By Adeyemo Eyitayo
Sapa, something that I had always known to be a beautiful mountainous town in Northern Vietnam has now become the regular chorus on the lips of almost every Nigerian student.
Even after the ban of Twitter in Nigeria, her ‘coconut head’ citizens still made their way to the social media app and made it a daily trend, thanks to virtual private network, VPN.
You would regularly see tweets like “I no get crush, sapa nice one,” “sapa don push me drink garri with rain water,” “sapa dey kill person” etc.
One of the definitions of the word ‘Sapa’ on Urban Dictionary explains the trending upshot as a “Nigerian Pidgin English term used to describe a state of being extremely broke or poor, usually after spending extravagantly.”
According to this definition, the rate at which the average Nigerian student spend money cannot be overemphasized. Even though, some of the things are usually not priorities but they are the so-called wants and needs.
It varies from providing food for themselves, apartment rent and utility bills – common amongst students who stay off campus – transport fares, assignments or projects. It also includes getting the latest smart phones, designer clothes, shoes, bag, Mac book, hair cut, hair styles, partying and the likes which eventually results in being broke.
In order to avoid ‘sapa’, most students engage in small or medium businesses that would serve as a regular source of income. Others resort to licentious means like going to night clubs and hooking up with men for monetary gain; then there’s the forex, bitcoin, crypto currency gurus and all sorts just to ensure sapa doesn’t score a goal.
I took to Facebook to ask a student community group about their sapa experience and here are some of the responses:
Oluwaseyifunmi: I do pop-pon work for Airtel mast project at the back of my hostel. 400 naira per day.
Tina: I ate beans wey no gree soft everyday.
Momoh: Sapa don do me bad. Sometimes garri and bread or red oil rice without seasoning… I dey chop am dey cry.
Chidinma Brown: following my friends to club to pick money on the floor sprayed by yahoo boys… Na as sapa take hook me.
Modupe: I have started selling okrika clothes in my hostel to survive for the meantime…
Being broke is not a pleasant thing, but it’s amusing how Nigerians still make jokes, memes and comedy skits out of it. Sapa nice one!
It was nice.