Africa is a land of extremes—breathtaking beauty and harsh realities, resilience and struggle. It’s a place where survival isn’t just a skill; it’s second nature. From the genetic adaptation that gave rise to sickle cell anemia as a defense against malaria to the way Africans find humor in hardship, we have mastered the art of endurance. But what if this very ability to adapt is both our greatest strength and our biggest limitation?
Nature has a dark sense of humor. In a bid to survive malaria—one of the deadliest diseases on the continent—Africans unknowingly evolved with a genetic mutation that offers protection against it. The catch? When inherited from both parents, this same mutation causes sickle cell anemia, a painful and life-threatening condition. A defense mechanism that both saves and destroys—sound familiar? This is Africa’s story. We endure, we adjust, but often at great cost. We normalize struggle instead of demanding better. And just like sickle cell’s painful trade-off, our survival instincts sometimes work against us.
If there’s one thing Africans do well, it’s finding humor in chaos. From Nigerian memes about power outages to skits on fuel scarcity, we turn suffering into satire. The government increases fuel prices? There’s a joke about it before noon. The power grid collapses? The internet explodes with tweets about how “NEPA took light” again. Humor, for us, isn’t just comedy—it’s therapy. It keeps us sane in a world that often feels like a bad joke. But could it also be a distraction? Because after the laughter dies down, the problems remain.
The leaders don’t change. The policies don’t improve. The systems don’t get better. But instead of demanding more, we hustle harder. The roads are bad? We buy SUVs. Public hospitals are terrible? We fly out for treatment (if we can afford it). Power supply is unreliable? We buy generators and solar panels. We don’t fight the system—we find alternatives. And while that resilience is commendable, it’s also a problem. Imagine if we took that same energy and directed it toward demanding change instead of just adapting to dysfunction. Imagine if, instead of adjusting, we disrupted.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t. We have been conditioned to see survival as a victory when, in reality, it’s just barely getting by. The world praises African resilience. We do too. But should survival be the goal? Why do we endure when we should resist? Why do we accept subpar governance when we should demand better? Why do we settle for “hustling harder” instead of creating systems that make life easier?
Our ability to make things work, no matter how broken they are, is both our strength and our weakness. Resilience should not mean accepting suffering as a way of life. It should mean turning challenges into real, lasting change.
Africa’s ability to survive against all odds is undeniable. But what if we started fighting for more than just survival? What if our resilience wasn’t just about getting by, but about breaking cycles? What if we refused to just cope and started demanding better?
The world needs strong-willed, innovative, and fearless people—and Africa has no shortage of them. The challenge now is to turn resilience into resistance, endurance into empowerment, and survival into success.
We are more than just survivors. We are the revolution waiting to happen.
Written by: Esther Ajayi
