The Disease Called ‘Tribalism’

(From Diary: 2005)

In the Nigeria of today, there is a dire need for an attitudinal change. Psychologists may assume that this require a strenuous collective effort from the society, the environment and the forces that manage and control both the society and the environment. One may have no problem in accepting this idea, but will be left to ponder much on how it is all going to happen.

Clearly presented before our eyes is a tried and true theory that said; a country ridden by tribalism, nepotism and despotism is no doubt a country prone to chaos and confusions that defies explanation. Unity is the force behind many successful revolutions, and the surest foundation upon which several civilizations were laid upon.

Greediness, selfishness and the entertainment of tribal or racial sentiments are condemned by both religion and common sense. Tribalism, nepotism, racism and the likes are the most degradingly subscribed to products never to be advertised to civilized and responsible societies needless for them to be sold to morally-bonded societies like ours. But the astonishing irony is that, it is from this morally-bonded society that these ugly products are churned out and allowed to mutate themselves at a rate that is horrendously supersonic.

We are all equal in the eyes of God. Hence we are only to be branded as Blacks, Whites, Colored, Hausa’s, Igbo’s, Yoruba’s, Northerners, Southerners, Westerners and whatever in this world for reasons of identification, understanding and consolidation of our collective challenges and striking differences.

Now back to basics.

The disease ‘tribalism’ is caused by the dreaded ‘Hatred-Inducing-Virus (HIV)’, a virus that is incomparably deadlier than the much debated and much feared HIV-AIDS virus. People that are dying of the disease caused by this virus are at an all time 15 million high annually, if you are in doubt call to your mind the number of innocent lives that perished in Rwanda between 1994 and 1996, the poor people that perished in Uganda, Angola, Cote D’ Voire, Ethiopia, Darfur, Afghanistan, Eritrea and so on. Hatred-Inducing-Virus was first discovered by Dr. Rational Blindness and Professor Satan Mislead All. Dr. Rational Blindness and Prof. Mislead All spent many years developing, mutating, cooking and nurturing this dreaded virus in their Despotic Laboratory situated at ‘Innocent Heart Centre for Emotional Control and Manipulation.’

To delve a little into how this virus enters and damages the human mind’s morality, common sense and rationality defense system, the virus will first have to be present in a morally-blind carrier who will then knowingly or unknowingly spread it through unprotected communication intercourse that is achieved verbally, electronically, by employing the use of sign language or using pen and paper. The virus then enters the victims’ mind, shrouding his common sense, it then mutate and replicate itself at an unspeakable speed. It will by this time start to damage the human mind’s morality, objectivity and rationality defense system and from there pumped out like blood pumped from heart to reach out to other parts of the body rendering the victim blind to rationality, blind to humility, blind to objectivity, blind to spiritual and social maturity and worst blind to mutual understanding. No, don’t you ever think of using condom to tame the spread of this disease as all it requires is good and exemplary conduct, because I know by now you may likely be thinking of switching your radar to the chemists.

Having said that, we have to re-invigorate the doctrine of been our brother’s keepers into our beliefs and ideologies else we remain forever the most retrogressive society and a force not to be reckon with in today’s competitive world.

This writer on one occasion ran into a young Nigerian who belonged to one of the major ethnic group in Nigeria and an ethnic group different from that which the writer belongs to. This young man was back from the United States of America full of pride and showcasing his manly belligerence for he has at then just fetched his B.A from the prestigious Harvard University (for this is what he’d said to the writer prior to the writer’s pronouncement of the word ‘journalist’). The writer was on that day out to fish a story to feed their 24 months old entertainment magazine and he’d got this idea in mind that he is to hear from this young guy how good or bad it is being an African in an all white host community. As the writer introduces himself to this guy, the last thing the writer recalled this young man uttered was “get lost, get outta ma sight, you psycho, wussy, sketchy jackass, damn you almajiri (for at that moment I wore on my tradition Babban Riga (agbada)). One would lack words at that time to fire back legally and am quick to realize that, yes, even if I am not a loser at that time, the outing was the unluckiest I’d have in the year 2005.

Never a time I blame this young man for his lack of respect because it is my belief that his actions was just a true mirror image of the sort of orientation he had been given by his parents. Thus, to disrespect and disregard any person not of his tribe.

Hugh Dalton of Britain once described us blacks as “Syphilitic N****rs.? An insult indeed, but why not get ourselves together, respect one another, and forge ahead as partners in progress?

During the times of our nationalist leaders tribalism of any sort had no place in their scheme of things, but what is obtainable today is a clear irony of that obtained during those years of glory, victory and camaraderie. Today ‘Federal Character’ is selfishly squeezed, squashed, twisted and reshaped into a tool for serving the interest of one section of the society at the expense of the other, and with this trendy act creating and promoting hostility of one group against the other. What was unpatriotic then is patriotic now.

Dirty politicking is now in place, excess show of materialism the order of the day, deception the deadly weapon mostly used, with deprivation been the by-product of these ungodly systems. To be aware of the trend is to be ready to bear and to take extra care, if not; you will definitely be prone to moral wear and tear!

By their own accounts, the gang of decayed elites we have, be they Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western whatever, throughout their history have explored, exploited and are still cunningly exploiting any and all means for the control and manipulation of Nigerian masses. The most typical tactics being the use of ‘divide and ruin’ and not what every one of us would have expected, namely, ‘divide and rule.’

Each faction is hell-bent on seeing to it willy-nilly that his own is considered the best no matter how bad or ruthless he or she is. If we are really serious about keeping Nigeria united then one will see no reason why the likes of ACF (Arewa Consultative Forum), OPC (Odua Peoples Congress), MOSSOB (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra) will exist and still be existing. Some if not all only represent a faction of elites that failed Nigerians when they were given a holistic opportunity to give their best to Nigeria and Nigerians. They now formed groups in a quest to protect their interest and minimize further embarrassments caused by their past crimes against humanity. Some of these power-drunk elites use money to lure youths into doing diminutive and self depriving dirty jobs in a view to furthering their cause or even for the simple but all important reason of protecting their prestige and positions.

The sad revelation is that, the youths blinded by the get-rich-quick syndrome have failed to quantify their worth and cowardly shun away from taming the puzzle-like contemporary challenges that present themselves to them; lure of riches and political manipulation inclusive. Most of us youths don’t think deeply about things we see or hear vis-à-vis the challenges of nation building and the consolidation of our dear fragile-like future. We search for money to do whatever kind of a job and not for a second realizing that the money is so little and never enough to meet-up our needs with the risk so high. The enjoyment is for a short period of time and the suffering a prolonged one. Most of us don’t think in those particular terms as to where the money comes from (looted from the treasury of course), it is always what we are going to do with the money that matter to us.

The youths, our destined future leaders are the ones seen on our streets come rain come shine chanting the slogans of ‘death and destruction’ enough to trigger violence and uproar whose results is lost of innocent lives and a blow to Nigeria’s human capital. The youths are oppressed and exploited. Never a time is their lack of foresight and predicaments justifiably judged and looked into by the powers that be in a view to prospering solutions to their problems. We can’t run away from the truth that most of these youths branded as epitome of failure or uneducated fellows by those who come from high social-classes are poor class intellectuals whom society had denied them their constitutionally-binding rights to showcase their god-given talents.

To me, this matter has illustrated how far our values have shifted in just a couple of years. Tribalism, despotism and nepotism has became so proliferated, so much legalized, so politicized and so much a tool used by the heartless and egocentric elites to quench, suppress and subdue the will, determination and aspirations of the masses.

Conclusively, I know and believe that as a scrupulous reader you will forgive this writer for daring not to mention anything about the ‘third term drama’, the ‘power shift palaver’, the ‘debt relief confusions-loaded-revolver’, the ‘post UME test misnomer’, the harsh ‘economic reforms hangover’ and the 2007 political Casanovas, as this will only add insult to injury. So help us God, ameen.