But
for the giveaway that is in our names, I would have called for a daunting
challenge: a national day of identity neutrality in the management of our
humanity and phatic communion.
I am
talking about your myriad transactional moments today. Can you take a one-day
break from letting the ethnic identity (or religion, or politics) of whoever
you will deal with today predetermine, prequalify, and massively underwrite
your impression of them?
Your car
has broken down on third mainland bridge. Your mechanic is not picking his
calls. A passerby gives you the phone number of his own mechanic. What’s his
name: Okechukwu? Lamidi? Shehu? Are you going to make that phone call? Please
make it. Take a one-day break from whatever demons you are automatically wired
to associate with the ethnicities these names carry. I beg you: just phone a
fellow human being, a fellow Nigerian and let him come and help you get your
jalopy off that bridge.
At Oja
Oyingbo today, please buy your tomatoes, efo, atarodo and other nkan elo
without carrying the burden of the identities of those market women on your
head. Your husband is hungry at home. Your wife is hungry at home. Your kids
are hungry at home. Yet, you must only buy from Iya Kubura or Mama Ogechi and
they are not around today. You are sniffing around, facially scoping the other
market women to determine where they come from before you can buy anything.
Please buy from a fellow human being, from a fellow Nigerian. I am begging ni
o.
In
hundreds of thousands of government offices today – in Abuja, in the state
capitals – can you please just do your job and attend to a fellow Nigerian
today? When I was a graduate student, I once phoned a Nigerian diplomatic mission
to make inquiries. Miraculously, they answered their phone. A Nigerian Embassy
actually answering calls on the lines advertised? Thank God o.
Then
came the telephone rudeness that is ingrained in the DNA of Nigerian embassy
officials when they are dealing with Nigerians. Eventually, the rude lady at
the other end remembered to ask for my name. Pius Adesanmi. Ah, Adesanmi ke?
Laughter at the other end. The mood changed. Why didn’t you tell me you were
Yoruba? I wasn’t a public figure in 1998 so she wasn’t recognizing the name.
She wasn’t getting all chummy and helpful because she was star struck. She had
sniffed her own ethnicity in my last name. And this was a Nigerian embassy
official on foreign posting to help Nigerians. Imagine if my last name had been
Kwankwaso or, worse, Nwosu?
This is
what millions of Nigerians going into Ministries and government parastatals in
Abuja and the state capitals will face today. Ah, so you are Ogochukwu! Ah, so
you are Ogungbemi! Ah, so you are Danlami? And civil servants who are supposed
to attend to you though tribe and tongue differ will seal your fate based on
the ethnic provenance of your name. I am saying to you, civil servant, can you
take a break from this practice just for today and attend to a fellow Nigerian?
And to
millions in social media Nigeria, for whom right and wrong, fact and fiction no
longer exist as ontological givens, can you take a one-day break from the
partisan cataracts that are blocking your eyes and preventing something as
simple as the ability of an adult to determine right and wrong?
I am
saying that I should be able to say Nigerian gained her independence on October
1, 1960 and stop at that without fears of an attack today. Such is the ethnic
and religious bitterness that even such a simple statement of fact is no longer
possible.
Nigeria
gained her independence on October 1, 1960.
“Ehen,
Prof, is that all you have to say? Why did you not add that Hausa-Fulani people
really didn’t want that independence because they were not ready?”
“Why did
you not say that the nationalist movement and the fight for independence was
mainly an Igbo affair?”
“For
where? Ever heard of Herbert Macaulay? Mojola Agbebi and co? Your Zik received
the baton from such people.”
“This is
where I get tired with Awusa and Yorobber. They can’t handle the truth. We
single-handedly fought for your independence. Go and eat shit!”
“Gerrout.
Stupid Yanmirin!”
Bla bla
bla bla all day. Just because of one simple statement: Nigeria gained her
independence on October 1, 1960.
This is
an accurate mirror of Facebook and Twitter Nigeria.
I am
asking you to observe a day, just a single day of simple truths and simple
facts not coloured by partisan bitterness.
Do you
think you can do it?
We have
to learn to take baby steps in relating to the human again. We need to learn to
take baby steps in humanity and humanism all over again.
Where is Petra?
This is where we urgently need the epp of your Oga. Tell Governor Yahaya Bello to
declare a public holiday that Kogi peeps will spend learning to love and engage
the human beyond ethnic invidiousness. That way, I won’t come to Lokoja hoping
to get routine service from a government office only if I happen to bump into
an Okun civil servant. David
Shuaibu will not leave Okene for a transaction in a government
office in Lokoja praying to bump into a fellow Igbira before any serious thing
can happen for him today.
Tell Ogbeni
Yahaya Bello that were he to declare such a public holiday, I’d have his back
gidigba and hope that the rest of Nigeria would learn from our learning to love
and engage the human again in Kogi.
We need
a break from this orgy of national bitterness.
I want
to be able to come to this Wall and say good morning (statement of fact)
without fellow Nigerians accepting the greeting or abusing me depending on my
tribe and tongue.
Phatic
communion devoid of bitterness should still be possible in Nigeria.
We can
do it.
Una good
morning o
Pius
Adesanmi, a professor of English, is Director of the Institute of African
Studies, Carleton University, Canada
Source: ynaija.com
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