http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28015962
Some years ago, a British filmmaker discovered an exotic site in Nigeria: An entire community of human beings subsisting on mountains of refuse.
And not in some remote state, but in Lagos, the country's commercial nerve centre - a city of fast cars, luxury shops and sleek folk, with women in Brazilian hair weaves and men in Ferragamo shoes.
Shortly after the Welcome to Lagos series aired on the BBC in April 2010, Nigerians around the world went berserk.
"There was this colonialist idea of the noble savage which motivated the programme," Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said of the documentary.
"It was patronising and condescending," he added.
Online forums also went ablaze. "They are giving us a bad image," many Nigerians fumed.
Then the Lagos State government submitted a formal complaint to the BBC, calling on the organisation to commission an alternative series to "repair the damage we believe this series has caused to our image".
Similarly, Nigeria was reluctant to accept desperately needed foreign assistance to fight terrorism, despite the country's armed forces being clearly overwhelmed.
We were more worried about how requesting help might affect Nigeria's image than about forestalling the wanton destruction by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
In October 1960, Nigeria was loosed from the shackles of imperialism when the colonialists packed their bags and left.
But over five decades later, Nigerians remain in captivity: Foreigners control our self-image.
What the West thinks of us often takes manic precedence over who we really are, what we know and feel about ourselves.
The Europeans who first landed in Africa were unconcerned when the people they regarded as monkeys equally assumed that the white interlopers were ghosts.
The Germans can shrug it off when they are stereotyped as humourless; the Russians can dismiss it when they are described as cold.
But the Nigerian just has to kick up a tornado whenever he is perceived unpalatably.
Some years ago, a British filmmaker discovered an exotic site in Nigeria: An entire community of human beings subsisting on mountains of refuse.
And not in some remote state, but in Lagos, the country's commercial nerve centre - a city of fast cars, luxury shops and sleek folk, with women in Brazilian hair weaves and men in Ferragamo shoes.
Shortly after the Welcome to Lagos series aired on the BBC in April 2010, Nigerians around the world went berserk.
"There was this colonialist idea of the noble savage which motivated the programme," Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said of the documentary.
"It was patronising and condescending," he added.
Online forums also went ablaze. "They are giving us a bad image," many Nigerians fumed.
Then the Lagos State government submitted a formal complaint to the BBC, calling on the organisation to commission an alternative series to "repair the damage we believe this series has caused to our image".
Similarly, Nigeria was reluctant to accept desperately needed foreign assistance to fight terrorism, despite the country's armed forces being clearly overwhelmed.
We were more worried about how requesting help might affect Nigeria's image than about forestalling the wanton destruction by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
In October 1960, Nigeria was loosed from the shackles of imperialism when the colonialists packed their bags and left.
But over five decades later, Nigerians remain in captivity: Foreigners control our self-image.
What the West thinks of us often takes manic precedence over who we really are, what we know and feel about ourselves.
The Europeans who first landed in Africa were unconcerned when the people they regarded as monkeys equally assumed that the white interlopers were ghosts.
The Germans can shrug it off when they are stereotyped as humourless; the Russians can dismiss it when they are described as cold.
But the Nigerian just has to kick up a tornado whenever he is perceived unpalatably.
i don't know what to make of this. 
