I am not Yoruba although I have a Yoruba name.
I can speak a little Yoruba and a little of my mother tongue, Okpamerri.
The two Nigerian languages I am fluent in are Standard English and Pidgin English.
I achieved maturity in Benin and consider it my spiritual home but am not Bini, and sadly dont understand the native language, although I have Bini friends with whom I communicated in English.
I can find my way to Benin easily but will have to ask for directions to my native village.
I have lived in and attended school in Ibadan, Auchi, Sabon-Gida Ora, Lagos, and Port-Harcourt.
I identify very positively with Nigeria because my history there contains the roots of all I am and all I will be.
Those who identify primarily with their ethnicity cannot speak for all Nigerians.
Tony Umez, a Nollywood actor, told me when were both youth corpers at the University of Benin, that even though he was Igbo he could not speak Igbo, but having grown up and schooled in Lagos, he was fluent in Yoruba, Standard English and Pidgin English.
What is the percentage of Nigerians whose identification is ethnic as opposed to Nigerian?
thanks
toyin
On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 10:04 AM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ibrahim,
You got this summation right about Nigeria:
"Nigerians experience citizenship as truncatedThis has always been my point especially with regards to Nigeria's puny efforts at nation-building or national intergration. We are more a contrapted hodgepodge of ethnicities and religions than a nation with dreams of national greatness.
ethnicity--the original sin--and this gets reproduced in whatever they
do or say."
Most of the times when I am confronted with a document asking for my 'nationality', I face afresh the dilemma of living in Nigeria. Am I really a citizen and recognised as such or just plainly a Yoruba guy making my ends meet in my own informal ways? Most times, I feel a rebellious prompting to indicate 'Yoruba' in such column than 'Nigerian'.
I am sure that beyond those who have found hook-and-crook ways to latch on to the neck of this frail and dying political entity, most 'Nigerians' don't have any iota of attachment to Nigeria. The informal sector of the economy is the burial ground of patriotism in Nigeria. That is where the people labour outside and beyond the care of the state. And that is where the toga of ethnicity adorn their activities.
So, ask me: "Afolayan, are you a Nigerian?"
Honest answer? I don't know.
Adeshina Afolayan
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
-----Original Message-----
From: Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:57:02
To: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn't: Reflections On Achebe's New Book (2)
You check it out; that is what I get out of reading Nigerian history.
There was no Yorubaland; no Hausaland(kasar Hausa?); no Igboland; no
Itsekriland; and suddenly there are!!!! There were Oyo, Ibadan;
Ijesha; Kano; Katsina; Zazzau; Kanem-Borno; then the Sokoto
Caliphate...then Northern Nigeria; Southern Nigeria; Mid-West; East;
West; then South-South; then this that.......Where is Ngeria???
Hope this helps.
IB
=============================
On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Seun Odeyemi <blacng@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mr. Abdullah,
>
> Please can you explain further what you mean by the construct "truncated
> ethnicity" as it applies to Nigeria? Is it that Nigerians consider
> themselves, first, foremost and primarily, as part of a particular ethnic
> collectivity--say, Ibo, Ibibio, or Itsekiri--and only secondarily, as a
> member of that historical-political construct called the Nigerian state?
>
> Seun.
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:21 PM, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I also suspect that BJ has gone overboard in his quest to red card
>> Achebe. The point about realist writings is that they come up straight
>> as mothers' milk--ideological constructs, easy to swallow as faction(
>> fact plus fiction) not fiction! What you read in achebe can be
>> reproduced ad infinitum for almost all Nigerian intellectuals. And
>> this is the point that should interest us, not what achebe said today
>> or what Kongi will say tomorrow. What undergirds all these literary
>> effusions/discourses et al is the simply the historical accident of
>> how citizenship is constructed/reproduced/experienced/consumed in
>> post-colonial Nigeria. Nigerians experience citizenship as truncated
>> ethnicity--the original sin--and this gets reproduced in whatever they
>> do or say. This is as true of the left as it is true for the
>> right/centre.
>>
>> How do we transcend/subvert this original sin without reproducing it
>> in its multi-layered ccomplexity is what we should be discussing. As
>> BJ himself has repeatedly made clear in the two postings there is
>> nothing new in what Achebe has to say!!!
>>
>> IB
>> ============================================
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 3:42 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
>> > this is probably not the place to argue this, but i feel my friend bj is
>> > not
>> > correct in his definition of realism. it is a genre, a construct, like
>> > all
>> > others; no closer to "real facts" than other genres, but ideologically
>> > presented to the reader as if it were an imitation of reality. in that
>> > regard, it is more immersed in ideology than other genres that make more
>> > obvious their constructions of "reality."
>> > achebe's title as the greatest realist in the past 150 years is
>> > overblown,
>> > in my view, regardless of the definition of realism employed.
>> > further, the issue of ethnicity here should take into account not simply
>> > the
>> > politics of the coup plotters or the leadership of the regions, but how
>> > the
>> > events were presented by the population to themselves: did people say,
>> > "those igbos in biafra want to secede"? did the biafrans, like achebe,
>> > say
>> > the same?
>> > it isn't a question of whether this or that individual came from the
>> > north
>> > or spoke hausa or wore robes: it is how he represented himself, and how
>> > he
>> > was taken by others.
>> > ken
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 12/29/12 9:43 PM, Chido Onumah wrote:
>> >
>> > First, There Was A Country; Then There Wasn't: Reflections On Achebe's
>> > New
>> > Book (2)
>> >
>> > By Biodun Jeyifo
>> >
>> > Superficially, it was understandable to conclude that this was indeed
>> > "an
>> > Igbo coup". However, scratch a little deeper and complicating factors
>> > are
>> > discovered: One of the majors was Yoruba, and Nzeogwu himself was Igbo
>> > in
>> > name only…he was widely known as someone who saw himself as a
>> > Northerner,
>> > spoke fluent Hausa and little Igbo, and wore the traditional Northern
>> > dress
>> > when not in uniform.
>> >
>> > Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country
>> >
>> > In the end, I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute
>> > power
>> > over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can
>> > arrange
>> > stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like.
>> >
>> > Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile
>> >
>> > If in There Was A Country "a Nigerian ruling class" only appears in the
>> > narratives and reflections of the author in the final fourth part of the
>> > book, this is only the most stunning aspect of the general intellectual
>> > and
>> > discursive architecture of the book. This "architecture", this "grammar"
>> > is
>> > none other than the fact that for nearly all other parts of the book
>> > with
>> > the exception of that concluding fourth part, all of Achebe's
>> > "explanations", all of his speculations in the book are relentlessly
>> > driven
>> > by ethnicity, and a very curious conception of ethnicity for that
>> > matter.
>> > Logically, inevitably, the corollary to this is that "explanations" and
>> > speculations based on class, and more specifically on intra-class and
>> > inter-class factors, are either completely ignored or even deliberately
>> > excluded. As I shall presently demonstrate, this is a remarkable
>> > departure
>> > from virtually all of Achebe's writings prior to this recently published
>> > book. For now, let me illustrate this startling matter of the complete
>> > subsumption of class into ethnicity in There Was A Country with two
>> > particularly telling examples out of innumerable other instances in the
>> > book.
>> >
>> > The first of our two selected examples pertains to nothing less than the
>> > January 15, 1966 coup itself, arguably the "opening shot" in the chain
>> > of
>> > events and crises that led to the Nigeria-Biafra war, the central
>> > subject of
>> > Achebe's book. It so happens that there is quite a significant body of
>> > both
>> > general and academic writings and discourses on this signal event. And
>> > indeed, Achebe's long citation of his sources in the bibliographic
>> > section
>> > of his book mentions many of these writings and discourses on the
>> > January
>> > 15, 1966 coup. It is therefore baffling that of the variety of "motives"
>> > or
>> > "interests" that have been ascribed to the coup plotters, the single one
>> > that Achebe addresses in his book is ethnicity, "tribe": Was it, or was
>> > it
>> > not, "an Igbo coup".
>> >
>> > There have been suggestions, there have been speculations that it was a
>> > "southern coup", this in light of the fact that most of the political
>> > and
>> > military leaders assassinated or inadvertently killed were,
>> > overwhelmingly,
>> > either northerners or southerners in alliance with northern leaders.
>> > More
>> > pertinent to the present discussion, there has also been an even more
>> > plausible speculation that class and ideological interests were
>> > significant
>> > in the motives of influential members of the coup plotters like Chukwuma
>> > Kaduna Nzeogwu and Wale Ademoyega. Of the two alliances of the ruling
>> > class
>> > parties of the First Republic, the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) and
>> > the
>> > United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), with the exception of Festus
>> > Okotie-Eboh, the Finance Minister, all those assassinated belonged to
>> > the
>> > NNA. S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region, was a diehard NNA
>> > chieftain; there is compelling evidence that this was why he was
>> > assassinated while Michael Okpara, the Premier of the Eastern Region,
>> > was
>> > spared because he was a major figure in the UPGA alliance. As a matter
>> > of
>> > fact, there is clear evidence that some of the coup plotters had the
>> > intension of making or "forcing" Chief Awolowo to assume the office of
>> > Prime
>> > Minister in the belief that the progressive northern allies of UPGA were
>> > far
>> > more regionally and nationally popular and credible than the southern
>> > and
>> > conservative allies of the NNA.
>> >
>> > Achebe's book pays not the slightest attention to these other probable
>> > factors in assessing the motives of the January 15 coup plotters. Was
>> > it, or
>> > was it not, "an Igbo coup"? That is all Achebe is interested in
>> > exploring -
>> > and disproving – in There Was A Country. Of the many threads that form
>> > the
>> > complex fabric of that fateful coup d'état, this single thread of
>> > ethnicity
>> > or "tribe" is all that Achebe strenuously tries to unravel in his book.
>> > This
>> > may be because by the time of the terrible pogroms of May 1966 against
>> > Igbos
>> > in the North, all other plausible motives for the coup had been almost
>> > completely erased by assertions, indeed pronouncements that the coup had
>> > incontrovertibly been an Igbo coup. But Achebe's book was written more
>> > than
>> > forty years after the event and it had the advantage of both historical
>> > hindsight and a vast body of accumulated research and discourses. For
>> > this
>> > reason, there is no other conclusion left for us other than a finding
>> > that
>> > Achebe almost certainly has a driving rationale for sticking exclusively
>> > to
>> > ethnicity or "tribalism" while simultaneously ignoring or excluding all
>> > other plausible, and in some cases factual, factors.
>> >
>> > At any rate, this is precisely what Achebe repeats in the second of our
>> > two
>> > examples. This pertains to the period of regional and nation-wide crises
>> > between 1964 to 1966 that preceded the January 15 coup and the
>> > Nigeria-Biafra war. Here, in Achebe's own words, is the particular case:
>> > "By
>> > the time the government of the Western region also published a white
>> > paper
>> > outlining the dominance of the ethnic Igbo in key government positions
>> > in
>> > the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the Nigerian Ports Authority, the
>> > situation for ethnic Igbos working in Western Nigeria in particular and
>> > all
>> > over Nigeria in general had become untenable" (p. 77). This is indeed a
>> > fact, but it is a partial fact, one aspect of a complex of facts and
>> > realities many of which Achebe chooses to ignore or obscure. It is
>> > useful to
>> > carefully state what these other facts and realities were.
>> >
>> > First, the government of the Western region that Achebe alludes to here
>> > was
>> > that of Chief S.L. Akintola and his party, the Nigerian National
>> > Democratic
>> > Party (NNDP). Arguably, these were the most perniciously right-wing
>> > government and party in southern Nigeria in the entirety of our
>> > post-independence political history. Achebe completely ignores this fact
>> > and
>> > fixes exclusively on this government's anti-Igbo programs and diatribes.
>> > Secondly, Akintola's government and party were not only virulently
>> > anti-Igbo, they were also scurrilously anti-welfarist and
>> > anti-socialist. A
>> > brilliant orator and a master of Yoruba rhetorical arts, Akintola
>> > tirelessly
>> > satirized a range of targets and issues of which Igbos were only one
>> > composite group. He was particularly fond of spewing out twisted,
>> > parodic
>> > visions of welfarism and socialism in which everything would be shared –
>> > wives, children, family heirlooms and personal belongings. There is not
>> > the
>> > slightest doubt in my mind that Achebe had to have been aware of these
>> > facts
>> > and realities; but he ignores them completely. Thirdly and lastly,
>> > Akintola
>> > and his party quite deliberately stoked the fires of intra-ethnic
>> > tensions
>> > and resentments within Yoruba sub-groups and they took this as far as
>> > founding a rival Pan-Yoruba organization to the Egbe Omo Oduduwa which
>> > they
>> > called "Egbe Omo Olofin". And for good measure, they tried,
>> > unsuccessfully,
>> > to instigate the late Duro Ladipo to write and produce a play to counter
>> > Hubert Ogunde's famous pro-Awolowo and pro-UPGA play, Yoruba Ronu.
>> >
>> > It must be emphasized that all these intra-class and intra-ethnic facts
>> > and
>> > realities were so well-known at the time that Achebe could not have been
>> > ignorant of them. We are left with no other conclusion than that Achebe
>> > simply had no place in his book for any factors, any realities beyond a
>> > pristine, autochthonous conception of ethnic identity and belonging in
>> > which
>> > no other aspects of social identification are allowed to "contaminate"
>> > the
>> > singularity of ethnicity . This, I suggest, is what we see in its
>> > quintessence in the argument expressed in the first of the two epigraphs
>> > to
>> > this essay to the effect that Nzeogwu being Igbo "in name only", the
>> > January
>> > 15 coup could not have been "an Igbo coup".
>> >
>> > In last week's beginning essay in this series, I made the assertion that
>> > Achebe is one of the greatest realist writers in world literature in the
>> > last century and half. I now wish to clarify the relevance of that
>> > assertion
>> > to the present discussion. One of the most compelling claims of realism
>> > is
>> > that it is the mode or genre in which the chain of representation in a
>> > work
>> > of literature or, more broadly, an intellectual treatise, comes closest
>> > to
>> > the chain of causality in nature, history or society. In a layman's
>> > formulation of this "big grammar", this means that above all other
>> > modes,
>> > forms and genres, it is in realism that what is presented in a work of
>> > art
>> > or a treatise is as close as you can possibly get to how things actually
>> > happened. Another way of putting this across is to suggest that
>> > typically
>> > and unavoidably, there being always and forever a big gap between how
>> > things
>> > actually happen and how they are (re)presented in writing, it is only
>> > the
>> > most gifted and talented realist writers that come close to bridging
>> > that
>> > gap.
>> >
>> > In all of Achebe's books on our pre-colonial and postcolonial
>> > experience, he
>> > had come closer than perhaps any other writer to this conception and
>> > practice of realism. More specifically, ethnicity, class and
>> > individuality
>> > had been superbly interwoven and productively explored in such titles as
>> > No
>> > Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah, The
>> > Trouble
>> > with Nigeria and Home and Exile. Thus, in my opinion, There Was A
>> > Country
>> > marks a radical rupture in Achebe's writings on our country, a rupture
>> > in
>> > which the realist rigour of his previous writings gives way to, or is
>> > considerably modified by a mystique, an apologia, an uncompromising
>> > defense
>> > of Igbo ethno-nationalism. I do not think that Achebe took this path in
>> > a
>> > fit of absent-mindedness; to the contrary, I think it is a decision, a
>> > choice he made in this new book quite deliberately and purposively. In
>> > next
>> > week's continuation of this series, I shall deal extensively even if
>> > only
>> > speculatively with this choice, with particular reference to what I
>> > personally regard as one of the most controversial aspects of There Was
>> > A
>> > Country, this being the link that Achebe makes in the book between what
>> > he
>> > deems the endemic ethnic scapegoating of Igbos in our country and the
>> > utter
>> > collapse of meritocracy in post-civil war Nigeria.
>> >
>> > Concluded.
>> >
>> > bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
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>> > Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > kenneth w. harrow
>> > faculty excellence advocate
>> > distinguished professor of english
>> > michigan state university
>> > department of english
>> > 619 red cedar road
>> > room C-614 wells hall
>> > east lansing, mi 48824
>> > ph. 517 803 8839
>> > harrow@msu.edu
>> >
>> > --
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