This is Nigeria.

I'm a pretty selective listener of secular music. In the last 10 to 15 years, it's just songs by Asa, Dare Art Alade, Cobhams, Lagbaja and a few popular ones by Adekunle Gold that locally catch my attention.

I don't believe we sing with brilliance or gut anymore until Folarin Falana aka Falz taught me differently with his THIS IS NIGERIA video mimicking Childish Gambino's This is America stint.

It quickly begins in a warehouse...something with the ironic meaning of a country. We catch Falz listening to the news on radio about our torn democracy. The folks in the background don't care what's being said... typical of our nonchalance to and ignorance of our social realities.

Some are boxing each other in the background. Others are playing other games.

The camera focuses on a guitar-man dressed in dashiki, a traditionally native Fulani attire. He leaves the object of his passion and picks up a matchete to have someone's head off mindlessly!

People walk past, unconcerned. Falz wades through all of that cacophony like dew through the clouds, unperturbed, running a damning but true commentary and oh my God, girls in grey hijab dance shakushaku--a body movement inspired by popular ultra-secularist, Olamide.

Immediately...

I saw the criss-cross between hallowed religion and common society. I had to see that video several times to not miss the ingenuity compressed in every act; nestled in every plot. Even the types of cars used in that video had a deliberate meaning. What a masterpiece!

But sentimental people looked beyond the crux of the music that begged our curiosity. All they saw was the inappropriateness of using Hijab-wearing girls to dance shakushaku.

How shallow!

MURIC was more concerned about depicting all Muslim girls as pious rather than embrace the truth that Chibok and Dapchi girls are strangely at home in a situation that should never have happened had we got a society that works.

The heat from this illogical criticism is doused but it tells us something very fundamental about us. We are incurably sentimental. And the problem is bigger because never in history has objectivity been in high demand.

Talk about an unfortunate conversation with a nurse today and NURSES feel obligated to discredit you even if what you say is true.

Talk about Doctors who abscond from their duty and Doctors feel it is the medical profession that is insulted.

Talk about Politicians who steal and faction loyalists de-legitimize your truth by comparing the extent of thievery in one administration to the next. "We didn't steal as much as your political party did." someone will gloat.

At some point, no one can open up about difficult contexts in our society successfully and get an intellectually stimulating response. Instead, we bicker about whose ego was hurt rather than shape our future blazingly.

Our sentiments prevent us all from recognizing the unfortunate realities that are right at our doorsteps. Just like a mother who bluntly refuses that her son is a rapist in spite of overwhelming evidence chiefly because he is her son, we are mostly under a delusion when all we have to address issues is our bias. We fight when it suits us. We keep silent when it doesn't and demand others to do same.

Bias shockingly stops smart people from being brilliant.

Whether it is professional, religious, or personal, we are gravely limited by how we respond to the evils that come from our own backyard.

As long as we want truth undermined because it touches the nerves of our sentiments, we will never have the courage to address that truth.

But then, who cares if sentiments are a problem?

This is Nigeria!