I hear there is a village or little town in Delta State, right inside Asaba, where they speak a version of Yoruba.
The place is called Olukumi – typical old Yoruba for ‘my friend’ and the name that Yorubas are called in Cuba, Brazil and elsewhere (Lukumi). There are Igbo speaking areas in Benue State, but before the usual ethnicists readily claim them as Igbos, it could also be that they are Idomas whose languages infiltrated into their neighbors’ culture in what is today known as Igboland. Many parts of today’s Igboland borrow culture from Benin, from Akwa Ibom and Cross River and Rivers States and vice versa. The communities in these states I mention also borrowed cultures as far as the country of Cameroon. I have always had an interest in the subject of Etymology (the study of the origin of words or languages) since my days as a budding Scrabbler, and what I have learnt so far is the unity of humanity. We are one. We may have wronged ourselves so badly, stabbed ourselves, sold ourselves into slavery. We have be currently undermining ourselves, cheating ourselves, robbing each other, plotting against ourselves, ripping off, even killing ourselves, but humanity is one. If we cannot see the universality and unity of humanity within Nigeria here, how then can we ever end racism?
I have some questions and puzzles for proponents of restructuring, especially those who are so vehement it is about ethnicity or religion, or those who believe it is about separatism. This does not apply to those who are thinking around economic restructuring. Again, I understand that we have done really annoying things against each other but it also bring attention to the fact that many times, it is your kinsman, your own brother or sister, who knows you inside and out, and remembers your history from birth, that shows you the most disdain and does you the most painful harm. Not so? So, here it is. The quest for restructuring should not be seen as an easy task. It should be seen as a complex Venn Diagram, where the only options open to us are after we may have taken due cognizance of the following truths:
- All nations, bar none, in the world are indeed geographical expressions.
- The term ‘geographical expression’ was first used in terms of Italy in the 19th Century by Count Klemens von Metternich, an Austrian State Minister. Italy has not broken up in spite of their diversity. They got stronger.
- All nations are indeed products of military conquests – a few times internal but mostly external
- Colonialism is war by another means. Nigeria – and other colonized nations – were simply conquered
- Colonizers in their time, were only a little better than slave traders. They could do and undo with their subjects – us.
- We too had quarreled and warred with ourselves, taken slaves of ourselves, and so slavery and oppression is not entirely alien to us. Till date, some royal houses have slaves and eunuchs. And most middle class houses have the modern slaves who usually have no rights – houseboys and housegirls.
- Some of our people were involved in slave trade. Tricia Nwaubani wrote of her great-grandfather the slavetrader. We also know of Madam Tinubu, King Kosoko of Lagos, Efunsetan Aniwura and many others. Yes, we buy the story that the white man may have exaggerated the roles these people played in order to cover their own tracks, but for sure these elements benefited. Our people sold their own people as slaves.
- Nigeria was created as a business. George Goldie descended from a family of smugglers from the Isle of Man. He and others saw Nigeria as a place filled with ignorant people from whom they stole as much as they could and brought back wares from their country to sell at exorbitant prices
- The white man did worse things to themselves.
- The “WE THE PEOPLE” that precedes the American Constitution in 1776 is as fraudulent as the “WE THE PEOPLE” that commences our 1979 or 1999 constitution. Almost all of the American founding fathers were military men too. All of them were Aristocrats who claimed their people asked them to write the constitution even though they had no mandate.
- The first American constitution precluded people without land, blacks and women from voting. These rights were only later acquired. In fact Blacks were considered tow-thirds of human beings in that constitution even though it was later explained as the product of some simple political compromise.
- Women could vote in Nigeria since 1952. In Switzerland women could not vote until 1971. Many western nations had similar legacies. What did we do with our democratic advantage?
- England, our colonizer, was equally forcibly cobbled together by Germanic tribes in the 11th Century, conquered and imposed upon by Germanic tribes, Belgians, Danes, Romans and the French. The turbulent and bloody history of Great Britain, our colonizer is a clear example that no nation finds it easy.
- The first country colonized by the English, was Ireland. The brutality shown to the Irish is the reason why Republic of Ireland (Irish Free State) does not see eye to eye with Britain till tomorrow. Ireland only got part independence in 1922, after centuries of colonization and oppression (since the 16th Century).
- Australia, Tasmania, as well as parts of the Philippines, among other nations, were penal colonies, were the first settlers were criminals sent from colonizing nations. The state of Georgia in the USA was a colony for bankrupt people.
- Nigeria had it relatively easy to obtain its independence, compared to countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe even in Africa. Those ones had to fight long, bitter guerilla wars. We must make something of our relative luck.
- Africa was largely in a state of its own flux when colonialists came with their disruptive interests having carved us up in the Berlin Conference. They were apparently more advanced than we were and had a better knowledge of the world and the elements that make it up (they still do). We must not indulge in illusive self-deception about our greatness. I advise we try and stoop to conquer – like the Chinese. Look, we cannot brag, huff and puff our ways out of this tight corner.
- There was no way the world could wait for Africa to slowly catch up. The colonizing era was an era of pirate, privateers, thieves and chancers. There was no United Nations and no International Court to complain to. There was no way the colonisers could have asked all the ethnicities or nations that make up Nigeria – or indeed any other African nation – whether they wanted to live together. There was therefore no way they could have created thousands of independent nations in the continent of Africa. We must be realistic.
- It is incredibly difficult to carve out regions or countries that a contiguous on the basis of Language in Nigeria. Yes, it seems if we all spoke on local language and shared same culture, it will be easier to solve our problems. But do we want to solve internal problems and create external ones? Do we have plans in the event everything breaks down?
If advocates of hard restructuring could navigate these booby traps and make provision for these realities. If only they will accept the above truths and cast away any bone of dishonesty in them, or refuse to play mind games due to its futility, perhaps we could be up to something. If we continue along the delusory ways, the whole thing will result in another big pity.
