See me see wahala!?!

Oh my...today has been one of the most trying days since my return to Nigeria. For anyone thinking of coming to work in Nigeria, please really think long and hard. When I post these things online, it's not that i'm trying to be overly dramatic, or unnecessarily negative, but I just want people to know the real of what I myself is going through. On top of that, I think i've said many times that coming to Nigeria for the time i've been here, has been an invaluable experience for me. I'd never take back the year. It's allowed me to learn more about myself and my personal and career goals than I would have if I had never moved here. There have been fun times, amazing times, but today is not one of them.

Many times, a lot of people in Nigeria, can not understand how a young person can be driven, ambitious, and successful in the workplace, based on hardwork and dedication, pure luck, and the right opportunities. I've been lucky in the sense that I found someone to guide me and whom I could look up to professionally without really searching for one. Right opportunities because they've been available and i've taken full advantage of them, and hardwork and dedication because I really poured myself into whatever project I've been working on. However as a young professional person in Nigeria, people expect you to be docile and quiet, to be a sort of shrinking violent, you know, the kind of thing that you are to be seen but not heard. And even as a woman, I can imagine that you certainly shouldn't be aggressive. I've essentially been told ALL of these today.

My problem is I don't know how to be ALL of that. And more importantly for me, I want my work to be what's important about me, not my accent, or my cultural attitudes, or gender, or even age. A friend of mine once said to me, "I can't work in Nigeria because I can't work in a country where you can never move ahead on merit." It's not a sort of glass ceiling issue oh, or even that you don't need some sort of "office politics" high IQ, but the fact that what you do almost always counts for nothing or can count for nothing at the drop of a dime. I never really understood how right that statement was until today.

However sha, I believe in the end, once you are confident about who you are, where you stand, what you've said, and your actions, the true story will always make way for you. You will always have the last laugh. Truly as I'm writing this i'm already feeling victorious because at the end of the day, I wasn't blown away by all the jealousy, envy, and maliciousness that was unleashed on me today. People can't understand why God continues to bless you so they try to cut you down. But sometimes God wants to show you just how great his promises in your life are and I'll leave it at that!

A lot of this may seem weird or disjointed, but shoo.........i saw that Tyra episode, I ain't about to give anyone an excuse to shut me down!