“We Don Close”: Gatekeeping, Skin Color, and the Expatriate Advantage

“Welcome Massa!” — A Glimpse Into Nigeria’s Lingering Colonial Complex

As the gates flung open and the gateman barked “Welcome Massa!” to the approaching white expatriate’s car, I felt as though I had time-travelled to colonial-era Nigeria—a time I hadn’t lived through, yet here it was unfolding before my eyes in the year 2010.

A Tale of Two Entries

Just minutes earlier, I was stuck at the gate, ordered out of my chauffeur-driven car to present myself for security clearance. Despite a confirmed appointment with senior government officials, the security chief claimed my name wasn’t on the visitors’ register. The secretary’s pleas over the phone made no difference. The gate remained shut.

I was to chair that meeting. Time ticked on.

Eventually, I requested that the secretary responsible for the scheduling error come down to escort me in. As I waited, the white expatriate arrived.

The Double Standard

“Doesn’t he need security clearance?” I asked, more out of disbelief than hope. The officer’s response was chilling in its clarity:
“Can you not see he is a white man? He must have important business here today.”

As my associate and his secretary finally walked me in, half an hour late, I passed the same white man in the corridor. He was now struggling to convince someone to grant him an unscheduled meeting, in thick Pidgin English. Ironically, now he was being asked to return to the gate for proper screening and a visitor’s tag.

Mental Colonization: Still a Reality

“Oga no dey” (The boss isn’t around). “We don close” (We’re closed).
At 11 a.m.? The irony was rich and disturbing.

This is Nigeria, 50 years post-independence, still haunted by the ghosts of colonialism. Many Nigerians remain shackled by mental colonization, assuming that anything foreign is superior. “White is right,” they seem to believe, whether it’s a visitor at the gate or a job applicant with a fabricated foreign accent.

The Absurdity of White Privilege in Nigeria

In today’s corporate Nigeria, foreign trumps qualified.
Companies sideline brilliant local professionals in favor of underqualified expats—some with glorified certificates from “Corner-shop Academy” in New York, picked up during a layover at LaGuardia.

White Privilege Meets Nigerian Business

Even construction contracts get awarded to start-ups headed by foreign “CEOs” with irrelevant degrees, so long as they have the magic of white skin and a foreign address.

Frustrated business owners have learned to play the game:

Want to get past the gate? Think like the gate-man.

Degrees from MIT may not help, but hiring an Eastern European artisan to front your company? That might just open doors.

Meet the EERP: Expatriate External Relations Personnel

It doesn’t stop at corporate firms. Schools, property agencies, restaurants—they all now employ EERPs: white (or pale-enough) frontmen whose main qualification is skin tone.

Can’t afford a full-blown expatriate?
Hire an albino.
He’ll glide through more gates than your résumé ever could.

And just in case he stalls at the checkpoint?
Train him to toss in a “Cheers, mate!” every now and then.
That elusive contract might just be yours

Final Thoughts

This isn’t just about racism or insecurity. It’s a systemic issue, deeply embedded in how Nigerians view themselves and others. It’s the echo of colonial rule, now amplified by our gatekeepers who have internalized inferiority.

Until we confront this post-colonial mindset, we’ll keep opening doors for others, while locking our own out.

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Let’s challenge the systems that keep us small—and reclaim the power of our identity.