The Dialectic of Self-Preservation and Self-Destruction

  

Nigeria, with other nations, is a land of constant negotiation with danger. To live here is to be alert. At Oshodi, a woman instinctively pulls her child back from the rush of okada riders. At Oluku, a man jumps aside as a reckless mini bus veers too close. When gunshots crack in a distant street, crowds scatter without waiting to ask who is shooting. Self-preservation is etched into our bones, a survival script rehearsed in every market, motor park, and traffic jam.

And yet, paradoxically, this same instinct to survive is matched by an almost stubborn desire to flirt with death. The Lagos driver who carefully waits for the green traffic light later drinks himself into  stupor and insists on driving home. The civil servant who avoids unclean water to protect his health will, with equal certainty, consume endless bottles of sweet soda that quietly corrode his body. A man who cries out in panic when a snake slithers across the compound may, the same evening, light a cigarette and drag poison into his lungs.

 The Nigerian Paradox in Everyday Life

Everyday Nigerian life is filled with such ironies. A young graduate hustles hard to make ends meet, yet spends his savings on sports betting, chasing an illusion of instant wealth. A trader who prays for long life after morning devotion might quarrel violently with his neighbour, risking a revenge that could cut short that very life. Families complain about insecurity, yet some communities still harbour the very criminals who torment them, out of fear or tribal loyalty.

Food, our great source of joy, often becomes an accomplice of ruin. We laugh around steaming plates of party jollof, gobble up bowls of goat meat pepper soup, swallow eba at midnight, and wash it all down with mineral drinks, or bottles of beer. It is enjoyment, yes, but beneath it, hypertension and diabetes prepare their silent harvest. Nigerians are quick to shield their nose from generator fumes, but never pause when indulging in fried akara floating in blackened oil reused a hundred times.

 Society, Governance and Politics

Nigeria herself is a living metaphor of this paradox. The anthem proclaims “one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.” Leaders preach survival as an indivisible entity, urging citizens to defend the corporate existence of the state. Yet, in the same breath, the nation harbours forces bent on its disintegration. Foreign Fulani raiders, marauding across communities, destroying farms and lives, are often allowed free passage, while ordinary Nigerians are urged to tighten their belts in the name of patriotism.

Here lies the irony: a country that invests so much rhetoric in self-preservation tolerates elements determined to unravel it. Citizens are told to “say no to hate,” yet ethnic clashes smoulder unchecked. Government insists on unity, but its silence in the face of rampaging invaders whispers complicity. The same body politic that cries for survival nurses the very wounds that could bleed it to death.

And perhaps, in this, Nigeria becomes the grand stage where the dialectic plays out not in a single body, but in a nation of 200 million souls. A people yearning for unity, yet wrestling with forces of fragmentation; crying for survival, yet courting the destroyers at their gates.

The paradox deepens in our politics. Leaders speak of “nation building” while looting the treasury, destroying the very foundation they claim to preserve. We form vigilante groups for protection, yet sometimes those same vigilantes become oppressors. Elections are fought in the name of democracy, but with thugs armed and unleashed, the pursuit of political survival becomes the source of national destruction.

Even our economy testifies to this dialectic. Nigerians hustle with legendary resilience, hawking in traffic, coding apps, running multiple side hustles. Yet, we also plunge into ponzi schemes and gambling dens, risking in one night what took months to save. From the same heart that preserves tickles a gambling hand that ruins.

Religion’s Mirror

Religion, Nigeria’s heartbeat, also reveals the tension. Churches and mosques cry out for holiness, for the preservation of the soul. But after leaving the holy ground, many still cut corners in contracts, cheat in exams, or pursue fleeting pleasures that violate their faith. The same voice that sings “Nearer My God to Thee” may also whisper gossip that destroys another. The believer prays against hell, yet still plants seeds of destruction with both hands.

Why Do We Flirt with Death?

Why does a people, so devoted to life, so often pursue death in instalments? Perhaps because existence without risk is hollow? Preservation alone would make life bland, like rice without stew. The pull of danger gives life its intensity. Nigerians know this in their bones, that is why, even in hardship, we joke, we laugh, we shout “Na God hand we dey.” The tension between survival and ruin gives our daily hustle its depth.

The Final Irony

Without this constant tug-of-war, there would be no death, and without death, no rebirth. Imagine a Nigeria where nobody dies: no urgency, no generational change, no fresh beginnings. Life would become stagnant, like a river with no flow, heavy with decay instead of renewal. It is precisely because danger lurks that caution matters; because destruction is near that survival is sweet.

Thus, the Nigerian story is, at heart, the human story: dodging stray bullets but inhaling cigarette smoke, hustling for survival but gambling with savings, crying for salvation yet flirting with sin. We are both protectors and saboteurs of ourselves. And perhaps, without this paradox, without this dangerous romance between preservation and destruction, life would lose its drama, and rebirth would never come.

DEAR READER, DONT GO YET! 

YOU DO WANT TO MISS ONE OF MY INTERESTING POSTS BELOW. DO YOU? 

JUST DIVE IN AND CATCH A YUMMY BITE! 

1.      (A deep dive into life’s fragile balance of body and spirit) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/07/why-keep-this-transient-spirit-in-this.html

2.      (Exploring voices at the margins of power and influence) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/07/outside-gold-circle.html

3.      (When cleaners out-earn PhD holders – a wake-up call to Nigeria’s education system) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/06/when-cleaner-earns-more-than-phd-holder.html

4.      (Behind the grip of godfathers and the chains on Rivers’ treasury) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-tyranny-of-godfathers-how-wikes.html

5.      (The push for mass armament and the shadow of anarchy in Nigeria) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-apotheosis-of-anarchism-in-niger.html

6.      (Unmasking the NCC and its alleged conspiracy against mobile users) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/nigerian-communications-commission-and.html

7.      (Christ’s resurrection retold – a poetic Easter reflection) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/easter-galore-christ-firstborn-from.html

8.      (The price of free speech in Tinubu’s Nigeria – Ushie Rita’s ordeal) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/nigerias-shackled-ushie-rita-uguamaye.html

9.      (Power, ethnicity, and the gradual Fulani-isation debate) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/complicity-of-power-elite-and-gradual.html

10.  (Politics staged as theatre – a dramaturgical lens on Nigeria’s leaders) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/dramaturgy-and-nigerian-leadership.html

11.  (Collateral damage in Rivers’ fierce political battles) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/collateral-damage-in-wake-of-rivers.html

12.  (Ecce Homo – a timeless meditation on human greatness and frailty) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/ecce-homo-behold-man-mightiest-of-them.html

13.  (The Akpoti thorn pricking the flesh of Akpabuyo’s political order) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-akpoti-thorn-in-akpabuyo-flesh-one.html

14.  (Between devil and high blue sea – the trap of political silence) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/between-devil-and-high-blue-sea.html

15.  (The unconstitutionality hidden beneath Rivers’ emergency declaration) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-unconstitutional-underlining-of.html

16.  (Lagos on the brink – an Armageddon portrait of a restless city) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/lagos-armageddon-air-was-thick-with.html

17.  (Jungle justice and the Nigerian military – a cry for accountability) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/jungle-justice-and-military-call-for.html

18.  (Is marriage breathing its last in today’s society?) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/is-marriage-on-its-deathbed.html

19.  (Checkpoints, soldiers, and the erosion of human rights) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-growing-pattern-of-abuse-military.html

20.  (Faith, prostate cancer, and the ultimate test of integrity) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/prostate-cancer-faith-and-battle-for.html

21.  (Digital gambling as the modern-day slave trade) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/gambling-modern-slave-trade-of-digital.html

22.  (The marriage scam – why more men are walking away) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-marriage-scam-why-men-are-walking.html

23.  (Rivers reckoning – a storm of power, pride, and betrayal) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-rivers-reckoning-battle-of-power.html

24.  (Akpoti vs. Akpabio – Nigeria’s reputation on the edge) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-akpoti-akpabio-smackdown-nigerias.html

25.  (When the law shields the guilty – Sunday Jackson’s road to the gallows) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/when-law-protects-criminal-sunday.html

26.  (A precarious precedent – Rivers’ emergency declaration revisited) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-precarious-precedent-declaration-of.html

27.  (An Imminent Revolution: Nigeria’s Troubled Giant Awakes) https://mysensimiliaerudition2025.blogspot.com/2025/04/an-imminent-revolution-troubled-giant.html