Why I choose to DISCOVER

In the middle of a conversation about MNIA on Friday, I was asked, “why do you do this, why is this important to you?” I answered his question, but that question has stayed with me since then. I feel like I did not adequately express my WHY.

For those of you that are not familiar with the school system in Nigeria as in many other African countries, you pay for EVERYTHING. From pre-school till the very end of your schooling, essentially, education is a luxury that only the privileged few can afford. When we travel down into the villages and rural parts of Nigeria, in addition to affordability, we are now faced with the issues of accessibility and quality.

It becomes easier to detach ourselves from the reality of situations that our friends and families face back some the longer we remain in the Diaspora and makes lives for ourselves here. We feel like we are unaffected by what the average person unrelated to us has to deal with. Yet, more people are afraid to go home. Dejected by the conditions we return to, sometimes afraid to even go home, however, the reality is that we are all affected in one way or another.

One of my professors once said that “people are punished, and then they commit crimes”. That statement has stayed with me ever since and resonates more with me when I think about most of the social issues we face back home. People are suffering; there is a blatant disregard and disrespect of the citizens by our elected officials. As a society, we are apathetic to our neighbors, we simply do not care about each, and most importantly and sadly, we have failed our children.

I choose to discover because I believe in being my brother’s keeper. I choose to discover because I want my children to share in the pride that I feel to be a Nigerian. They say home is where the heart is. My heart is in Nigeria, I choose to discover because I want to be home. I choose to discover because it is our obligation to leave this place better than it was when we found it. The people who shed blood did just that. It is our turn to pass on that torch, most importantly; we can not and must not pass a dead torch to the next generation. We must re-ignite the torch before we attempt to pass it on. I choose to discover because I am tired of being a part of a society that punishes people unjustly for being born without a silver spoon. I choose to discover because I believe in the promise of a new Nigeria.


Queen Uchekwe
MNIA Team