Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Wariboko's Essay on Majority-tribe Privilege in Nigeria

​Menahem Hamelberg,

​You wrote, "... my humble plea is that it should be ok to have English as the official language and that it should be made accessible to everybody in Nigeria, as a, as a birth right."

​Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated into a British crown colony in 1914 and English language was imposed as the official language which the masses of Nigeria could neither speak nor understand. Since 1914 and hitherto, Nigerians have been governed in English language which only a minority across all ethnic groups in Nigeria can speak and write fluently. Premised on the cross-ethnic minority monopoly of English language in Nigeria, I wrote, "Remember that English is a colonial language imposed on Nigerians but the means of studying and understanding the language is restricted to minority Nigerians." If you reconcile the aforesaid statement of mine with your plea, you will discover that your plea, after 108 years English became language of governance in Nigeria, is a bit too late. Those who imposed English as official language in Nigeria are duty-bound to force every Nigerian to read and write English fluently. To govern people in the language they don't speak or understand is a fraud. Governments at all levels in Nigeria are fraudsters, defrauding the masses.

Let me illustrate how the minority Western educated Nigerians in English Language at the Federal, States, and Local government levels have been defrauding the masses in Nigeria who are denied the opportunity of education in the language of governance in Nigeria. Professor Wariboko and the Governor of his State plus government officials may understand what is meant when his State is said to have collected Billions of Naira REVENUE ALLOCATIONS from Abuja, but 95% of the people in Professor Nimi Wariboko's State do not know that money for their welfare development have been collected on their behalf. So, when after collecting revenue allocation from the centre, the Governor travels to Jerusalem to pray every Saturday and buys a private jet, the people of Professor Wariboko's State would attribute the Governor's sudden display of wealth to money ritual. The Governor himself will religiously attribute his sudden wealth to God's blessing. As it is in Professor Nimi Wariboko's State, so it is in all the 36 States in Nigeria, and the Federal Government. Nigeria is not governed with     *WASOBIA* languages but with alien English language which majority of Nigerians do not speak or understand. No wonder, non-English educated Nigerians commonly named illiterates say 'Gutterment' while referring to Government and 'Buffonor' instead of Governor.

S. Kadiri  

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: 09 November 2022 15:44
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Wariboko's Essay on Majority-tribe Privilege in Nigeria

 

Baba Kadiri,

This is a warning.

That's a subversive submission

 From you and probably liable to litigation

 State prosecution

 If unlucky, charges for sedition 

To be pressed by your good friend:

The Honourable Abubakar Malami

The one you love so well 

Just because you live in Sweden, believe in freedom of speech and are used to shooting your mouth about almost anything that takes your fancy, do you think that you can sit over here out of harm's way and say whatever you like about Nigeria?

Be warned. 

I would press charges against you too if I were the Attorney-General of Nigeria and a KC to boot…

Because of that your Yoruba majority tribe's sense of privilege and entitlement, with that your vainglorious demand that even "God should speak to you in Yoruba if He wants you to listen to him" etc, should you be brave or cowardly enough to refuse to turn up to face the charges, and I was blessed to be the Honourable Prosecutor-General, you'd only have yourself to blame for the harsh punishment that I'd recommend to be meted out to you, for contempt of court. 

And have no doubt about it, when you would eventually be dragged to court by the court bailiffs, to face the music, the trial will be conducted in His Majesty's English.

I suppose you could request a translator and interpreter in Yoruba if you so prefer. In which case I suppose that A-G Abubakar Malami would also need to have a translator and interpreter in order to understand your very beautifully polished & eloquent Yoruba, your vårdad språk. Or perhaps you would prefer to address him in slang, like Say Tokio kid? That would only be making things more difficult for yourself, after which ( only yourself to blame) you should be expecting or suspecting - since you are a suspicious type, that nothing short of a very long sentence should be coming your way - or you could be appealing directly to His Majesty Charles III or Ojogbon Falola I to pay your bail or to raise cash to pay the billion naira ransom money because I'm sure that after you are granted bail you will almost most certainly be kidnapped on your way to the hotel ( as I heard on Swedish Radio way back in the 80s of the last century, the Swedish voice exclaimed  " Nigeria! first I was robbed by the Police and then by the military, on my way from the airport to my hotel ") 

And whilst at it I think that they should proceed posthaste to file charges against the authors of the various public letters addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari for contents that should be deemed unpatriotic and insulting, all aimed at holding the president up to ridicule and putting the country to shame. The authors of those treasonous epistles can thank their lucky stars that they are living in a democracy like Nigeria, because there are countries which they know so well, where they would have been facing the death penalty and executed long ago, without trial.

Just in case your guilty conscience wants a public explanation of why you merit prosecution let me explain. Let's start with the term Wazobia . You are familiar with the full import of that term, because in Sweden for example Swedish is the official language, isn't it? And in the United States, it's English and Spanish, isn't it? But in both of these countries, we have minority languages which are recognised as minority languages. In Sweden, we have National Minority Languages and yet the whole country is governed through the agency of the Swedish language which you speak so well.  Anything wrong with that? You notice that Walloon is not represented - my Better half is of Walloon ancestry - her father wrote a 500-page book about the Walloons in Sweden .// Karl Kilbom: The Walloons  - but I wonder who else speaks Walloon outside of Belgium? We can't say that about English can we? 

You want to advocate universal equal language rights? In time, with more massive immigration, I suppose you should want to be advocating Yoruba as a minority language in Sweden. What about Arabic Farsi, Turkish, Kurdish? 

Please go ahead and submit your justification - for Nigeria's minority language rights as legal tender and a more convenient vehicle for the administration of the country in those areas where the language is understood.

I'm sure of this: The Brits at the Old Colonial Office knew their mission well and learned a lot from how the Roman Empire was administered. Domestically speaking  Modern Nigeria, a former colony of the British Empire is in herself an Empire  - internally - in terms of diversity and vastness, all under a single Caesar (Mr President)  and as a colonial inheritance with many of those internal structures still in place, such as the language of administration, the 371 ethnicities under one flag geared to be administered smoothly.

Baba Kadiri, you ought not to be afraid of your trial  - it will be no Pontus Pilate, and you are no Jesus either, but as Nigerian citizens, you should expect a fair trial.   

In Acts 16:37-38 and  Acts 22:25-28 we learn that Paul / St.Paul) was a citizen of Rome and that this citizenship conferred on him certain privileges, just as Swedish citizenship confers certain privileges so too Nigerian citizenship confers certain rights and privileges: my humble plea is that it should still be OK to have English as the official language and that it should be made accessible to everybody in Nigeria, as a, as a birthright. Do you agree?

Dear Baba Kadiri, 

Something light for your listening delight: Putumayo presents Latin Jazz

And some nice Apala 

On Tuesday, 8 November 2022 at 23:52:15 UTC+1 ogunlakaiye wrote:

Although Section 55 of the 1999 Constitution recognises English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba as languages in which the official business of the National Assembly can be conducted, it is only in English language that the entire Nigeria is governed. Remember that English is a colonial language imposed on Nigerians as official language but the means of studying and understanding the language is restricted to minority Nigerians. The colonialists did not want every Nigerian to communicate fluently in English, therefore they only educated few Nigerians, the children of Emirs and Chiefs, whose subsequent jobs were to act as intermediaries between the colonialists and the masses. The language of governance at the Federal, State and local government level is neither Hausa/Fulani, Igbo nor Yoruba but English. Whereas not less than 15 states in the North, 5 states in Southwest, and five states in the Southeast can conveniently govern in Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo language respectively, the leaders of government in those states have refused to do so because they will be exposed of their state thefts. In our indigenous languages, there are no correspondent words for millions, billions or trillions numerically. That is why the minority educated class in Nigeria insists on governing with English language. Thus, Professor Wariboko is wrong to claim that Nigeria is governed by Wa-So-Bia.

S. Kadiri

On Monday, November 7, 2022 at 11:31:11 PM UTC+1 mafo...@yahoo.com wrote:

Nimi: Your words are divine! Thanks for doing this. You spoke the truth without hurting anyone; your language of dissent seems polite and quite soothing. I am surprised, though, that you said the majority privilege in Nigeria does not equate with the white privilege in the US. I think we are at variance on that position because I believe it does, in a way; at least, it's the closest descriptor of the situation. As a matter of fact, as I was reading your essay, the phrase rushing at me was "White privilege, White privilege, White privilege."

Honestly, and even as your essay aply demonstrates, I believe the three majority ethnic groups tend to enjoy the aura of being perceived as representative of the idea of Nigerianess. Hausa-Igbo-Yoruba is almost a synecdoche for a complete Nigeria, at the exclusion of all "others." I believe this provides an unfair advantage. It is for the same reason that even our language policy designates what we call major languages, minor languages and other languages. I hope there comes a time when one of the so-called minor or "other" languages becomes the official language of Nigeria, the way Swahili became the official language in Kenya and Tanzania, where it was originally a language of an ethnic minority. Maybe, and only maybe, if that happens, there will be a degree of respect for other ethnicities outside the confines of the Hausa-Igbo-Yoruba confraternity. The only good part of it all is that the three ethnic majority jn Nigeria are too self-absorbed they can't work together, a choice of one over the others would break loose warfare from the pit of hell and so a minority language or minority president over the affairs of the nation may help the the world to know that there are peoples outside the three!

At any rate, thanks for raising this issue.

MOA

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 09:03:47 AM CDT, Nimi Wariboko <nimi...@msn.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues:

This is an article I published in Punch Newspapers Nigeria yesterday, Friday, November 4, 2022. It is about majority-tribe privilege in Nigeria.

 

Wazobia Republic: The majority-tribe privilege in Nigeria 

Majority-tribe privilege is the advantage the Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba enjoy as members of the three big ethnic groups in the country. The mighty advantage of belonging to one of the Big Three, the Wa-Zo-Bia groups, is both unconscious and conscious. For those who enjoy being part of the big tribes, the advantage is unseen to (majority of) them, but it is highly visible to the rest of us that belong to the minority tribes. When national public officials and the media list ethnicities in Nigeria and routinely name Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba, without bothering to mention even one minority tribe, you are reminded that Nigeria is wazobia and the country does not regard your existence. Minority-tribe persons grate under their skin when they hear Wazobia, a portfolio word that reminds them of their exclusion, marginalisation, and irrelevance in the general description of what Nigerian citizenship means. With the way the 2023 elections have become a three-tribe affair, you would be forgiven for thinking they are the only ones in the country.

 

For more, please click the link below:

 

https://punchng.com/wazobia-republic-the-majority-tribe-privilege-in-nigeria/

 

 

Nimi Wariboko

Boston University

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