I love it the way I love cold bottled water in traffic, or the breeze that hits when NEPA restores light after 12 hours of darkness. I love nepotism because I have known the other side, the side where you send a hundred CVs and still get ghosted. The side where you attend an interview with 300 other people and only one person has already been picked. You just didn’t know it yet.
The truth is, i don’t hate privilege. I hate being locked out of it.
Nepotism is simply an ugly word for what we all secretly want: someone who knows someone.
An insider. A hand pulling you forward when the system wants you to crawl. In Nigeria, merit doesn’t get you in the room. Your last name does. Your father’s golf partner does. Your pastor might. Even your mother’s prayer warrior friend who “knows somebody in Abuja.”
What i don’t understand is why we pretend. Why we clutch so tightly to the illusion of hard work as the only path, when the playing field was never level to begin with.
Because here’s the thing: Africans love to glorify suffering.
We treat struggle like it’s a rite of passage. If you didn’t suffer to get it, it must not be worth it. You must not be deserving. As if pain is the only proof of success. We idolize stories like “he used to trek to school barefoot” or “she hawked pure water before becoming a CEO” because we believe hardship gives our lives meaning.
But why must everything good be born of pain? Why can’t ease be noble too?
You’ll hear people say things like “I suffered so my children won’t have to” only to turn around and gatekeep comfort from the next generation. They’ll say things like “these kids have it too easy” or “in our time, we used to…”
Used to what? Suffer?
Nepotism offends people because it skips the suffering. Because it doesn’t come with the bloody knuckles or the 2-hour molue commute. Because it works quietly, like wealth. Like legacy. Like favor.
So yes, i love nepotism. Because poverty is not a personality trait. Because being overworked and underpaid is not a badge of honor. Because I have nothing to prove to a system that has never worked in my favor
And if I ever make it to the top, I will open the door.
Not just for the “most qualified,” but for my cousin who’s been waiting. My friend with no connections. My sister who deserves the ease I never had.
Because I refuse to suffer just to be seen as worthy. And I refuse to make others suffer too, just to call it “discipline.”
Let the phone calls be made. Let the doors open. For ease is not a crime. And access is not the enemy.
Nepotism is a more negative word for networking honestly.
I think the problem with nepotism in Nigeria especially is that a lot of the people who benefit from it are terribly unqualified. The lack of qualification trickles down into our everyday lives so the criticism is valid. But we definitely have a fixation with the rags to riches story.
...meanwhile, the system is completely rigged to keep most people exhausted and just barely scraping by. If I’ve got a shortcut? I'll take it. They never made it fair to begin with.
I'm glad you're still willing to throw a ladder down on your way up, there's nothing more powerful than fucking over the system by helping someone the system ignored.
Nepotism is a more negative word for networking honestly.
I think the problem with nepotism in Nigeria especially is that a lot of the people who benefit from it are terribly unqualified. The lack of qualification trickles down into our everyday lives so the criticism is valid. But we definitely have a fixation with the rags to riches story.
...meanwhile, the system is completely rigged to keep most people exhausted and just barely scraping by. If I’ve got a shortcut? I'll take it. They never made it fair to begin with.
I'm glad you're still willing to throw a ladder down on your way up, there's nothing more powerful than fucking over the system by helping someone the system ignored.
Good one Samira, your work has been exceptional.