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| SEGUN ADENIYI |
The Verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi. Email,
olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com
The young Yoruba man was leaving office early to go and
receive his visiting Igbo wife undergoing her National Youth Service Corps
(NYSC) primary assignment in a neighbouring town when he encountered a
co-worker who planted in him the seed of doubts that eventually destroyed a
beautiful union and set his own life crashing down. The careless remark that
would play in his head again and again was that he was being naive to believe
that his wife would remain faithful, especially considering that “she is young,
she is a corper…and she is Igbo!”
The predilection to stereotype and label people by blaming
the conduct of one person on an entire group he or she belongs (whether by age,
class or ethnicity) is for me the central message in Tunde Kelani’s movie,
“Magun” (Thunderbolt). It speaks to a time like this in our nation when some
Yoruba and Igbo irridentists are promoting hate speech in the name of a
meaningless superiority war that glorifies some distorted accounts of the past.
The cast of the movie written by Professor Akinwunmi Isola
included seasoned professionals like Adebayo Faleti, Buki Ajayi, Uche
Obi-Osotule, Lanre Balogun, Wale Macauley, Ngozi Nwosu and the late Dr. Larinde
Akinleye. The story is woven around
Ngozi, (played by Uche, one of Nigeria’s most versatile and adored
actresses who for some inexplicable reasons doesn’t feature much in Nollywood)
and Yinka (played by Lanre Balogun). The duo met and fell in love at the NYSC orientation
camp.
With the insinuation that an Igbo woman could not be trusted
and feeling rather insecure and jealous--notwithstanding the fact that he
actually met his wife a virgin--Yinka eventually sought the diabolical power of
“Magun”- the mysterious chastity control which instantly terminates the life of
any man who dares to “climb” a straying wife. The snag though is that if the
woman played no “away game” within a certain period while still being laced
with “Magun” she stood the risk of death. Being a faithful wife, it was Ngozi’s
life that was in danger in the movie.
Magun is fatal and remedies are rare and often not
foolproof. So the efforts to break its life-threatening effect on Ngozi
provided the entertainment and the drama of existence captured in the movie.
But in the final analysis, Ngozi’s redemption came from the family of her
irresponsible Yoruba husband, the Yoruba native doctors, her local Yoruba
guardian and finally the love-struck Yoruba medical doctor who offered himself
as a guinea pig to test the efficacy of “Magun” on the altar of a five-minute
enjoyment. He was lucky to survive with an experience he would never forget!
When her tribulation was over and she was confronted with
the prospect of another Yorubaman as suitor, Ngozi, quite naturally, was
hesitant but her father, who started out as a Yoruba antagonist, saved the day
by advising her to follow her heart. He said it would be wrong to blame a whole
ethnic group for the misconduct of one man, before giving us that memorable line:
“A man is a man; and a race is a race”.
About four weeks ago, the Lagos State Government “deported”
some people to Onitsha in furtherance of its ill-conceived policy to rid the
state of destitute. But despite that the action (which is targeted at vulnerable
people within our society regardless of their ethnicity) has been condemned by
many, including Yoruba people, some Igbo politicians would not let the facts
get in the way of an opportunity for opportunism; they termed it a deliberate
action against their kinsmen. To compound the situation, some “Yoruba
defenders” would also latch on to it to tell some imaginary tales about the
superiority of their ethnic group. And with that, we now have a war on the
internet as to who between the Yoruba and Igbo can abuse, slander or curse more
than the other.
It is obvious that because our nation has not succeeded in
establishing effective mechanisms to maximize the potentials in our diversity,
our fault lines are ever exposed. But
our leaders will do well to strengthen ethnic harmony and national unity by
safeguarding and protecting equal rights of all citizens, regardless of their
status or where they come from. In the absence of such guarantee of social and
economic rights for all, it is no surprise that our people have become easily
susceptible to the antics of political manipulators who deploy ethnicity to
advance their own careers.
I am an admirer of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola but I
believe that his approach to dealing with vulnerable people in Lagos State is
wrong-headed; and as it has been most eloquently pointed out by Mr Femi Falana,
SAN, clearly unconstitutional. I also think he could have handled better the
complaints from the Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi. However, that is also
no excuse for some people to make provocative statements about Lagos being a
“No-Man’s-land” or parrot one-sided accounts of the civil war to rain
invectives on the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo with a view to provoking reactions
from Yoruba people. While I have no problem with whoever would fault Awo’s
judgement on some of the critical decisions he made in the course of the war as
then Finance Minister (which should always be open to debate, especially since
he took personal responsibility for the choices he made), I have problems with
anybody using that to stigmatise his person or the entire Yoruba people. Within
the same context, I consider it unacceptable and indeed reckless that any
Yorubaman would libel, insult or abuse the Igbo people to make any silly
points.
However, what worries me is not so much the antics of some
Igbo and Yoruba juvenile adults who spend valuable time on the internet trading
diatribes but rather the dangerous seeds they are sowing for our children who
read many of the intemperate postings which paint a distorted picture of who we
really are. For instance, I have Igbo friends who if anything happens within
their families I would be one of the first persons to be contacted. This bond
of trust is also reciprocated by my family who care less about the ethnicity of
those friends. Even at that, I am also aware that this sort of relationships
goes beyond the personal to the political arena, notwithstanding all the
posturing to the contrary.
One of the most memorable assignments I covered as a
reporter with the defunct Concord newspapers in the nineties was the burial in
Ikorodu, Lagos, of the late Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya. I had never witnessed
anything like that before or after when thousands of people (including the high
and mighty) from another ethnic group would rally to bury someone who is not
their kinsman. But that is because they considered him their kinsman; which
then strengthens the argument of Dr Chika Ezeanya in her recent brilliant
thesis on the issue and supports the message in ‘Magun’: a man is a man; a race
is a race.
There are critical issues facing our nation today that
should task us, beyond the infantile debate as to which ethnic group produced
the first person to eat ‘ponmo’ in Nigeria! For instance, ASUU has been on
strike for several weeks now but that is not generating debate because the
children of almost anybody that is somebody in Nigeria today are either in
private universities at home or schooling abroad. Unfortunately, that speaks to
the current issue. Three days after Lagos dumped the destitute in Onitsha, it
was reported that one of them had died. The question to ask is: what were they
still doing under the bridge? What has happened to the remaining of those
unfortunates on whose behalf we all make noise? I will not be surprised if they
are still under Onitsha bridge, left to their fate for the same reason that the
Lagos State Government deported them in the first place: because they are poor,
homeless people who live on the margin of society!
This “Igbo this, Yoruba that” argument is unhelpful and
detracts from what should be the focus of our attention. I believe it will
serve us well if we return to what the real issue is, or at least should be:
Whether they are Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba and regardless of their “state of origin”,
no Nigerian should be discriminated against in any part of the country on
account of his or her social status. It is time we put an end to the on-going
nonsensical debate between some Igbo and Yoruba commentators and face the real
issues of poverty, development and national unity.
Whither Bob Marley’s Zimbabwe?
In his famous track, “Zimbabwe”, the late Reggae music
legend, Bob Marley, had rhapsodized that “every man has a right to his own
destiny”, charging that Africa should liberate Zimbabwe. As it would happen,
however, 32 years after the country was actually liberated, the people are now
crying for another liberation, this time from President Robert Mugabe,
ironically the man who only yesterday was seen as their messiah.
It is a shame that African history is replete with leaders
who played critical roles in the struggle for independence only to end up as
tyrants by overstaying their welcome. That was the point made so eloquently
last Saturday in South Africa by Sudanese-born billionaire, Mr. Mo Ibrahim who
drew comparisons between African and American leaders: “People in their 40s are
being elected to run a country (United States) which is not only the greatest
superpower, but has a GDP of 15-trillion dollars a year -- 15 times the total
economy of Africa. And here we have somebody in a neighbouring country (Zimbabwe),
at 90 about to start a new term. What’s wrong with us?”
The question posed by Mo Ibrahim is one that should agitate
the minds of not only Zimbabweans but indeed all Africans. I have just gone
through an old (December 2003) edition of The Atlantic Monthly, where there was
this interesting story on Zimbabwe which illustrates rather vividly what
happens when elected political leaders operate without the fear of being held
accountable by the people for the decisions they take.
A paragraph from the ten-page essay will suffice, hoping our
leaders, at all levels and in all spheres, can learn something: “Although
Zimbabwe is as broken as any country on the planet, it offers a testament not
to some inherent African inability to govern but to a leadership as oppressive
and inconsiderate of the welfare of citizens as its ignominious white
predecessor. How could the breadbasket of Africa have deteriorated so quickly
into the continent’s basket case? The answer is Robert Mugabe, now seventy-nine
(89 now!), who by his actions has compiled something of a ‘how-to’ manual for
national destruction. The Zimbabwe case offers some important insights. It
illustrates the prime importance of accountability as an antidote to idiocy and
excess and the reluctance by African leaders to criticise their own. And it
offers a warning about how much damage one man can do very quickly...”
Bob Marley must be turning in his grave.
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