i be naija

I should have gone fishing or skinny-dipping or window-shopping for that matter. I should have broken my resolution to abstain from clubbing… in fact, I should have done anything but sit through Bruce Willis’ latest yarn of an action movie. The experience was exasperating in its milder parts, and revolting at its crudest. I should have been watching SNL reruns.

Tears of the Sun is another Hollywood attempt to nurture the notion held by more than a few Americans (and, even more largely, Westerners) that Africa is one huge jungle, where man and beast co-exist in close proximity, and whose people are incapable of conducting the business of government without resorting to wanton massacre. Of course, it’s largely a matter of capitalism: Hollywood churns out features that sell, and features that align themselves with romanticized notions happen to sell very well. It’s a matter of giving people what they want, what reaffirms their smug convictions, and whatever makes them declare in self-adulation, ‘there goes us but for the grace of God’.

In the approximately ninety-minute feature, an “African nation” represented as Nigeria is portrayed as a massive forest (which, coincidentally, fits snugly into the West’s notion of Africa). “Nigerian” politics is reduced to a primordial tribal bloodbath perpetuated by the “Fulanis” against the “Ibos.”

Supposedly, the “Ibo” President (who, it appears, holds a part time job as a “tribal king” of sorts) is murdered by “Fulani rebels.” His son, who is “heir” to “the throne,” suddenly becomes the burden of the U.S. Navy SEALS dispatched to extract an American doctor from the “hostile” region. The juxtaposition of “presidency” and “tribal kingship” in one single man is an anachronism at best, and an aberration at worst. The variant of tribal politics depicted would have been more appropriately ascribed to another time and place.

At the very least, the plot could have been based on a fictitious nation, like Coming to America’s “Zamunda”—although this approach does not altogether address the fundamental issue at hand. Because it arbitrarily uses “Nigeria” as a label for its pitiful contrivance, Tears of the Sun is abrasive, offensive, and insolent. Additionally, it betrays the ignorance of the writers. (There are no “kings”, per se, among the Ibos, for a start.)

The people in the movie were most assuredly not Nigerians, the “native” language spoken was decidedly not a Nigerian language (and I might contend was not even a real language at all), none of the sound tracks had the faintest connection to a Nigerian ethnic group, and the quixotic jungle location was, I’ll bet, not anywhere near the Nigerian geographical space. So the epistemological question, then, is: why ascribe such an obnoxious plot to Nigeria?

To have people represented as Nigerians clad in tattered rags, referred to as refugees, and benevolently offered bits of American soldier food made me feel like running to the front of the theatre to repudiate, on the spot, the movie’s premise. If not for the release of the exasperation caused by the assault on Nigeria, I would have at least disabused the minds of viewers of the assault on their collective intelligence and sensibilities.

In the end, we are left with the impression that, once again, the caucasoid demigod has succeeded in saving the confounded African negroid from himself, as the helicopters rise in messianic ascension into the clouds. Indeed, the scene was reminiscent of the very Christ ascending into heaven, after saving wretched man from eternal damnation.

Tears of the Sun does nothing but unleash a demeaning onslaught on an African nation, and an unflattering abuse on the minds of a generation of Americans, with misrepresentations of the social and political realities of today’s Nigeria.

And, oh, the movie, if I were to assume the role of movie critic for a moment, has no real morals, hinges on warped principles, and would be receiving a rather charitable assessment if it were compared to, say, Schwarzeneggar’s Commando (which, itself, was a bad movie). Tears of the Sun is, to put it as it is, a lie.

My only regret is that my $9 (price of movie ticket) goes towards enriching a band of lying connivers.

Ever since my introduction to the philosophy of the human nature in Dr. Lichtenbert’s class, I have generally sided with Jean Jacques Rousseau (pictured). Rousseau contended that man (i.e. the human species) is inherently good; that it is society’s crassness that corrupts and imbues us with a propensity toward evil. In effect, the argument was that, left to his devices, man would comport himself.

In spite of my inclination toward Rousseau, I saw merit in Thomas Hobbes’ assessment of man as brutish, base, and essentially evil.(Hobbes was Rousseau’s major antagonist on the issue of the essential human nature). Every day, I saw evidence in favor of the argument that man is evil, rather than good, by default; and that it in fact takes concerted effort to be good. Hobbes’ evaluation of man, though bleak, seemed to correlate more closely with my daily observations of the human species. Nonetheless, perhaps because I wanted man to be essentially good, I sided with Rousseau.

Allow me then to tell you about the singular incident that caused me to rethink my position on the subject of the human nature.

§

For as long as I could remember, my buddy Ben had been raving about one of the clubs in the Wrigleyville cluster around Clark and Addison streets, so I agreed to go with him to John Barleycorn one Friday evening. While I doubt that Barleycorn qualifies as the best thing in the Wrigleyville area, I will affirm that you probably will never find better tasting Long Islands elsewhere.

Anyhow, after the obligatory round of drinks and a few overtures at some of the girls around the bar, we proceeded upstairs to the dance floor. It appeared that we were relatively early; we were still able to move from one end of the floor to the other with relative ease. Invariably, the room’s temperature began to rise as more people crammed into it, as the evening wore on.

Ben and I were standing at the bar, drinks in hand, surveying the environment much the same way a lion in search of prey would. I was wearing this incredible, Morpheus-ish leather jacket (à la The Matrix) that never failed to inspire me with an increased sense of confidence. Succinctly, I loved that jacket.

By midnight though, the dance floor on that upper level had become so crammed with party revelers drinking and gyrating to assorted contemporary urban music, that the temperature in the room had risen dramatically since when we first arrived. I had to take the jacket off.

At the other end of the room, there were a set of wall hooks that were meant, ostensibly, to hold jackets. I told Ben I’d be right back and squeezed my way through the throng of people towards the wall bearing the cloth hooks. When I got there, I took the jacket off to reveal the hunk of masculinity that lay beneath, and hung it on one of hooks. I removed my wallet and cell phone, but not wanting the latter, a rather bulky contraption (this was 2003) bulging out of my pant pockets, I returned it into the jacket’s flank pocket. Bah, I thought to myself, no one’s gonna steal your jacket… Man is essentially good.

I went back to meet up with Ben, and we did what two buddies out for a night on the town do: we grabbed a few more drinks, bumped-n-ground with a couple of babes, took a few telephones numbers (a good number of them bogus, it would turn out), and generally tried to have a good time. By the end of the night, exhausted, sleepy, and slightly inebriated, I returned to the wall to get my jacket. It was gone.

Worse yet, by the next day, the jacket thief (who serendipitously found my cell phone in the jacket pocket) had placed numerous international calls to Ecuador and Peru. My phone bill that month was over $350!

So, with that incident I lost my last shred of faith in man, and defected from Rousseau’s school of thought.

Man, as far as I am now concerned, is base, base, base!

Initial: 12 June 2003; Revised: 29 June 2006.

“What were you doing?”

“What I was doing?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t playing with the soap.”

“I didn’t ask you what you weren’t doing… I ask you what you were doing…”

“What I was doing?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t playing with the water, either.”

“Listen son, again, I am not asking you what you weren’t playing with… I want to know what you were doing…”

“What I was doing?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t jumping on the bed, either.”

“Daddy, can I play your itarg?”

“What?”

“… your itarg …”

“What is tha— … oh, you mean, my guitar?”

“Yes …”

“Yes, you can play my itarg… Just be careful not to break the strings.”

dreary gloomy days
frosty starry nights
life’s lost all
nothing matters

one fleeting
thought of you
and

suddenly
gloom fades
frost thaws
life gains meaning
all matter

those times
i love you
more

© by Charles E. Oyibo

An unending cycle
of death and rebirth;
An emergence,
destined to spiral
swiftly,
disquietingly,
into abyssal depths.

*

Eyes red and tender
from years of incessant tears;
Years,
of alternating elation and despair,
ominous arrivals, and
torturous departures.

*

Seating on the windowsill;
Gazing at the stars with tear-filled eyes…
Her belly,
accentuated by the night’s full moon.
Abiku stirs within.
Maybe she’ll stay this time;
Maybe.

© by Charles O.

See a discussion of the poem.

Occasionally, I receive unsolicited e-mail messages that I find valuable. But seldom do I receive a message that at once infuriates and propels me to pull up a blank Microsoft Word document to hash out a riposte.

But first, a salient question:

Why was it the European that enslaved the African and not the other way around?

Here is my proposition.

(But before that, a quick foreword: I have deliberately chosen to simplify and generalize here; this isn’t intended to be a doctoral thesis. I realize, for example, that there are way more people on earth than the European and the African. Nonetheless, I feel confident that it is in order for me to take the risks of simplification and generalization here.)

So on to my proposition.

Let’s go back to any arbitrary time in the history of mankind… Shall we say, the middle ages? On any arbitrary day in the middle ages, we will find it to be true that the European was more inquisitive than the African. The European observed natural phenomena, and, intrigued by them, wondered why things were the way they were? He formulated hypotheses, tested them, and validated or repudiated them. Either way, he learned something each time he went through that cycle, and accumulated (and documented), over time an increasing body of knowledge.

The African on the other hand ascribed almost everything to the supernatural. He ascribed the rain and the sun to gods. If he had a bountiful harvest, the gods must have been pleased with his sacrifice of goat’s blood and yams from earlier in the year. If he had a poor harvest, the gods were undoubtedly aggrieved, and needed to be appeased. The forests had their gods, and so did the rivers, all animals, sickness and health, poverty and wealth, and gravity. (I doubt that someone actually thought to ascribe that last one to a god, though).

But what happens once you ascribe all observable phenomena to the supernatural? You slowly asphyxiate your natural imperative to inquire and investigate. You gradually become incapable of asking, as Newton did, why the apple (or banana, to be stereotypical) fell down, and not up. You, over time, lose all ability to engage your intellect… to wrap your mind around your living environment. When you see your brother’s ailment as a curse from the gods rather than as the manifestation of some physiological imbalance, your approach to searching for a solution leads to an altogether futile endeavor.

But back to the European.

So, the European came to Africa with his astronomical wizardry (and by astronomical, I mean, “of, or relating to astronomy”), navigational genius, and his rifle. He summarily herded the African back to his homeland to slave away in farms and fields. (I know, I know, the matter was way more complex; that doesn’t matter here).

What matters though, is that the European gave the African a new religion, pointing out the sheer backwardness of paganism. This new religion wore a cloak woven of the highest grade virtue. In comparison to the black, barbaric religion of the African, the new religion was the dazzling epitome of all things white and right. Indeed, the European came to Africa with the Bible, and said to the African, “Close your eyes, let us pray.” On “Amen,” the African had the European’s Bible, and the European had the African’s land—and, dare I say, the African, himself.

Even though almost all African “nations” had “gained” “independence” by the 1960s (in other words, the European has “returned” Africa to the African—at least, apparently), the African has not, till date, returned the Bible to its owner.

Boy, has the African clung to that Bible.

But more than just clinging to the Bible, in fact, the African has so infused the European’s religion with his own brand of eccentricities, that even if he were to return the Bible, its owners would neither recognize nor accept it.
 
(By the way, I have another hypothesis about why it was the European that enslaved the African and not the other way around, but I am not going to go there. Suffice it to say though that by engaging the European with a harsher living environment than the African, nature assured the European of certain advantages… But, like I said, I am not going to go there… That is almost entirely a separate issue.)

***

So back to the reason of this write-up: that e-mail I got from my buddy, Kunle. In it, an organization called “restore-Nigeria” (do a Google search for them, if you like, I refuse to boost their search rankings by linking to them) seems to think that all of Nigeria’s woes come from one single incident: Nigeria’s hosting of the Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977. According to them,

FESTAC ’77 took place in Nigeria some thirty years ago but the negative spiritual impact unleashed on our nation still haunts us today.

Here’s their smoking gun… an irrefutable, deductively-valid inference, if there ever was one:

FESTAC ‘77 took place from 15 January – 12 February 1977. The 10th year after that (1987) was meant to be an election year in the second republic but the election never took place. Instead, we had a coup d’etat. We suffered the same fate in 1997. Coincidentally, we have a major election coming up in 2007. These facts highlight the need for us to seek God’s mercy on our nation.

And here’s their call-to-action… their prescription for Nigeria’s redemption:

To cleanse our nation of the sin of idolatry that we committed in FESTAC ’77 and restore us to the true path of ‘Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress’, we need a national call for repentance. All Nigerians need to fast and pray to God for forgiveness and restoration.

And their rationale… the clincher:

God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah , a city whose sin was exceedingly grave, for the lives of only ten righteous people (Genesis 18: 32). He indeed spared Nineveh , a wicked city, when its people repented of their evil ways (Jonah 3: 10). God is able, and will surely restore our nation if we cry unto him in genuine repentance.

These numbskulls (I really hate ad hominem attacks, but feel I am entitled to at least this one) continue to perpetuate the disabling worldview of their forefathers by ascribing the social, political, and economic anomalies of a country, Nigeria, to the supernatural.

I will not waste your time recounting Nigeria’s problem (every Nigerian that is 3 years or older can tell you what they are). I just wish these neo-middle-age Africans would wake up and see Nigeria’s problems for what they are. I’ll tell you what Nigeria’s problems are not though… They are NOT God’s continuing backlash at us for FESTAC ’77, thirty years later.

C. E. Oyibo, out.

The good folks at Wisdom Consulting Group have asked me to help spread the word about Tom Floyd’s Integration is a… Bitch!

In the book ($10.95, direct), Floyd recounts his experiences as the only Black employee at a Manufacturing plant in the ’60s, using cartoons. If you enjoy cartoons, you will absolutely love the book; if you are interested in various perspectives of where race relations in the United States once was (and arguably still is), I think you’ll find the book to be worth your while.

You can grab a copy of Integration is a… Bitch! by Tom Floyd from www.integrationisabitch.com.

A poem by Charles E. Oyibo

A veritable motley—those Lagosians,
Igala, Igbira, all creeds and persuasions.
Confined in space by the obdurate traffic,
Of that bedraggled Lagos Expressway (sic).

Street hawkers, bus conductors, sweat-imbued,
O-sho-di straight, no stop o, Oshodi, Oshod…
No bother about that dead street light,
Brother, better upgrade to panoramic sight.

The cadaverous Yellow Fever appears presently,
Directing, controlling, gesticulating wildly.
Abracadabra, he makes as swift a disappearance;
Lo, the Mercedes v-boot just made a clearance.

‘Omo ale!’ snarls the Peugeot driver, violated;
Others rant and curse, verily desecrated.
The swearing and raving come to naught;
Mercedes man has long reached his cot.

What traffic? Padi, cut through that petrol station!
In fact, complicate this knotty reticulation.
Maneuver here, maneuver there,
Walahi, worsen this web of festering ire.

Hallelujah, that car just moved an inch or so;
Maza, maza, let’s go for the close, go, go.
Ah, too quickly, too close; the brakes fail,
Wham, the Fiat slams into the Beetle’s tail.

Horns blare, doors fly open and slam shut,
‘You don hit my car!’ howls Mr. Beetle, nerves taut.
Behold: the cacophony of assault and expletive,
In English, Kanuri, Urhobo, and Tiv.

© 2006. All Rights Reserved by Charles E. Oyibo.

My greatest admiration, without a doubt, goes to my father.

To be sure, I might not have been as forthright with this declaration, say, four years ago [from the oiginal date of this writing], for in those years, the later ones of my teenage years did I rebel the most against the man. Those were years in which I bore a perpetual grudge against him, and vowed to be his antithesis [whatever that was]. Yet, without a doubt, I look up to my father.

I was born the year before my father obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of Ilorin. At the time, he held a position within a special revenue-yielding project at the National Youth Service Corp, and was subsequently the Accountant at the University bookshop.

As a child, I regarded my father with an amount of awe that might have been sufficient for the very creator. I was convinced that my father was invincible, and, ah, yes, immortal; indeed, I used to tell my friends that my father was one thousand years old! On one occasion, when one of them countered that his father was one million years old, I retorted that my father was uncountable years old. That effectively settled the matter; even our young minds understood that there was no number greater than “uncountable”. Invariably, my attribution of the superlative to my father assumed numerous variations: My daddy can beat your daddy, or My daddy has more power [i. e. sheer physical strength] than your daddy…

My father wore an ever-rounded afro with sideburns reminiscent of a lion’s mane; he wore neither a moustache nor a beard though. I vividly remember him driving his nuclear family (me, my sister, and my mother) to school and work every morning, in his deep-blue Volkswagen Beetle. I would sit in the back seat directly behind him, and would marvel at his looming omnipotence. Father (and mother, for she sat in the front passenger’s seat) would drop me and my sister at school, dad squeezing shiny ten kobo coins into each of our palms as we climbed out of the back seat of the bug.

My father was, in my estimation, the most brilliant mathematician ever, for he could solve every mathematical problem that beleaguered me. Mathematics was the bane of my very existence in those days, and that one subject never failed to soil my report card. But dad knew mathematics—more than enough to deeply intensify my awe of him. I took it for granted that he could solve any problem I presented to him, and, he had a remarkable knack for explaining in the minutest detail.

And so passed the innocence of childhood, and then came my admission to Command Secondary school, an army-run boarding school whose motto, straightforwardly, was “discipline and knowledge.” Though it was the norm to attend a boarding secondary school in my day, I resented being at Command. As I have had another occasion to say, Command repressed one’s sense of one’s rights, instilled a disabling, perpetual, and overwhelming fear of authority, and might have quite possibly warped one’s finer sensibilities.

My resentment of my predicament and of the seemingly insurmountable forces that impelled my attendance of Command manifested itself in the generally moody disposition I assumed when I came home for the holidays. I would fume at the slightest provocation and scowl for days on end, vexed by any single incident. My anger, one could say, knew no bounds.

And because my idea of a holiday differed fundamentally from my parents’, I was always at odds with them. While my conviction was that the holidays were meant for me to relax—a breath of fresh air from the rigors of boarding school, if you will; my parents thought I was supposed to help with chores around the house. Specifically, I was assigned the task of cleaning the car every morning—a task I took exception to, for it required me to wake up early—a rather distasteful proposition at the time.

And then at my June 14, 1997 graduation from Command (in which I won the award for the Best Student in Economics) my dad told me he would be traveling to the States in a couple of days. He returned every six months, while I took a six- (actually, nine- or ten-) month data processing program at AB Computer College, an appointment as the assistant to the proprietress of a private nursery and primary school, and a pre-degree program at the University of Ilorin. I was to join my dad in the states exactly two years and two days later, on June 16, 1999.

If his anticipations were reflective of mine, they’d have been that both of us living together, half-a-world away from the rest of our family would strengthen our father-son relationship. And if our expectations were similar, we were both to be disappointed, for the next three or four years were to be the most contentious ones ever. While I had never found the voice (or more truthfully, the gall) to articulate my disagreement in the past, I suddenly became the most disagreeable son there ever was. I’d argue, for no other reason it seemed, but for the sheer sake of disagreeing with him.

But then, gradually, yet suddenly, after four years of a relatively rocky relationship, I outgrew that feisty disposition, and assumed renewed respect for my father. I must have looked at him one day, and reckoned that I ought not to be as antagonistic to him. Perhaps, I suddenly realized that life is short, and that I ought to make every moment with him a memorable one. Perhaps I began to contemplate my own impending fatherhood, and scared of the remotest possibility of such a rift in my relationship with my son, sought to repair that in my relationship with my father…

In any case, I had a long, fulfilling conversation with my dad today—the type of conversation I haven’t had with him in awhile, and somewhere during that conversation, I realized that I had come full circle. I had returned to the wholesome, fulfilling relationship I had with my dad in my childhood years.