Dan Akusobi:
Yep ...thanks for your further thoughts.......this thread may help one or two "abroadians":
A few more dos and don'ts:
1. Do not get involved in family or communal land palaver, particularly law-suit. Buy your own land, in your town or neighboring one. The money one hears to knock people off even for the slightest offence is ridiculous. (I refer to this last sentence as Part 1(s)
2. Don't get too involved in local, state or national politics, at least not the do-or-die one. If you must - which can be salutary since we bring different experiences to the table - it must be with honor and humor, and with the give-and-take of modern Western politics. Do not leave opponents desperate....there are quite a few "animals" in Nigerian politics. See Part 1(c).
3. Don't take somebody else's wife or even girl-friend, particularly of a prominent person. Please BYOW (Bring your own wife, woman) or find your own woman there in Nigeria, if you must. See Part 1(c).
4. Don't travel at night, or be well-known to take part in night scenes around town.....to the greatest extent possible. See Part 1(c).
5. You don't have to honor every invitation to every wedding, or birthday party, or funeral, or house-warming. It makes your movements ever so predictable.
Wisdom, not bluster, is key.
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 3:59 AM, dakusobi <dakusobi@gmail.com> wrote:
Mazi Aluko.
Thanks for bringing these sentiments closer to our hearts and to a broader readership. We hope the lines in some of the narrations would rekindle some hearts so we can feel better about our being home boys, Nigerians, once more.
Your case with such a headache we nurse is "permanently" over, you said. That's great.
You do not know how much some of us envy you and pray you use your dual citizenship which I believe have made you more than a dual experienced and knowledgeable educator to create some positive change in our education policies at home.
It is our hope too, that you use your duality to make our children under your care greater and more enlightened than their contemporaries at home. I believe you can if they let you.
You gave a simple and doable rules of engagement in our need to reconnect with our homeland , Nigeria, despite the torns and pins and slippery slops here and there over there. Such suggestions can help. Just a little more interest about home and family back home will do the magic.
I can say the situation today in some states are no more hopeless. Some states such as IMO is springing up fast and one that likes high life will always find a fill there. No NEPA? OK. Do what people, even the poor do. They buy generators. No water?
Still OK
. It is not everyone that has a water borehole and yet we do not hear about people dying of dehydration and starvation.
Boka Haram? A big problem indeed. We do not have them in the south. So welcome to Owerri. IMO state.
Kidnappers, unless in Abia. Owele Rochas of Imo State sank them deep already.
Wife issue : should your 2nd or 3rd here refuse to visit with you or retire back home, well, self protection and preservation would matter a lot in this case. I know some retirees at home that married again . Some of us here have some kids at home growing. I think some women made them for them.
No home of your own?. Tough but guess what? $200 a month in the hands of a trustworthy helper can get one a 2 or 3 bedroom home in 5 years or less.
I can say too, that some of our peculiar family issues turning us off from home are easy to handle. I can say a few of such issues can be well handled by proxy. Most would need your physical presence to handle. Be home if you can and see things yourself.
Lastly, avoid any land case in any court. Such cases almost never ends so far your lawyer knows you live abroad. He will build mansions off your sweat here. The easiest way to die young by any means is to involve is a land dispute especially if you are the rightful owner. Such cases usually would end as soon as you are no more.
Visiting home at least once in 5 years do help.
Igbos say: Anya dike na anyu Mma nko
( the sight of a brave man dulls a sharp knife) Some of our hostile relatives do not believe a real human ( you) when you are on line with them arguing over your inheritance is a real human. I had such a situation and most of the nonsense stopped as soon as I landed home. Home is where the heart is and mostly where the mind lives and should be so for many in our generation who do know that USA is a foreign land for us.
No corpse would know where he or she or it will be dumped. It is anyway reassuring that a corpse , while alive, can almost certainly know it will be welcomed HOME should the candle die off earlier or later than planned .
We do highly appreciate the greatness of USA in all things good and bad and I honestly join all that say " God bless America". It has done us well same way I would say Yoruba land ( Lagos) has done for every Nigerian especially the SE and SS. That not withstanding, Omenuko by Peter Nwanna said it is better for him to die poor in his home than rich abroad.
May God bless Nigeria too.
Should I say more?
Dan. Akusobi.
ny
Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:QUOTEFinally, I would like to share this profound statement with you: "When the Nigerian elite wants to educate themselves or their children, they go to Europe or America. When they want to go on vacation, they go to Dubai or South Africa. When they are sick, they go to India. But when they die, they come back to Nigeria to be buried. Is Nigeria a cemetery?"UNQUOTEProf. Okey Iheduru:Yours too below is a profound reaction to Dan Akusobi's lamentation, that is worth sharing. To my mind, thinking about this issue is worth every minute of brain-cells, especially for the over-35s of the Diaspora community.One of the reasons why I am grateful for my current position in Otuoke is that it makes that re-engagement for me severely permanent, giving me choices as a dual citizen of the US and Nigeria that I would not have otherwise. Even before it, while my activist engagement with Nigeria was prolific, my physical engagement was episodic, and I still thought it was not enough. It is quite sufficient now, I believe.The simple lesson is this: engage your home community meaningfully, either singly or in union with others (while ensuring that your own contribution is noteworthy within the union). Nothing wrong - in terms of law, spiritual or temporal - with complete disengagement or fleeting engagement (after all, everyone has a right to associate or not to associate, right?), but don't then just go home to buried, lest observers of your corpse (not your inanimate corpse) will be unpleasantly surprised at your reception, as you narrated below about the unfortunate "abroadian" who ended up in an "efulefu" (pauper's) grave.
And there you have it.....thanks again to Dan for starting the thread.Best wishes always.Bolaji Aluko---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Okey Iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 31, 2014 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - STAR LAMENTATION: Yankee Diasporans, Clipped Wings - by Dan Akusobi
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: dakusobi@gmail.comDear Prof. Aluko:Thanks for sending Dan's piece along to the USA-Africa Dialogue list. Aging of recent African Diasporas is a serious problem that will become an even bigger crisis in the next ten years or so. Many of us who came to the US in the mid-1980s for school and stayed behind--I call them "accidental immigrants"--are now between 50 and 60 years old. Whereas most people in this age bracket are still healthy and keeping active life, reality will soon set in in the next ten years when they will be 60-70 years old. Most of us don't even realize our children may not be there to take care of us when the time comes. How many of our sons are marrying their African sisters?Unfortunately, very many of us are not "connecting" with home in any meaningful way; and some will definitely not be able to find their way home from Owerri or Ibadan without help--simply because these "homes" have undergone tremendous transformations since these fellows left or last visited about 25-30 years ago. I recently met a Nigerian who was animated about the goings-on "in the East and the Midwest" and had no idea where Imo or Abia states were. Another pal was reminiscing last month about the girl he had wanted to marry back in 1984--and was actually planning on reaching out to her again--only to learn that the w--
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