Writing POC 101

Nigerian Characters - @siriuslystyling

Honestly on Wattpad, I haven't read a lot if stories with Nigerian characters. I mean even most Nigerians don't write about them. So I just want to assume most people don't know much about us or we aren't really noticed.

Firstly to begin, Nigeria is a country in Africa not a state. It is a country with 36 states and a capital. We have over 250 ethnic groups. The most predominant tribes are Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa . But we have smaller tribes like kalabari's, ijaws, Idomas etc. Our major language is English but people speak their languages and pidgin(which is like the africanized version of English).

Our skin colour varies, you might see someone really light skinned or dark skinned. We even have people with different eye colours. And we are all Nigerians and most of us aren't mixed (biracial). We are just different like that.

Our names are pretty normal, you could definitely meet a Brittany or North here. It just depends on how traditional the person's parents are. Like my name is pretty different. Also the norm around here is to have one English name, one native name and your surname. Or mostly just native names.

The food differs in each tribe but there are some things which everybody eats like Rice(white, jollof, fried), Soup(different types). We even have fast food (yes oh we eat pizza and all that).

We live in houses(take note South Park). I don't think you know how annoying it is to see cartoons with Nigerians still living in huts and stuff. I mean we have developed a lot, so at least portray us correctly on TV.

And most importantly the stereotype that we are all scammers is really annoying. Sure some Nigerians have done it but not every Nigerian is a prince looking to scam you out of your money.

We have the internet, we use Wi-Fi or mobile data. And yes we know all about the latest pop culture. I'm pretty sure we may even know more than you( yes we like busybody). Yes we know about Halsey, One Direction and Sza. We watch all the latest TV shows(Riverdale please start again), we also fangirl over books. We use Instagram and twitter(and in my opinion Nigerian twitter is just crazy).

And not just knowing about foreign Pop culture. We also have a lot of great artists, writers and actors. Again just like I said we have grown and our entertainment industry has grown too. You can check out music from Wizkid, Ycee, Mr Eazi, Waje, Yemi Alade, Tiwa Savage to get an idea of our style of music. And read books like Americana, last days at Fokado high etc.

We honestly do a lot of the same things any other country does. Just because we live in Africa doesn't make us retarded. We also have a lot of humour. I mean you can't just leave your house and not laugh at something funny a Nigerian would do.

Not trying to sound like a tourist ad but come visit Nigeria and try not to fall in love with us.

Oh and before I forget we don't sound as strange as Hollywood makes it seem. In my opinion sha, again if you have watched that episode of the simpsons with the Nigerian king and princess, our accent isn't as thick or strange like that.