Part 1: What We Were Told a Man Should Be
They never really say it outright. What they give you instead are looks. Tones. Phrases passed down like family recipes.
“Be a man.”
“Don’t talk too much.”
“You’re the first son—you know what that means.”
So, you learn. You learn how to hold your breath and call it strength. You learn how to work through exhaustion and call it dignity. You learn how to break quietly, in ways no one will notice because being seen falling apart is worse than falling apart itself.
Whether you grew up in Abeokuta or Atlanta, there’s a particular silence that lives in the Nigerian man. A kind of rehearsed endurance. The belief that if you suffer well, you’ll earn respect. That manhood is measured by how much you can absorb without complaint. And so you carry. You carry expectations that are older than you. You carry shame that was never yours. You carry the fear of not being enough, of not providing enough, of not dying with your dignity intact.
But here’s what they don’t tell you: the performance of masculinity may win you praise, but it will also leave you alone.
The solitude takes different shapes, depending on where you are. In Nigeria, it’s the man sitting in traffic after a long day, knowing that the people waiting for him at home are counting on a man who no longer recognises himself. In the UK, it’s the man who sends half his paycheck home and eats toast for dinner—but smiles in every family video call so no one worries. In Canada, it’s the man who stands outside the grocery store on a winter evening, unsure if the emptiness in his chest is homesickness or depression. In the U.S., it’s the man who just got promoted but hasn’t told anyone he hasn’t slept properly in weeks.
Different cities. Same heaviness.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of manhood became a burden—a constant pressure to perform, produce, protect. No wonder so many men don’t know what it feels like to simply be. To exist without being measured. The scary thing is, many of them don’t even know they’re performing. It feels normal. Expected. Even noble. Especially when everyone around you is doing the same. That’s the dangerous thing about culture—it rewards you for repeating it, even when it’s killing you softly.
But something else is happening now.
Quietly, awkwardly, imperfectly—some men are beginning to ask, what if there’s more to me than this role I’ve been playing? They’re not abandoning manhood. They’re remaking it. Not because the West demands it. Not because social media said so. But because the silence has become too loud. The loneliness too sharp. The script too tight to keep breathing.
A man, still deeply Nigerian, still full of pride and prayer, might find himself in therapy. Or in his kitchen, learning to cook food that tastes like home. He might open up to his friend for the first time and not die of shame. He might begin to love himself, not for what he does, but simply for who he is.
It’s not a movement. It’s not even a trend. It’s something smaller. A slow, personal rebellion. A quiet kind of courage.
There’s still a long way to go. There are still fathers who won’t say “I love you,” brothers who’d rather mock than ask questions, women who expect their men to suffer in silence the way their fathers did.
But there are cracks now. And through the cracks, something softer is breaking through.
This is Part One of a three-part reflection on what it means to be a Nigerian man today; here, there, everywhere. Next, we’ll look at the hustle. How it defines us, drains us, and how some men are learning to choose rest without guilt.
But for now, just sit with this: What have you been carrying in the name of being a man? And what would happen if you put it down? Lets have a chat in the comment section and on our social media channels.
