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This is my gift to all the Basket Mouth fans there: Don’t you just love Nigeria!

10 Reasons Why I Love Nigeria

If any of us was asked the question, what is wrong with Nigeria? no doubt the list would be endless.

But a country which gives birth to and nourishes such extraordinary talent and spirit cannot be totally bad. There must be something right about it. It is the embers of that rightness that the Loving Nigeria forum seeks to fan.

So people, the question now is, what do you love about Nigeria? I’ll start:

1. The un-intimidatable spirit of the Nigerian.
2. Super Eagles of Nigeria (even when they are breaking my heart).
3. Naija music because of the talent, soul and the naijaness of it.
4. President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua.
5. Pidgin English.
6. The way every body from my state becomes my ‘brother’or ‘sister’ outside the state.
7. The unquenchable optimism of Nigerians (we were once even voted the world’s happiest people).
8. Our sense of community; the way people especially travellers, come together to help. (Once I was travelling and our car caught fire as we were passing through a settlement; the residents poured out to help us put out the fire. It was a profound moment.)
9. The endless patience of Nigerians (Yes. Regardless of the constant complaining and grousing, we’re still together. All around us, many other African countries have not endured 10% of what we have and they are embroiled in one crisis or the other. We are still going strong).
10. An educational system, which allows you to have a university education for a pittance. (We only realised that when Private Universities came up.

There! That was not so hard; as a matter of fact, I could go on.

There’s so much to love about Nigeria.Why don’t you leave a comment with your own list – 10 Reasons why you love Nigeria.

At the end of May, the Top 10 reasons will be posted on this blog and you would be given an opportunity to vote for your all time favourite.

 The winner gets a copy of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and a surprise gift.

It does not matter where you are, you are eligible to enter this giveaway. So c’mon, get posting!

To learn more about the book click here.

A review of the book will be added to this blog later so watch out!