Heed the dead, follow up the past, and the soul of the people will again grow great –

Tseng-Tzu

Of all the places in the world, your heritage as a Nigerian is an intimidating one. This isn’t motivational or political talk. I speak as someone who knows his history as further than 100 years back.

The ‘modern noise’ of twitter, facebook, etc don’t offer proper perspective, but I will try with my words.

Every Nigerian comes from a very long line of people who had the respect of world powers over the last 200 years. People who started great things they expected their descendants to build on and rule the world. It’s no accident that there are more Nigerians than any other Africans at the top of the world’s biggest stages right now. The history of the blood running in your veins is more powerful than the colour of your passport or your skin.

We display excellence in entertainment, sports and other things that the world admires, respects, and honours, regardless of your nationality.

Sadly, among ourselves we look for failures with eager expectation and regard our successes with pre-emptive disappointment. But let me share a big secret with you.

Nigerians before you set paths for you that don’t need more than a healthy interest in yourself and your abilities. You don’t even need to be a Nigerian to follow them.

When Adele won an Oscar award for the James Bond theme song ‘Skyfall’, I remembered Shirley Bassey who sang ‘Gold Finger’ for the James Bond movie of the same name about 50 years ago.

Equiano was the author of the first black best-selling auto-biography. He was an Igbo ex-slave who earned his freedom (yes, he eventually married an oyinbo girl…lol). Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is listed among the top 100 books ever written.

There are no tigers in Africa, but there was Dick Tiger, a world boxing champion and a Nigerian.

It will take pages to list other Nigerian achievers in the sciences as well as the arts, music…but it is just words and names, unless you desire to have your name up there. I think you should ‘want’ your name to be up there.

Greatness will not be given to you just because ‘you try’. There are no notable people who did not sacrifice themselves on the altar of excellence. That is how you know who you really are.

Did you ever wonder why world speaks of Nigeria with a sad kind of disappointment? They wonder why we have not yet taken to the paths of excellence set by those who came before us? I think we still excel, but most of us do not know where to start first. Some of us do.

We admire Tuface Idibia, Genevieve Nnaji and other great achievers…I know I do. Yet, speak with any of them in a sober moment, and you will realise a truth. They saw what the world offered and believed they could just as well, if not better. They haven’t stopped.

Life is more than a series experiences. Life is about facing the task you were born with.  The task is to discover the full worth of your life. This task falls to you reading this.

What could possibly qualify me to dare consider this? I am a Nigerian. My flavour is Nigerian. My talent is Nigerian. It runs in my blood. It is why I can look the world in the eye and say, “You’re looking at our oil, but ‘we’ are the real black gold.”

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Remi Nda Olutimayin is a writer, producer, and voice-actor. He has recently worked on cutting edge projects like animation (the Our Own Area collection on Youtube), podcast series (‘Reptile’ on The Ghenghen).  He also works on more mainstream projects like documentaries, television and radio adverts. In 2011 his novel turned into a series ‘Fourth Day‘ featured on ‘thecapoeirapanda’ blog was nominated for best series on a Nigerian blog. You can follow him – @remiolutimayin.

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30 Days 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians to share their stories and experiences with other young Nigerians, within our borders and beyond, to inspire and motivate them.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.