This is ‘so long a letter’ to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a significant brand ambassador of Nigeria to the world. It is an appeal for her to believe an ancient word that is ever so true: that the land of her birth will soon fulfill destiny. And so the wickedness of the wicked concerning the country she now hates to return to, will soon come to an end.

‘The Interview That Broke Our Hearts’
Last week, The New York Times published your interview. And one line landed like a stone in the middle of Nigeria. You said you would not like to return to Nigeria: That the loss of your son to curious absence of reliable healthcare is the reason. We read it in Lagos, in Abuja, in Enugu, in Cape Town, in London, in Atlanta. We read it in silence. No one can argue with grief. No one can argue with a mother’s pain. The death of a child because hospitals failed is the cruelest indictment of a state. It is a wound that no GDP figure, no press release, no mega rally can bandage.

We are sorry, Chimamanda. Nigeria failed you. The political and business elite who built hospitals abroad and let ours rot failed you. The system that uses, sorry weaponises poverty as policy instrument failed you.

But this special appeal is not to debate your pain. It is to plead with your purpose. Reason: You are not just Chimamanda the person. You are Chimamanda the voice. The voice that began with 2003 “Purple Hibiscus”, which follows Kambili Achike, a 15-year-old Nigerian teenage girl who struggles in the shadow of her father, Eugene. The voice that told the world about “Half of a Yellow Sun.” The voice that warned the West of “The Danger of a Single Story.”

The voice that wove her identity around Nigeria and the black race! The voice that taught the world to see us differently. If that voice goes silent on Nigeria, who will speak for us?

So we plead: Let go. And let God. But don’t let go of Nigeria. And here is the thing, “You cannot write a love letter to a country for 20 years and then burn it because the house caught fire. You stay and help put out the fire.”

You Wove Your Identity Around Us. We Wove Our Hope Around You.

Let us remember who you are to us. “Half of a Yellow Sun”(2006). You took us back to Biafra. Not with politics, but with Olanna, Odenigbo, Ugwu. You made the world feel the hunger, the air raids, the love in war. You made Igbo history global literature. You did not run from the hard story. You told it.

“Americanah” (2013). You took Ifemelu to America and back. You wrote about hair, about race, about “Dear Non-American Black.” You told the world that the black experience is not a single story. You used your Nigerian lens to correct the world. “The Danger of a Single Story” (2009). That TED Talk. 30 million views. You told the world: Don’t reduce Africa to war and poverty. Don’t reduce Nigeria to 419 and corruption. For 20 years, you have carried Nigeria on your back in every interview, every essay, every novel. You made “Naija” literary. You made our English, our food, our arguments, our grief, world-class. Chimamanda, if you leave now, the political elite who ran down our hospitals will clap. They will say: “See, even she has given up.”

And the single story you fought against will win. You cannot let that happen.

‘We understand the bitterness. You are not alone in it’.

Your pain is valid. The strange absence of reliable healthcare in Nigeria is a national shame. Children die. Mothers die. Fathers fly abroad for malaria.

The elite have houses in London, Dubai, Houston, Cape Town. They have insurance in Switzerland. There is no law stopping them. But there should be a law of conscience. We are bitter too, Chimamanda.

Citizen Martins Oloja writes every week in The Guardian: “Your PVC is your power of mass destruction”, he once wrote. “#2027: How Your Voter Card Can Reshape Nigeria…“, he wrote just last week. He is bitter about corruption. Doctors are bitter. They are leaving in thousands. Teachers are bitter. Schools have no roofs. Mothers in IDP camps are bitter. We are all in this bitterness together. Weep not, our dear Chimamanda!

But bitterness without action becomes exile. And exile, however justified, hands victory to those who caused the pain. What is more painful, He/she who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. You have run. You have survived. You have told the story. Now come back and fight. Not with guns. With your voice.

‘If you stay away, they win’.

Let us be blunt about what happens if you don’t return.

1. The elite celebrate: The governors who didn’t build hospitals. The ministers who flew abroad for checkups. The contractors who stole health budgets. They will say: “Even Chimamanda agrees Nigeria is finished.”

Your absence becomes their alibi.

2. The single story returns: For 20 years you fought it. “Africa is not just war.” “Nigeria is not just fraud.” If you stay away, the world goes back to writing us as a country that even its best minds abandoned.

3. The next generation loses a model: A girl in Nsukka reading “Americanah” needs to know that the woman who wrote it believes Nsukka is worth fighting for. A boy in Kano needs to know that excellence does not require exile.

Our dear Chimamanda, Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth. Now more than 230 million people. If you, with all your influence and bold voice, give up, what message do we send to the 100 million under 30? We cannot afford for you to be discouraged.

‘God did not make a mistake’. “For such a time as this”.

You are a storyteller. So you know about calling. Esther in the Bible was told: “Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

You, Chimamanda, were born Nigerian “for such a time as this.” This is the time of danger. Yes.

Hospitals are failing. Schools are failing. Food inflation is choking us. Energy tariffs are driving away business. Crazy port charges are still driving away even foreign direct investors. But this is also the time of possibilities. How do I know? Nigerians are angry in a new way. They are not just protesting. They are organising. They are using PVCs as weapons. They just did it in Osun State. They are refusing mega rallies. They are reading, writing, recording, demanding.

This is the time a writer is needed most.

Not in New York explaining us. But here, with us, shaping us. Let go of the pain. Let God. But don’t let go of the critical assignment.

‘What “stay and fight” looks like – It
doesn’t mean you must live in Lagos Traffic’. We are not asking you to move back tomorrow and queue at LUTH. “Stay and fight” can look like this:

1. Remain our conscience abroad: Use “The New York Times”, “The New Yorker”, “TIME”, “Los Angeles Times” your platform. Not just to say why you left, but to say what must change for you to return. Name the hospitals. Name the budgets. Shame the elite.

2. ‘Build with us: Start a Foundation. Partner with three (3) teaching hospitals. Fund 100 doctors’ training. Digitise medical records. You have the network. You have the credibility.

3. Join the coalition: Join Wole Soyinka. Join Femi Falana. Join Aisha Yesufu. Join Oby Ezekwesili. Join Omoyele Sowore. Join the doctors, the nurses, the journalists writing daily against poor leadership. One voice is loud. A chorus is unstoppable.

4. Write the next novel here: Write about the Nigeria that is fighting back. About the nurse in Enugu who saves three (3) babies with a candle light. About the community health centre that works in Kano. Give us a new story to fight for. You don’t have to be president. You have to be present.

The irony – You wrote about leaving and coming back: Chimamanda, re-read “Americanah”. Ifemelu left. She was hurt. America broke her. But she came back. Not because Nigeria was perfect. But because it was hers. Because “home” is not where you are comfortable. It is where you are responsible. You wrote that book. Now live that chapter.

Nigeria is not asking for perfection. We are asking for presence.

We are asking the woman who told the world about the danger of a single story not to reduce Nigeria to a single tragedy.

What we promise you if you come back to the fight: We cannot promise you a working hospital tomorrow. That would be a lie. But we promise you this:

1. We will fight with you: There are millions of Nigerians who are tired of transactional leadership. Who want good schools, functional hospitals, stable and affordable electricity. Stand with us and we will stand with you.

2. We will protect your voice: The government may not like what you say. But 200 million people will hear it. And they will act on it.

3. We will build the Nigeria in your books: The Nigeria of Olanna’s courage. Of Ifemelu’s honesty. Of Ugwu’s resilience. It is not dead. It is waiting.

In rounding off, accept my plea: Please, don’t let them win, Chimamanda. We know the grief. We know the anger. No mother should bury a child because a hospital had no oxygen. But if you let that grief turn into permanent distance, then the men who stole the health budget have killed twice. Once in the hospital. And again in your heart. Don’t give them that second victory.

Finally, let go. Let God heal you. But don’t let go of Nigeria. The most populous black nation on earth needs its best storyteller in the room while we rewrite the ending. As an oracle of the Most High, I decree and declare that, “Nigeria will fulfill destiny after this present danger we all face.”

We don’t need to run away. God didn’t make a mistake by creating us to be here. Come. Fight. Write. Build. Reason: A country that loses Chimamanda has lost more than a citizen. It has lost its mirror. And we cannot afford to live with. out seeing ourselves clearly anymore.

With love, with grief, with “hope of a better day, which our Kenya’s iconic Ngugi wa Thiong’o says, is the only comfort we can give to a weeping child.

Sincerely, Your Small Brother,

Deacon Martins Oloja, Ajagba, Irele LGA, Ondo State, Nigeria.