I have asked this question more times than I can count, sometimes aloud, sometimes under my breath while stuck in Lagos traffic, sometimes in the quiet of a bedroom after a quarrel, sometimes in the queue at the bank when the network is down, sometimes when PHCN takes light and leaves us in darkness, sometimes when our political leaders fail us completely and much more. I have always asked, Should I believe in you? It is a question we put to lovers, to spouses, to friends, to bosses, to pastors and imams, to our elected chairmen, governors and presidents, to the idea of Nigeria itself. It is not a cynical question, though it can sound like one; it is a practical question, a survival question. To believe in someone is to hand them a piece of our future, to say, “Hold this for me while I do the rest.” We want to know if the hands are steady.
In Nigeria, belief is not a luxury. We believe because we must. We believe that the bus will eventually come, that the generator will rest when the power returns, that the lecturer will sign the form if we wait long enough, that the market woman will give us a fair measure if we greet her properly. We believe because the day does not move without small acts of faith. The poet John Donne said, “No man is an island,” and that feels especially true here, where the neighbor’s light becomes your light when NEPA takes yours. The Yoruba put it plainly: “Eniyan laso mi”—people are my covering. If people are our covering, then trust is the thread.
Love is where most of us first learn the grammar of belief. In a country where weddings are big and marriages are bigger, we talk about love as though it were a party, but we live it as though it were a farm. A farm needs rain, and patience, and weeding. In Kano and Port Harcourt, in Jos and Ibadan, young people are dating with one eye on romance and the other on reality: can we build a home on two salaries that arrive late, on rent that climbs like a yam vine, on families that expect support from the same pocket? “Love does not consist in gazing at each other,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “but in looking outward together in the same direction.” That is a Nigerian truth. The couple who can look outward together—toward school fees, toward an ageing parent, toward a small business—has a chance. The ones who only gaze at each other find that romance alone cannot pay the electricity bill.
Marriage, then, is not just love’s certificate; it is love’s workshop. The Igbo saying, “Di na nwunye je olu” reminds us that husband and wife go to the farm together. When both carry hoes, the work is lighter. I have seen marriages thrive not because they are free of trouble—no marriage is—but because they treat trouble as a joint project. They budget together, they pray together, they argue and then cook together. They understand what the writer Chimamanda Adichie means when she insists that “we should all be feminists,” because a marriage where a woman’s voice is honored is a marriage where two adults can solve problems instead of one adult issuing instructions. Trust in marriage is not a dramatic vow; it is a thousand ordinary decisions: to pick up the children, to keep one’s promises, to return home.
Economic development is another place where the question—should I believe in you?—matters. We talk about GDP as though it were weather, but it is really the sum of our daily agreements. Will the supplier deliver? Will the customer pay? Will the regulator be fair? When these answers are mostly yes, the economy grows; when they are mostly no, it stalls. The late economist Albert Hirschman wrote about “exit” and “voice,” and Nigerians have mastered both: we exit bad services, and we raise our voices in complaint. Yet we also return, again and again, to try. A trader in Onitsha believes in the customer she has never met; a fintech founder in Yaba believes in a team of twenty-somethings; a farmer in Benue believes that the rains will come and the roads will hold. This is not naiveté. It is what the philosopher John Locke called the social contract in its smallest form: I will do my part if you do yours.
The manager, whether she runs a factory in Aba or a school in Sokoto, is the custodian of that contract in miniature. She sets the tone for whether people believe in the workplace. If she rewards effort, tells the truth about challenges, and shares credit when things go well, people begin to believe in the institution and not just in their salaries. Peter Drucker’s line that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” could have been written in a Nigerian staff room. You can have the best plan, but if people do not believe the manager will keep her word, they will not bring their full selves to work. A manager who shows up early, who listens more than she talks, who apologizes when she is wrong, does more for productivity than any motivational poster. Trust is the invisible currency that makes all the other currencies work. The sociologist Niklas Luhmann said that trust reduces social complexity; it is a shortcut that lets us move faster. Anyone who has tried to do business in a low-trust environment knows the cost: extra paperwork, extra guarantees, extra time. In a high-trust environment, a handshake still means something. Nigeria has pockets of high trust—family networks, alumni associations, cooperative societies—where money moves on reputation. We can grow those pockets into fields. The Hausa proverb, “Aminci ba ya saye,” tells us that peace, and by extension trust, cannot be bought; it must be built.
Politics tests our belief the most because it involves power and because power can hurt. Should we believe in our leaders? The honest answer is: we should believe in the possibility of good leadership while demanding evidence. Edmund Burke warned that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Belief without action is sentiment; action without belief is burnout. We need both. We need to vote, to monitor budgets, to attend town halls, to call our representatives by name. We also need to remember that leaders are not magicians; they are managers of a complex house. If we treat every politician as irredeemable, we free the bad ones from accountability and we discourage the good ones from trying.
Yet there are reasons for hope that are not sentimental. In 2023 and 2024, Nigerians under thirty organized, advocated, built tech solutions, and fed their communities during floods and cash shortages. In markets from Mile 12 to Kawo, women ran ajo and esusu that moved millions without a single bank form. In churches and mosques, volunteers taught children who had dropped out of school. These are leadership acts, even if they do not carry titles. When we ask whether to believe in leaders, we should include the leaders we already have in our compounds and classrooms. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt reminded us, power arises from people acting together, not from a single office.
Belief must also make room for disappointment, because disappointment will come. The lover will forget an anniversary. The spouse will speak harshly after a hard day. The manager will make a bad call. The government will announce a policy that hurts before it helps. If we define belief as the absence of failure, we will never believe in anyone. If we define it as the willingness to repair, we have a chance. The writer James Baldwin said, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” Belief in each other is the practice of taking off the masks, of being seen, of being corrected and still staying at the table. There is a temptation to outsource our future to one person—a president, a governor, a chairman, a CEO, a spouse. But no single person can carry a country or a family. The burden must be distributed. The Yoruba say, “Agbajo owo la fi n soya”—it is with the collective hand that we beat the chest in celebration. Development is collective. Marriage is collective. Even personal growth is collective; we become better because someone believes in us long enough for us to believe in ourselves. The psychologist Carl Rogers called this “unconditional positive regard” and every Nigerian who has been encouraged by a teacher or an auntie knows what he meant.
We should also be honest about the forces that erode belief. Poverty does. So does impunity. When a person works hard and still cannot pay hospital bills, belief frays. When a politician breaks the law and nothing happens, belief frays. When a manager steals credit, belief frays. The antidote is not slogans; it is consequences and consistency. People believe in systems that are predictable. If a rule applies to everyone, belief grows. If not, it withers. The economist Daron Acemoglu and the political scientist James Robinson wrote that nations succeed when institutions are inclusive. Inclusion is another word for saying: you matter here; your voice counts; you can believe.
In love, we often confuse intensity with reliability. Intensity is easy; reliability is hard. The partner who shows up when it is inconvenient is the one you can believe in. In marriage, we confuse ceremony with commitment. A big wedding is fine, but it is not the same as the daily commitment to listen. In business, we confuse charisma with competence. A charismatic manager can inspire, but a competent one can deliver. In politics, we confuse eloquence with integrity. A good speech is nice, but a good track record is better. The philosopher Confucius said, “The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.” That is the standard we should apply across board. We also need to interrogate our own part in the cycle of disbelief. Have we kept our promises to others? Have we paid the young intern on time? Have we returned the borrowed generator in the condition we found it? Trust is reciprocal. If we want to believe in leaders, we must be believable ourselves. If we want managers to be fair, we must be diligent employees. If we want spouses to be faithful, we must be honest about our own needs. The Golden Rule is not a moral decoration; it is a practical guide: do to others what you want done to you. It is how a society becomes trustworthy.
Technology has changed the way we practice belief. Mobile money, BVN, online marketplaces, ride-hailing apps—these are systems that try to make trust scalable. They work when the underlying human behavior is honest. When it is not, we add more layers of verification and the system slows down. Yet even here there is hope: the speed with which Nigerians adopted digital payments shows that we are willing to believe in systems that prove themselves. Trust, as the writer Rachel Botsman says, is a confident relationship with the unknown. We are learning, as a country, how to be confident together.
