Detty December: A Souring Love Story?

The month of December is special across the world. It’s the month of Christmas. It’s also a time to reflect on a year receding into the distance and plan for the coming year. But in Nigeria, the month holds even more significance. In addition to its general festive signature, December in Nigeria represents a pause from the economy-sponsored estrangement that increasingly assails Nigerian society. Siblings reunite. Parents wrap their children in emotion-sodden embraces. Old friends jointly revel in the celebratory atmosphere of December: Detty December. Sons and Daughters connect to the land of their birth. Last year, the Nigerian Detty December experience made headlines globally, attracting throngs of visitors caught in the thrall of FOMO. More amusing was the slew of TikTok videos by foreigners lamenting their inability to join the fun, on account of strained finances or other engagements. 

Detty December is  a love story bearing the symbolism of a lost bride retracing her steps back home. For Nigerians in the Diaspora, this period, Detty December, comes with the financial obligation to spend. Keeping with the communal values of Nigeria, visiting Nigerians spend a significant portion of their largesse on gifts to family and friends. But the bulk of their spending typically goes towards recreational activities and maintaining appearances. So, hotels, car rentals, travel essentials, cab-hailing services, nightlife and fine dining. This propensity for spending has created a situation where business owners and ordinary citizens alike coddle diaspora Nigerians (IJGBs in local parlance), elevating them to the status of first-class citizens. 

This situation—locals mindlessly doting on IJGBs, often stooping to servile levels—is well documented. Last December, it even stirred up a series of lighted-hearted skirmishes online between locals and returnees, in other words the spoiled kids versus the indignant ones. This love story has however begun to fray at the edges. A viral tweet by A&R and talent consultant Bizzle Osikoya, lamenting the surge in fraudulent payment disputes from diaspora customers, has spotlighted an obscure facet of this story. One of financial pressures, cultural expectations, and the very Nigerian tendency for exploitation. 

Following Osikoya’s tweet, which at the time of writing had garnered around three million views on X, an interminable sprawl of small business owners has chimed into the conversation with their iterations of the complaint. Nigeria’s December economy is to no small extent powered by the flurry of disposable income brought in by diasporans. And so, it’s trite to say that this situation—of Nigerians in diaspora dishonestly applying for refunds after purchasing goods or paying for services in Nigeria—will leave ripple effects in its wake. This situation may be the germ that will birth a tech startup aimed at solving this problem. A less radical outcome is that business owners may start balking at accepting electronic payments from visiting Nigerians or foreigners altogether. It’s unclear how this conversation will shape up in the coming weeks and months, what’s however certain is that owing to this situation, this love story has assumed a new, unexpected twist.