THERE’s a difference between living and surviving, but in Nigeria, we’ve blurred the line so badly that we now celebrate survival like it’s a life achievement.
“Ah ah, you’re doing well o.” Doing what exactly? Breathing through chaos?
Because tell me why waking up, navigating bad roads, unstable prices, unpredictable systems, and still managing to eat twice a day has now become something we applaud like a milestone. Since when did basic existence become success?
We are not living; we are coping endlessly.
How I see living is having plans that don’t get disrupted by policies you didn’t create. Living is building something without constantly calculating what will go wrong tomorrow. Living is rest without guilt and ease without suspicion.
But here? You price your products today, and by next week you’re adjusting again not because you want more profit, but because survival has become more expensive. You increase your price by ₦200 and feel guilty, even though everything you use has doubled. Survival has even taken away the confidence to charge what things are worth.
You make plans with your full chest, then whisper “if nothing happens” at the end, because experience has taught you not to trust stability. And somehow, we’ve adjusted so well to this instability that we now romanticize it.
“Na so we see am.”
“We go dey alright.”
Will we?
Or have we just mastered the art of enduring?
Take fuel, for example.
One day it’s one price; the next day it has quietly climbed again and what do we do? We sigh, complain in small circles, and still queue to buy it. No real questions. No real resistance. Just silent adjustment.
Even staying connected has become a luxury, but we’ve adjusted so well that we now budget for frustration. Data finishes faster, prices quietly increase, and you just switch networks or buy again like it’s normal.
NEPA brings light at 2am., and suddenly you’re grateful as if basic electricity is a favour, not a service you should expect. Transport goes up, food follows, and everything else joins the party. Everything goes up except income. We’ve turned hardship into content memes, jokes, trending sounds anything to make survival feel lighter than it actually is.
You wake up one morning and bread has increased again. Rice too. Tomatoes have formed their own government, and after the initial “Ah ah!”, life continues. Because what choice do you have?
A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with one of my brothers about all this cost of living, the constant pressure, the quiet frustration everyone is carrying. In the middle of it, he said something that sounded like a joke at first: “Until bread is ₦20,000, Nigerians will not be sensible.” I laughed.
But after the conversation ended, it didn’t feel funny anymore. Because the truth is, we adjust too quickly. We adapt to every increase, every inconvenience, every new level of hardship like it’s just another phase to survive. No pause. No real pushback. Just acceptance wrapped in humour and resilience. And the more we accept, the more it stretches.
The dangerous thing about constant survival mode is that it lowers your expectations without your permission. You stop asking for better. You start managing systems, relationships, and everything even your own dreams.
We normalize things that should frustrate us, we laugh about things that should concern us, and we adapt to things we should be questioning. And slowly, without realizing it, survival becomes our identity.
Now bring it home.
We say the country is failing, but in our homes, what are we building? Children who can endure, or children who can think, question, and demand better?
Because a generation raised only to manage will grow into adults who accept anything. Anything including local rice and a few packs of spaghetti during elections, not even a carton to last you roughly a month. And a society full of people who accept anything will never demand change from leaders or from themselves.
So yes, the system is hard. Nobody is denying that. But if survival is all we ever aim for, then survival is all we will ever get.
Maybe the real question is not, “How are we coping?” Maybe it’s, “At what point do we stop coping and start insisting on actually living?”
Because there has to be more to life than just getting through it.
Voice just cleared its throat.
- Kabara is a writer and public commentator. Her syndicated column, Voice, appears in News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday. She can be reached at hafceekay01@gmail.com.