It is not uncommon to find someone refer to a member of his village, town or state as ‘my brother’. In fact, most people would applaud his efforts to stay connected to his roots and call him ‘son of the soil’ especially in our modern day society that jumps at every effort to adopt any western culture possible. It feels very good to be able to put your ‘brothers’ first before considering others. When a newly engaged-to-be married person tells of his/her new status, we all jump for joy and start with the following questions ‘so, where is he from? What does he do?’ and if per chance the spouse to be happens not to be from the person’s tribe, some people would exclaim ‘are you serious? And your parents had no objections?’ While growing up, I heard mothers tell their daughters ‘don’t bring a Yoruba man to my house’ or ‘find someone from your own tribe, i will not be in your house when the husband’s people will maltreat you.’ These daughters grow up conditioning their minds to the fact that an Ibo man, or Hausa Mallam is not good for them because of the differences in ethnic values or just because their mothers or fathers said so and if fate plays a good number and they marry from their tribe, they in turn tell their own daughters ‘please dear, Kwara people are very fetish, choose wisely.’
While some children who are well informed and exposed to different culture soon realise that there isn’t much difference between us all, the segregation follows others through generations. Not just in marriage, but in work places, political settings and even religion.
The question is ‘how then do we fight ethnic crisis when down at the roots we place ourselves higher or in more favourable positions than others?’ When are we going to learn from the people of Rwanda that these inordinate ethnic loyalties can lead to full blown massacres and unspoken evils?
Recently, I took my first trip to the eastern part of Nigeria. From the beginning of the journey, I studied the people with whom I was travelling. Apart from the fact that they all spoke Igbo and I appeared deaf and scared, they displayed the same gentility, haughtiness, loquaciousness and introversion that i would see in people of my tribe. All their actions and temperaments were defined by who they were as individuals, values they learnt from their upbringing and not what tribe they came from. I spent a short time with a wonderful Ibo family and did not for once fear for anything. An Ibo woman I spoke to on the bus called me at every point to ensure I had reached my destinations safely and she very well knew I was not from her tribe or even a nearby tribe.
Our dear Nigeria is at a critical stage and in desperate need of competent men and women irrespective of tribe or state from any part of Nigeria who are ready to push unto victory. We need to have leaders we can trust who will lead with fairness and justice in managing the affairs of the country. It is time for us to be more conscious of our thoughts and actions. We need to stop making comments like ‘if you see an Mbaise man and a snake coming towards you, make sure you kill the Mbaise man first before killing the snake.’ We must be willing to trust one another to maximize brotherhood and interdependence with each other.
I am a Nigerian and want to be identified as such irrespective of the tribe I come from. I want to be able to live freely in any state of this country and not be ruffled by thoughts of ethnic crisis and religious wars and I hope that you do too.
