Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - We Need a New Word

Trash talk goes with sports fans like water with fish, as Muhammad Ali. You should see how Liverpool fans mocked their own club and the legendary John Barnes when he was first fielded as a black player, compared to their local rivals, Everton, that they saw as 'white'. Nick Hornby identified this as part of the Fever Pitch that makes every game memorable. The FA tries to keep it away from racism by asking the players to take a knee at the start of each match. Africans should focus more on tactics and less on gragra, win or lose.

Biko

On Tuesday, 6 February 2024 at 16:57:33 GMT-5, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Add to your fine piece the reaction to The Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance won by Tyla. When I said I would have voted for Tyla if I were a judge, I escaped being mobbed. That they even played Fela's "Water has no enemy" offended my people.

The word is fine, but it may be beyond this—Fanonian psychoanalysis, which Chief Awolowo used as "projection". You want to be great, but you are not great, and you get offended by those who are great!

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 3:46 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - We Need a New Word

We Need a New Word

 

By Moses E Ochonu

 

 

Two days ago, I posted something on my Facebook page to the effect that, given the taunts Nigerians were unleashing on other African countries that have left the ongoing AFCON, they should expect major league roasting from across Africa if the Super Eagles lose.

 

I counselled that it was not a good idea to bait the rest of the continent into a collective anti-Nigerian football mockery that would be vicious and unsparing if Nigeria loses to South Africa in the Semi Final match of the tournament. 

 

I wanted them to realize that Nigeria may be big and self-assured, but that it cannot withstand the collective pan-African banter of countries that were mercilessly mocked by Nigerians.

 

I honestly thought I was doing a public service announcement, giving a wake-up call that would cause Nigerians to consider becoming humble and gracious to other Africans.

 

Boy, was I wrong. Most commentators on the post not only doubled down on their haughty mockery of other Africans, they said that even if the Super Eagles lost, they would respond to any taunts vigorously. 

 

Some even suggested that they were ready with taunts customized for any outcome, and that, win or lose, other Africans who banter Nigeria would "collect wotowoto," to use a faddish Nigerian slang. 

 

Others said Nigerians always outnumber other Africans and are louder on online platforms than other Africans, so win or lose they would win the online banter battle. No shaking in any scenario, they said.

 

One commentator quipped that what the rest of the continent doesn't realize is that "you can't shame the shameless" and that Nigerians are beyond shaming and mocking. The other side of this logic is that Nigerians have the toughest skins among African football fans, having endured and made light of more catastrophic political, economic, and social predicaments and upheavals than losing a football match and getting taunted for it. 

 

Another commentator said that Nigerians had been remade into impulsively aggressive interlocutors by the worsening conditions in their country, so any group of Africans who taunted Nigeria in defeat or victory would bear the brunt of Nigerians' pent-up frustrations.

 

Nigerians, by this logic, are raging and primed cauldrons of rage, waiting for an opportunity to explode on a target — any target.

 

It seems to me that Nigerians are just aggressively combative in putting down slights, real or perceived. They will not let you get away with taunting them in defeat, and will celebrate their victory in your face. 

 

If they win, Nigerians have this strange need to go after people, not knowing how to celebrate without rubbing it in. 

 

They don't know how to lose humbly or win graciously. Victory and defeat are weaponized against non-participating others and passive interlocutors. 

 

If Nigerians lose, they turn defeat into attack and preemptively go after the usual rivals and suspects who would taunt Nigeria, trying to blunt the taunts even before they come.

 

It's a trait that is unique to Nigerians. We can't lose or win with grace, and we abandon our internal fights when other Africans come for us or are perceived to desire our failure.

 

To the rest of Africa, this is either off-putting arrogance or admirable confidence. This narrative about Nigerians is everywhere on the continent.

 

The "confident Nigerian" narrative is what South African politician, Julius Malema, was echoing in his viral video in which he lionized Nigerians for always loudly standing up for their rights and wished that South Africans would lose their alleged passivity and behaved more like Nigerians in the face of their alleged White oppressors.

 

The problem is that it is an oversimplified version of the Nigerian character. And it leaves out the fact that, depending on the context, this disposition can and does cross into a different, less appealing behavioral territory, which can be read by non-Nigerians as arrogance.

 

I remember the story my Kenyan grad school classmate told me. He said during the All Africa Games in Kenya in 1987, he was rooting for the Nigerian basketball team playing another country. 

 

When his friends and family saw him cheering for Nigeria as they watched the game, they scolded him vehemently, telling him "do you know how arrogant these Nigerians are"?

 

Here's the thing. I think Nigerians are misunderstood by other Africans. What drives Nigerians to be loud, combative, and aggressively assertive is not arrogance per se. But it is not confidence either, which is the word that some Africans and Nigerians use to describe the attitude of Nigerians.

 

I think it straddles the line between confidence and arrogance. It is neatly encapsulated in the 2024 pidgin mantra "no gree for anybody." In its essence, it means that whether you're up or down, wrong or right, in victory or defeat, do not back down for anyone.

 

There's a bit of confidence in that statement, but if need be, it can morph and does morph into something that can come off as arrogance.

 

But since it is neither purely arrogance nor confidence, I think we need a new word for what makes Nigerians tick, to describe this noticeable but misunderstood trait in Nigerians.

 

I propose the word CONFIGANCE. It combines confidence and arrogance.

 

What Nigerians exhibit to the chagrin and annoyance of other Africans is a mix of confidence and arrogance, which can alternately be alluring or annoying.

 

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