By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph,D. I didn’t think the “Africa-is-a-country” ignorance that pervades America—and Europe—could get any more bizar...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph,D.
I didn’t think the “Africa-is-a-country” ignorance
that pervades America—and Europe—could get any more bizarre than
African-American rap artist Rick Ross’s infamous June 24, 2013 tweet that he
had “Just
landed in the beautiful country of Africa.” But it did.
Sadly.
 |
| Rapper Rick Ross |
A few days ago, an African-American lady, who is a
professor of journalism at an American university, asked me if Nigeria was the
name of a city in Africa! I kid you not. If you think I’m making this up, you
would be forgiven. I, too, would never believe this if someone told me.
The lady was a participant at the annual conference
of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
in Washington DC on August 8 where I presented a paper on what I called a
public sphere history of Nigerian journalism. (AEJMC is America’s oldest and
most prestigious professional association for journalism and mass communication
scholars).
After making admittedly thoughtful remarks on my
paper, the lady said she wanted me to clarify a point I made in my paper about
the Nigerian newspaper tradition being older than Nigeria itself. Although I
clearly explained that in my paper, which she obviously read given her detailed
familiarity with its content, I went ahead and restated that Iwe Irohin fun awon Egba ati Yoruba
(meaning newspaper for the Egba and Yoruba people), the newspaper that is the
progenitor of contemporary Nigerian newspapers, was established in 1859, while Nigeria
wasn’t formally colonized by Britain until January 1, 1901. That means, I pointed
out, the newspaper tradition is more than a quarter of a century older than
Nigeria. Many Nigerian media historians have made the same point in the past.
So I wasn’t saying anything earth-shattering.
But her next question threw me off completely.
“So is Nigeria the name of a city in Africa?” she
asked.
I thought she was cracking a joke at the expense of
rapper Rick Ross whose tweet about landing “in the beautiful country of Africa”
has been the butt of ridicule, wisecracks, and digs on cyber space. So instead
of answering her, I let out a polite laughter.
“Why is that funny? I just wanted to know what
Nigeria is. Is that the name of a city?” she insisted.
Her sober, deadpan demeanor told me she was dead
serious. So I told her Nigeria is the name of a country in West Africa,
and that it’s one of Africa’s 54 countries. With a population of nearly 175
million, I added, it’s Africa’s most populous country and its 14th
largest in landmass. I didn’t fail to add that the ancestral roots of many
American blacks are located in many parts of what has been known as Nigeria
since 1914.
“Your English is excellent! Is your Nigerian as good
as your English?” she asked.
“Thanks, but there is no language called Nigerian.
Nigeria is just the name of a country, and it has over 400 distinct languages.
English is Nigeria’s official language because it was colonized by Britain,” I
said.
I couldn’t
help feeling like I was talking to a kindergartener. After our encounter, I
searched her name on the Internet and found, to my utter astonishment, that she
actually got her Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Missouri, the first
university in the world to offer a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1908. (The
University of Missouri, fondly called “Mizzou” by its students and alumni, is
also the first university in the world to offer a master’s degree in journalism
in 1921 and the first to offer a Ph.D. in journalism in 1934.) Apart from
getting her Ph.D. from a prestigious program, she is a full professor of
journalism.
I still
haven’t been able to fathom the depth of incuriousness it must take for a
middle-aged African-American journalism professor to have never heard of
Nigeria until August 8, 2013. It makes me wonder if she literally lives under a
rock.
Now, let me be clear: This woman’s incuriousness is
atypical of the African Americans I have met here. I have never encountered any
black American with the woman’s level of educational and professional
accomplishments who is that unbelievably witless. And that’s why it’s
newsworthy for me.
My experience with the woman has compelled me to
revise my opinions about the link between education and knowledge. The woman is
certainly well-educated. She has published copious scholarly work in her
subfield of journalism and had worked for many years as a news reporter in a
small town before venturing into academia. Yet she had never heard of Nigeria,
even though her African ancestors could very have been Ibibio, or Idoma, or
Ebira, or Igbo—or any number of Nigerian ethnic groups.
I also realized that rapper Rick Ross who tweeted
that he had “landed in the beautiful country of Africa” attended the
historically black Albany State University located here in the state of Georgia,
and had visited Nigeria, Gabon, and South Africa on many occasions. The pull of
carefully cultivated ignorance, it seems, is way stronger than the push of the
best education and exposure in the world.
The mischaracterization of Nigeria as a “city in
Africa” by an experienced black American journalism professor is all the more
ironic for me because it is contemporaneous with my lamentations on this blog about the astounding magnitude of ignorance that Nigerians have of each other.
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