There's a certain stereotype that many people do not always mention out loud in my country, but if you live here it's something you're bound to come across at one point or the other.
I live in the southern part of my country for the most part of my life and at one point there began a rising problem of insurgency up at the northern states in the country. For me it always felt like those movies where they say there's war on the kingdom outskirts and the scenes portray the battles happening in places that look so far away from the king's palace.
People in the kingdom know there's a battle going on but it always seem so far away except you live close to the where it's happening. For the most part that's how I viewed the northern states. I thought of them as unsafe but not directly my business, until I decided to go school in one of those states.
Many of my friends were wondering why I chose a university there when there were closer ones, but their concern was particularly based on the belief that as long as it was a northern states, then it was unsafe.
Although I believed some of the insurgency stories, the fact that I had family living in some of those states also helped in my decision making. So I decided to travel and see for myself.
Traveling from where I lived to where my intended school was would take me a while day in a bus ride and I didn't want to travel over unfamiliar territory at night. So I instead split the journey half way there, and the other half the next day.
On arriving in Niger state (that's the name of the state my school is located) at my Uncle's apartment, one of the first thing that struck me was the culture change. Unlike where I lived which was a city, the environment there was serene, and the mode of dressing was different.
The next day my Uncle took me on a tour of the university grounds and I couldn't help but notice there wasn't much difference with campus environment there and where I lived.
The fact that different people from various parts of the country came to school there meant that although the culture in the state itself was different from what I was used to, campus lifestyle was almost the same as that of where I came from.
We left campus after awhile and decided to go try some of the local food. The first thing I tried was something called awara and this was a no-no for me.
I later got something I was already used to called suya(smoked and spiced meat). I tried some other local food but in the end I wasn't sure I liked any of them.
We returned home after spending almost the whole day out. I decided to ask my Uncle why many of the people living in the south didn't want to come to the north. He explained that majority of the stereotype was due to ignorance to an extent.
There were states were security wasn't what it was supposed to be, but people down south tended to join all the states together. It was mostly states that were far up north and close to the country border that has the security challenge and not every state in the north.
Although I stayed a few days longer than I had planned, but that visit had it's intended effect. I had first hand information and not hearsays. The people living in the north were beautiful people with their own unique culture and lifestyle. I was glad i took time to travel because I later spent five years in one of the universities situated in that state.