LOWER MIDDLE CLASS NIGERIAN PARENTS DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ARTISTIC DREAMS

So for anyone who knows me, they probably know I am a sucker for stories and crafted words, there's just something that resonates within me to think out human interactions, lived experiences and alternate realities, I also love reading books (I probably read more anyways), this week I was incredibly lucky to read my first novel manuscript (for those who don't know, manuscripts are unpublished writings), this manuscript was written by my sisters classmate, my sister is in SS1.

When I say novel, I don't mean hastily cobbled together words or badly written prose, no, he wrote his book, with about half of a 60 leaves notebook, he wrote and the title of the book was "How to get girls, for dummies", pardon the priapic title of his book for one bit and indulge a 15 years old author, yes a 15 years old author.

When President Olusegun Obasanjo left office at the end of his tenure as Nigeria's first democratically elected president since 1999, one of his most significant achievements was the creation of a Nigerian lower Middle Class, previously in Nigeria, the social stratosphere was decidedly rich or poor, but with the injection of new funds, investments and idea into the Nigerian economy, the rich obviously got richer but a new class rose from the poor, the lower Middle Class, they slowly but surely rose out of poverty and moved into little spheres of affluence and comfort, this class is wildly protective of its status and it is this protectiveness that I wish to speak about.

In a Nigerian lower Middle class home, due to their former status as the doormat of Nigeria, there is no room for experimentation or diversity, that is, if you are so fortunate to be born into an home like this and so unlucky to be gifted with imagination, you are an endangered specie and very much at the threat of extinction.

In a Nigerian lower Middle Class home, when you are born your parents plot out a graph for your life, you must be a medical doctor or nothing else, later on if you do not meet the requisite qualifications for this or maybe you are too stubborn, you are shoehorned into being an engineer (that's not too bad, if Iya doctor does not work at least iya Engineer can) then if all fails, well there's the trusty back up of being a lawyer or accountant (sorry, chartered accountant), I do not know which of being a lawyer or accountant comes next after engineer on the Nigerian lower Middle Class scale of preference, I'll just concede that it's a tie.

Please believe me when I tell you that this is not done out of hate or malice (of course you are free to argue otherwise), this decisions are more often taken due to economic considerations, go to university at age 17, spend 4 years (sorry 6 taking ASUU and other extenuating factors into considerations), spend a service year in extreme conditions and then start your life without being a burden to anybody (your parents most especially), that is in essence, the Nigerian lower Middle Class dream, the parents don't have time for your artistic imaginations or other aspirations not out of hate or malice but because in their experience poverty is hard and being a poor artist is even harder, reconcile that, so imagination has to take a backseat to cold hard economic facts (and a stable predictable life)

So when I finished reading the novel manuscript, another page caught my fancy, it had a list of other books written and one title particularly got me interested, so I called my sister, "Omoyisola, what are this books" , she then answered that those were other books written by this same classmates of hers,  that's numbering about 8 books at the ripe old age of 15, including a science fiction book, and that is where my fear is, that in the quest of Nigerian parents trying to help their children have safe stable lives, they stamp out creativity in them, I've seen it before, almost everyone has and it's a sad thing, really sad thing.

So I closed the manuscript and handed it to my sister and told her that it was a great book, what I meant to say was "tell your friend to work on sentence construction, continuity, subject matter and above all write more" but all I was able to say was great book because I'm scared that down the road I would be broken hearted.

P. S
My sister started S.S 1 this Monday and I haven't found bravery to ask her what class this friend of hers chose to go to, I'm scared that it'll confirm my worst fears

P. P. S
We can do better, we owe it to ourselves to.