The Cost of Being Seen: The Nigerian Tragedy

The Cost of Being Seen: The Nigerian Tragedy

(Written by Ayodele Obayelu)

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In Nigeria, appearance often arrives before truth. Long before you speak, your body has already spoken for you; your clothes negotiate your value, your phone hints at your future, and your confidence is weighed against what you seem able to afford. You enter a room already judged, already placed, already measured.

People ask questions quickly here: what do you do, where do you work, where do you live? They sound harmless, even friendly, yet they rarely come from care. They come from a need to sort. Each answer nudges you into a box, and once you are placed, the rules shift. Some people are listened to. Others are endured.

I learned this early at a wedding in Lagos.

Two guests arrived late. One stepped out of a black SUV, dressed plainly but unmistakably expensive; ushers moved toward him at once, chairs were adjusted, and smiles widened. Minutes later, another guest arrived on a motorcycle, clean, quiet, respectful. No one insulted him, no one scolded him; they simply did not see him.

In Nigeria, invisibility is not an accident; it is a verdict. This is a society that judges books by their covers and rarely opens the pages. Substance exists, yet it struggles to compete with spectacle. Character does not announce itself loudly enough, integrity does not sparkle and class here is not only felt; it is performed. You perform it in what you wear, where you sit, what you post, and what you pretend not to notice.

Luxury has drifted far from quality and anchored itself to distance. Once too many people can reach something, it begins to lose value. Access becomes shame and scarcity becomes proof.

This logic explains why a restaurant on the Island can pour sugar, water, and ice into a glass, give it a foreign name, and sell it for fifty thousand naira. People will buy it, photograph it, and display it. The taste does not matter; the story does.

The price buys separation, not pleasure.

It also explains our discomfort with rich people who refuse to perform distance. When Davido greets freely, laughs loudly, and moves without heavy barriers, he is called classless; not because he lacks money, but because he refuses to float above people.

In this thinking, wealth must hover. It must remain untouchable. It must never lean close enough to remind us that rich people are still human.

This fear of accessibility shapes everyday choices. People avoid clothes once they become common. They abandon brands when too many can afford them. They distance themselves from places that feel ordinary. The goal is not comfort; it is separation. To be seen where everyone else can be seen is to risk becoming nothing.

The poor feel this lesson with force. Nigeria does not simply ignore the poor; it punishes them.
Across Lagos, informal settlements are demolished in the name of progress. Homes disappear overnight. No real alternatives follow. The language is always smooth: development, order, vision. What remains unsaid is clear enough. The poor disturb the image; they do not fit the picture of a global city. They must be moved away from public eyes.

Official figures tell us that millions of Nigerians live below the poverty line, yet poverty here is treated as a personal failure. If you are struggling, you must have chosen poorly. If you are suffering, you must not have worked hard enough. This belief comforts those who are doing well; it suggests their success is deserved and permanent.

You feel it at social gatherings. When you do not look rich, you wait longer, explain yourself more, and receive less patience. Your ideas land softly, if they land at all, until someone important repeats them. Respect becomes conditional and dignity must be earned visually.

What happened to character? When did integrity stop being enough? When did kindness lose its weight?

In Nigeria, packaging is treated as wisdom. People say it openly: package yourself, looks like money, sounds like money. Even if nothing else is in place, appearance can buy you time. It can open doors that honesty cannot.

I heard of a university student who was bright and tired, alert to the small ways privilege moves through rooms. He watched classmates with sudden wealth gain access without explanation. Nobody asked questions once the signs were right: phones, clothes, locations. He did not lack skill. He lacked patience in a society that rewards results, not process. When they told me he had joined internet fraud, they said his answer to friends who asked why was “I wanted to belong”.
That sentence explains more than statistics ever could.

Nigeria celebrates wealth loudly and questions it softly. The question is rarely how; it is how much. This creates a sharp divide between those who matter and those who do not, between the visible and the disposable. The elite understand this divide and protect it. They sell dreams to the poor, throw crumbs, promise tomorrow, and collect loyalty today. Desperation keeps people pliable; it keeps them voting against themselves, it keeps them grateful for what should never have been scarce.

Seeing is believing becomes a weapon. If you look rich, you must be right. If you look poor, you must be wrong.
Over time, people absorb this lesson. You begin to doubt yourself, you perform, you hide your real life, you chase symbols instead of stability, you confuse display with depth.
This is the quiet tragedy. A country bleeding not from lack of talent, but from distorted values. A place where worth is measured by shine, not substance; by noise, not honesty.

You have felt it. The moment you entered a room and shrank. The time your voice carried less weight because your clothes did not speak loudly enough. The pressure to prove yourself with things you did not need.

Ask yourself this: Who taught you that you must look expensive to matter? Who benefits when you believe it?

Change begins with how you see, not just others, but yourself. Refuse easy sorting, pay attention longer, reward integrity when you encounter it, teach children that value does not wear a price tag.

Nigeria can choose depth over display. It will take courage. It will take patience. It begins the moment you decide that being seen is not the same as being known.