By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi One of the biggest germinal tragedies of Nigeria, as Chinua Achebe has pointed o...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
One of the biggest germinal tragedies of Nigeria, as Chinua
Achebe has pointed out in his The Trouble
with Nigeria, is that Nigeria has never had the fortune to have a corps of
far-sighted national leaders. We have not had our Mahatma Gandhi or Kwame
Nkrumah, that is, transcendent national leaders that would symbolically embody
our national aspirations.
Even the seminal thoughts of our early so-called
nationalists, Achebe pointed out, were characterized by what he called “a
tendency to pious materialistic woolliness and self-centered pedestrianism.”
They derived the social basis of their legitimacy by sharpening the striking
edges of ethnicity and religious bigotry. And that, sadly, is the tradition
that continues to define our politics to this day. Unfortunately, we worship
the memories of these “nationalists,” and risk the wrath of millions of people
if we dare as much as question their life and politics.
Many Northerners think of Ahmadu Bello as an infallible saint,
an unerring patron saint of the region’s values. Many Yorubas think of Obafemi
Awolowo as God's representative on earth who was beyond reproach. And many
Igbos think of Nnamdi Azikwe as a God-send, although to a lesser degree than
Northerners and Yorubas idolize their regional heroes.
But it was the originative divisive politics of these three
politicians—and their minions— that has robbed Nigeria of a chance to cultivate
a sense of nationhood. Their heirs continue with this tradition. And they're
passing this virus to subsequent generations.
Largely because of the nature of the politics of the First
Republic, we have become fixated on regional and ethnic stereotypes. At every
discursive arena that Nigerians congregate they can’t help regurgitating all
the negative stereotypes we have assigned to ourselves. We still owe loyalties
to our primeval ethnic identities at the expense of an overarching national
identity.
Of course, it was British colonialists who purposively
structured our inter-ethnic relations in that way. They developed discursive
strategies to encourage us to inhabit reconstructed indigenous cultures and
identities aimed at furthering our cultural and ethnic differences.
They thereby forced an idealized ideological content onto
ethnic groups to sustain and even reconstruct “identities,” identities that
were to be subservient to colonial rule but antagonistic to and unhealthily
competitive with other Nigerian ethnicities.
Categories of
ethnicity
It seems to me that over the years, three kinds of ethnic
projects have emerged in Nigeria. There is what I call ecumenical ethnicity.
This kind of ethnic project is, to a large extent, all-embracing, provided
people internalize certain core cultural assumptions and practices of the
original ethnic group.
Then there is what I call expansionist ethnicity, which is
also all-embracing but in a limited, horizontal way because it only seeks to
incorporate what it perceives as its cultural, linguistic, and ethnic cousins.
Finally, you have what I call exclusionary ethnicity, which
fastidiously draws distinction lines between it and others, and makes
conditions for entry into its fold almost impossible.
The Hausa ethnic identity is ecumenical because anybody can
be Hausa provided he speaks the Hausa language with native proficiency, dresses
like the Hausa, believes in and practices Islam, etc. An influential 1975 academic
essay by Frank Salamone titled “Becoming Hausa: ethnic identity change and its
implications for the study of ethnic pluralism and stratification” captures
this phenomenon brilliantly.
Most people who self-identify as “Hausa” today are not
originally ethnically Hausa. I know a prominent professor of Hausa who became JAMB
registrar whose father was from Zanzibar. A former “Hausa” president from
Katsina is descended from Tuareg (Buzu in Hausa) ancestors.
The Yoruba ethnic identity is expansionist in that it seeks
to attract and embrace all who share even the remotest cultural, linguistic,
and ethnic similarities with it. There have been unsuccessful attempts, for
instance, to bring Igalas of Kogi State and Itshekiris of Delta State into the
Yoruba fold because of the similarities the languages share with what is now
known as Yoruba.
The Igbo ethnic identity is, also, to a large extent,
expansionist, although in a less successful fashion than Yoruba. Attempts to
encourage the Ikwerre of Rivers State and the Igboid groups in Delta State
(many of whom trace their ancestral roots to Igala land in Kogi State) to buy
into the idea of an overarching Igbo identity have not been very successful,
perhaps because of the politically perilous situation of the Igbos in
contemporary Nigeria consequent upon the lingering effects of the Civil War.
Most other ethnicities in Nigeria—at least relative to the
“big three”— are exclusionary. You are either in or you are out. If you’re not
Berom, Ogoni, Bini, Tiv, Urhobo, Kuteb, etc. you can’t be one.
Well, if we must make any progress in Nigeria, it is not
simply enough that we should develop technologically; our leaders must also
actively encourage and internalize a culture that promotes a national
consciousness. And one of the best ways to do that is to give people a sense
that their ethnicity, religion, etc. do not constitute barriers to their
aspirations and quest for personal growth.
As Malcolm X once pointed out, if you condemn a person on
account of his race, ethnicity, or such other invariable attributes about which
they have no control, you have condemned that person even before he was born.
He called it the “worst crime that can ever be committed.” And I couldn’t agree
more.
This does not, in any way, suggest that we should give up
our ethnicities, or that primordial alliances and mobilization are bad in and
of themselves. The truth is that people generally tend to initiate and sustain
relational encounters more easily with their kind than they do with “others.”
And this is basically a consequence of a primal ease with the known, the familiar.
You may call it a kind of involuntary, but sometimes benign, xenophobia.
But as primordial boundaries dissolve with the relentless
onslaught of globalization (not globalization in the sense of the merciless
march of international finance capital) and other advances in human relations,
these primal bondings are becoming irrelevant. That's why there are a million
and one leaps of relational encounters across primordial boundaries, and people
are realizing that most of the fears that drive them apart have no basis in
reality.
Primordial societies are usually closed societies, and
openness tends to be associated with progress.
Of course, I know that it is reductionist, even simplistic,
to expect that someday all human beings will cease to relate on the basis of
primordial factors, but I'm positive that the more people relate, the more they
will appreciate the superficiality and fluidity of the factors that separate
them.
As is by now evident, I strongly believe that there is merit
in Nigeria remaining a united nation—but one that is founded on fairness,
inclusion, equity, and equal opportunities for all. However, in light of the
persistence and crescendo in the fight for Biafra, I support an amendment to
the constitution to allow a referendum to determine whether people in the
southeast want to remain a part of Nigeria.
Concluded
No comments
Share your thoughts and opinions here. I read and appreciate all comments posted here. But I implore you to be respectful and professional. Trolls will be removed and toxic comments will be deleted.