, schools, drainage, and markets — remain largely invisible. National politics becomes theatre; grassroots governance decays quietly.
Dickson argues that Nigeria’s confusion does not stem from a lack of logic but from an excess of competing logics. Survival, morality, emotion, opportunity, religion, ethnicity, and politics all operate simultaneously, none fully dominant. These forces clash constantly, producing a society where laws exist but enforcement bends to familiarity, mood, or convenience.
In such a system, integrity is admired but often punished. Clever manipulation of rules is celebrated as “sense.” Obedience without reward is mocked as foolishness. Over time, exceptions swallow rules, and systems weaken until failure becomes normal.
The Road Safety officer on Kubwa Road, Dickson insists, is not an anomaly but a distilled symbol of Nigeria itself. The country teaches survival first and reform later — except later rarely arrives. Bridges are ignored, laws suspended, criminals empowered, and victims lectured, all while society laughs at its own tragedy to avoid despair.
To understand Nigeria fully, Dickson suggests, is to accept unresolved contradictions. It is to witness good people making bad choices for understandable reasons that nonetheless produce destructive outcomes. Perhaps the real madness is not in trying to understand Nigeria, but in understanding it and still expecting change without deliberate, painful, collective action.
Until such action materialises, pedestrians will continue crossing under bridges, officers will keep stopping traffic to save lives, institutions will erode quietly, and laughter will remain a coping mechanism. As the proverb warns, Nigeria is not designed to be understood; it is designed to be endured.
Nigeria is no joke. And as Nigerians often say, if you do not laugh, you will cry.
