Good morning, Nigeria.

Low expectations have become one of our most impressive national skills.

We have perfected the art of celebrating the bare minimum.

A road that almost works.

Electricity that occasionally remembers us.

A public office that answers your call.

A government website that actually loads.

A leader who fails slightly less than the person before him.

We clap.

We trend.

We congratulate ourselves.

And somehow, something that should have been ordinary becomes a national achievement.

When the Bare Minimum Becomes Excellence

A road gets repaired and we celebrate as if a new city has been built.

Electricity stays on for several days and people begin asking what has changed.

A public servant does the job they were hired to do and suddenly everyone is impressed by their “leadership.”

A company responds to a customer complaint and we call the service excellent.

The standard keeps moving lower.

Eventually, we are no longer asking whether something is good.

We are asking whether it is better than what came before.

That is how low expectations become normal.

Excellence starts looking unusual.

Competence starts looking extraordinary.

And basic standards begin to feel like luxury.

We Call It Resilience

There is a word we often use to describe this.

Resilience.

Nigerians are resilient.

We hear it so often that it has almost become part of our national identity.

We find ways around broken systems.

We improvise when things do not work.

We adjust when plans fail.

We survive bad roads, unreliable electricity, long queues, poor service and endless delays.

Then we tell ourselves that our ability to cope is proof of our strength.

Perhaps it is.

But there is a difference between resilience and acceptance.

Resilience helps you survive a difficult situation.

Acceptance can make you stop asking why the situation is difficult in the first place.

The Cost of Expecting Less

The danger of low expectations is not simply that we tolerate poor performance.

It is that we slowly forget what good performance looks like.

We become impressed by things that should be ordinary.

We praise leaders for doing basic things.

We thank institutions for providing services they are already supposed to provide.

We lower the standard, then congratulate ourselves when someone barely reaches it.

Eventually, disappointment becomes familiar.

And once disappointment becomes familiar, expecting better can start to feel unrealistic.

Excellence is suddenly arrogance.

Competence is elitism.

Expecting accountability is asking for too much.

Wanting a properly functioning system becomes impatience.

Perhaps we should be careful about celebrating our ability to survive problems that should have been solved.

Good morning to a country slowly becoming comfortable with disappointment.

This is not always resilience.

Sometimes, it is simply adaptation.

And perhaps the real genius is not learning how to live with less.

Perhaps it is learning to demand better.