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Shege!

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Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon

By Toyin Falola
In the past few months, I have introduced characters from the street and the internet to provide discourse analyses that outline the wisdom locked in the linguistic properties of Nigerian informal conversations. Slangs are how society points out its circumstantial experience and, to a great extent, the state of things in a nation. Despite the colloquial, informalities, and general unseriousness attached to most slangs, they are identities of mutual and aggregate feelings and people’s experiences; therefore, they become an effective way to understand the sociological, political, and economic standpoint of Nigerian society. On the street, they know Sapa, Las Las, Japa, God When, Bobo and Zobo, as well as many other expressions that help relate well and probably downplay the extent of the effects of many of the country’s social problems. Again, based on this importance, I bring you to Nigeria’s streets and social media and make you understand Nigerian society as Nigerians see it. I will show you the different ways in which people have seen shege.

The word shege was initially developed from the Hausa description of a “bastard”. When I was young, we added barawo to make it sound better: shege barawo, combining a bastard with a thief, too loaded for comfort. Your crime: you took a pin-size piece from my small plate of beans. Bear in mind I was counting the number of legumes before putting three or four into my mouth!

Today, shege has become an interethnic usage that has attracted different semantics. It now depicts hardship, inconvenience, travails, and agonies resulting from perpetual sapa and people’s general unpleasant circumstances or experiences. Interestingly, The Malachi from Urbandictionary.com defines it as “Shege (Sh) is the unit for measuring Sapa at a point in time;” however, the word’s usage extends beyond poverty. How can you move from a shege to a barawo, and your life becomes a unit to measure sapa? “Are you normal?” Mr. Macaroni will ask!

After a long day at work and terrible traffic on the way home, one could say, “my eyes saw shege.” It is true! I have seen this shege on Lagos-Ibadan road where I once spent 5 hours in the traffic. After a substantial struggle in the university, sleepless nights of studying, possible carryovers, long ASUU strikes that extended education periods, and much more stress after graduation, one could say one passed through or saw shege. All Nigerian students in public universities have seen shege, along with their teachers.

I am not a shege collector. Thus, I will limit myself to a few shege. Bearing in mind the diversity of its applicability, the discussion of shege in this piece will focus on the treatment of labour, workers and unimaginable remunerations accruable to them. Here comes Mr. Shege Ambassador!

READ ALSO: Las Las

Right now, it seems that not only is the labour of our heroes past in vain, but the toils of workers, who are the heroes of the present economy and society, are burning in their faces. When they say your rewards are in heaven, Nigerian workers in the private and public sectors, realise that it is not just a figurative expression but a pinching into the consciousness of your reality. Besides the low remunerations compared to the amount of labour, these workers also do not have ideal working conditions. In 2019, the government increased the minimum wage to N30,000. Unfortunately, an individual’s average monthly cost of living is about N43,200, and that of a family is about N137,600. With the current economic hardship and the increasing prices of basic commodities, these costs would have increased substantially. The average salary is not something everyone observes; it appears to be only a rule for the public sector, even though it is far lower than the average wage regulations. Egunje to the rescue! And when you collect egunje, the giver has received shege, the transfer of cash for emotional agonies and unequal trade by barter.

Compared to the public sector, the private sectors in Nigeria show workers more shege. These are places where people collect ridiculous salaries and do unspeakable hard jobs. They see shege at work, and life still shows them shege as they cannot afford basic things. Ironically, even if all government and private sectors pay the minimum wage, an average Nigerian will still see shege because of inflation and the rising cost of living. Your landlord will give you shege; Mama Put will give you shege; and Idris, the Okada driver, will give you shege. Three shege in one day make over a hundred shege in a month: 3 x 30 is more than 90 in real life.

Back in the day, the combination of bread and beans was called the labourers’ food because they believed it was affordable and gave strength. Before the shege Nigerians are facing presently, a labourer could buy N50 Agege bread, N30 ewa aganyin, N20 Naira piece of beef or ponmo, and two sachets of pure water. Do you know why that food combo is good? The labourer gets between N800 and N1000 per day, so if he spends about N110 or N120 on the bread and beans combo, he is good till the end of the day when he returns home to eat or buys dinner for the same amount. At the end of each day, he still has about N400 or more, and he saves some of it with the local alajo. From it, he can carry out major projects like building a modest home for his family or sending his children to a federal university. Unfortunately, societal shege has changed everything. To eat the same quantity of the labourer’s N110 or N120 meal now, one will spend at least N800 from a 2K (N2000) hustle. Arithmetic is another shege, as you must calculate to the last kobo.

READ ALSO: PHOTO: Lady Makes Prayer Request For Davido At Shiloh

Construction sites are where hard labour and shege, in all its imaginable and unimaginable forms, occur: you work against the clock, carrying pans of mixed cement from the ground floor to the top floor, just to collect N2000 per day, while the bricklayers get around N4000 to N5000. At least N500 Naira would be spent on pain relief drugs, while the remaining would not be enough for a meal for you and your family. Unfortunately, the pay seems like the better way out, and, as such, you will have to resume at the site by 7 a.m. the next day. Many of these labourers are older women who have seen so much shege that sapa has become their way of life. The most painful part of this shege is that many women have to give their bodies to contractors or even bricklayers before they are assigned to the next day’s job. It is sad, but it is what it is on the streets: people see shege.

Well, you may argue that most of those suffering are “illiterate” folks trying to survive, but wait till you hear and see the sheges of the literates. The nation’s unemployment rate is about 40 per cent in 2022. A considerable percentage of those with jobs are gravely underemployed, earning peanuts as salaries and subjected to workplace shege. After failing to find gainful employment, a graduate is sometimes “condemned” to teach in privately-owned nurseries and primary schools, where he or she slaves away. After the shege of teaching various subjects across different classes, he or she is paid about N20,000 Naira, if lucky. Depending on the school, some teachers get as much as N50,000 and some as little as N15,000, not to mention the many deductions (fines for lateness, not completing lesson notes, and the like) from the meagre salary. Whichever way, it is both physical and financial shege. Maybe the rewards of a teacher are truly in heaven, but do they spend naira in heaven? Peter collects dollars at Heaven’s Gate, and Satan collects euros in hell.

The shege is better in public secondary schools but far from being good compared to other climes. The salary of a public secondary school teacher depends on his level. At some point, a Grade 8 Step 2 Education Officer takes N688,504 per annum, which is about N57,000 Naira monthly. The salary scale of lecturers in tertiary institutions is also not encouraging, with a Lecturer II working for about N140,000, depending on the institution. The sad stories of ridiculous salary scales continue. What about lawyers who, after the shege they passed through for five years at the university and one-year intensive studies at Law School, come back to a ridiculous N30,000 salary? Medical doctors study for over seven years in Nigeria and, in most cases, do not get employment opportunities in government-owned hospitals. They are then subjected to a N50,000 salary in a private hospital. What about bank cashiers who do not get the value of the work done despite the stressful shege-filled day that requires drugs for aching backbones from a long time of sitting?

We should also talk about many other underpaid employees in the corporate world. A company secretary gets N50,000, a storekeeper is paid N18,000, a driver is paid N20,000, and security guards get about N20,000. These may not be their exact salaries, but while many are paid less than that, those earning more than the above stipulated are few and far between. Shege Salary Structure!

READ ALSO: Kind Of President Nigerians Need In 2023 – Oyedepo

In 2020, the #EndSARS protest put a pause on the nation, asking that adequate attention be given to police brutality. While police brutality is a genuine situation, I remember that the cliché about a hungry man being an angry man must not be forgotten in the case of police officers. Before the 20 per cent salary increment for the Police in December 2021, a police Constable only earned about N43,000, while a Sergeant received about N83,000. After the increment, they get N51,000 and N99,000, respectively. I must say that the nation is still joking with security if government pays such pittances to officers who risk their lives every day while in pursuit of the enemies of the nation, people who keep society safe while we all go about our businesses expecting the utmost professionalism and effectiveness from them. Brothers and sisters, should a kidnapper be richer than a police officer? O ti su mi!

A Yoruba adage says, “Inu didun lo ma n mu ori ya,” that is, happiness motivates. The ridiculous welfare provisions for police officers, lack of ammunition that increases risk, and rigorous work ethics are enough reasons for the disgraceful acts of some police officers. Although this is not a justification for the overwhelming corruption and inefficiency in the police force, taking definitive action could help the nation worry about preventive rather than curative efforts.

Another matter of concern is the unchecked circumstances surrounding human resources and labour agencies. The world is moving toward outsourcing services and hiring service workers without direct contracts with the company. Sadly, these companies make cheaper bids to outsmart other contractors and to the detriment of potential workers who will be shown hot shege. Workers under these conditions, especially in factories, get injured or wounded in the process, and the damage accruable to them and their families is often nothing. With the fear of losing contracts, these outsourced HR companies take their eyes off the suffering of their employees and the cycle of shege continues. Shege takes different forms, and the issue of toxic bosses and workplaces must be investigated. There is a need to set general but non-encroaching regulations on service conditions. In addition, this is a clarion call for trade and labour unions to take up their primary duties and stop being busybodies lurking around politicians and fighting for the union of their pockets rather than their members.

READ ALSO: ASUU And Trickster Beggars

The system has refused to acknowledge that underpaying workers is a big challenge to the nation’s economy and security. Poverty results in the desperation to acquire anything by any means, which explains why many of the criminals in Nigeria are often impoverished people. The country needs to do something about low salary scales, particularly in private sectors and security agencies. It is important to ensure that all employers of labour observe the minimum wage regulation, with punishment meted out to defaulters. Also, the legislature must take action and pass laws to regulate underemployment. It is also necessary to make legislation on outsourced services and human capital engagements to ensure that employees’ interests are not sacrificed for the interests of the agency and the company in need of the service.

Importantly, business owners and, indeed, everyone must realise that the rights and well-being of workers are as important as the business itself. Workers do not have to see shege before employers or jobs can be taken seriously. Let us put an end to showing people shege in workplaces; let us stop shege anywhere. I have taken Panadol for your headache, sharing your shege with you.

Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

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Opinion

Who Needs Counseling In Nigeria?

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State
Dr. Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

In January, I registered for a professional course in counseling at the Attitude Development Institute (ADI) in Lagos. After my doctoral program in religious studies, I thought I was done doing any other academic course. But I was mistaken. I recently noticed that something was missing in my academic and learning accessories. And I needed to rectify it. So I started this professional diploma program. I embarked on this course in my quest for a more competent way to assist people who contact me for help and support. Many contact me saying that they are tired of life and could not find anything meaningful to do or to earn a living. Many attribute their problems to ‘village people’, witches and wizards, generational curses, evil spirits, jinns, demonic attacks, etc. Many attribute their failures, setbacks and misfortunes to juju or harmful magic. I decided to do this diploma in counseling because I felt that something was lacking in my knowledge and understanding of human beings and human problems.

Last year, a lecturer on guidance and counseling at a college of agriculture in Ebonyi state invited me to come and talk to some of his students. Some of the students wanted to do money rituals and he was worried. This lecturer asked me to come and persuade them against engaging in this futile and criminal venture. But how could I do this professionally and effectively?

I wondered what else to tell these students apart from what I had repeatedly said in the past. That money ritual was a superstition, and the belief had no basis in reason or reality. But will that help? Will that be enough? Will the students be persuaded by that proposition? I asked. I felt that telling them that ritual money was a myth would likely be an exercise in futility. It would likely be inadequate and would not yield effective results. I felt that young people needed a more structured way to get them to change these thoughts and behavior. Anyway, I went to that college of education and met with some students and spent time talking to them, advising and persuading them not to indulge in money rituals. I urged them to try and complete their education and then seek out other evidence-based ways of making money. I do not know if my talk yielded any positive results.

Before and after this incident I encountered many who strongly believed in ritual money, and who, given the opportunity could kill, or use human body parts for rituals. Last year, someone contacted me from Kwara state. He inquired how he could do money rituals. I offered similar advice. Some people have contacted me seeking some other forms of help and support. Someone called from Imo state asking how he could stop gambling. That it was ruining his business and that his friends were pointing accusing fingers at his landlady. They said the woman was a witch and was responsible for his dwindling fortune. I offered him some words of advice. Also, in advocating against witch persecution, I have come across people who had anxiety, and mental and emotional disorders but who attribute these psychological problems and other existential challenges to witchcraft. I have been looking for competent ways to manage witchcraft believers and suspecters. I have been searching for more professional ways to support traumatized victims and survivors. I have been seeking a skillful mechanism to empower, guide and enable entertainers of witchcraft fears and sufferers of witch persecution to heal, recover and take control of their lives.

Beyond that, there are personal reasons. I am the first son in my family. I started dealing with family issues at a very young age without any knowledge of human psychology. I was socialized to help my younger brothers and lead even when I barely knew my left from my right. I was made to manage and resolve family-related issues even when I was a child with barely an understanding of how life worked. I was not self-aware or socially aware. I did not know human personalities and temperaments. I was not allowed to grow like every other child. I was pressured to behave like the first son, the deputy head of the family, and to intervene in family issues including my parents’ marital issues. Even now my father has passed away, I manage family issues and deal with members with personality disorders and untreated traumas, including my siblings who engage in micro/transferred aggressions and other negative behaviors rooted in childhood experiences. They intentionally make life miserable for me; they complicate matters to settle childhood scores, to punish or deal with me for some real or imagined privilege that they thought I had enjoyed as a first son.

In addition, I started teaching at 17 years, I taught at a local seminary and helped in nurturing children. I did not know children and educational psychology. It was like a child teaching children. It was while studying for my bachelor’s in philosophy that I did some psychology courses. I learned about Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Ivan Pavlov and their explanations of human behavior. But it was all theory. Then my focus was on getting good grades and passing examinations, not applying the knowledge to real life and issues. In the course of my humanist work and campaign, I have come across people suffering from religious trauma, and victims of religious oppression and persecution.

I would like to offer them effective help and support. As a humanist celebrant, I help families that are grieving, couples who are getting married, or those celebrating the arrival of a new baby. To provide effective help and services, I realized that I needed some professional training in counseling. I searched online and got some information about one Counseling Association of Nigeria. I contacted them and registered. But I realized that the focus was mainly on guidance and counseling in schools. That is important. But that was not what I wanted. My impression was that the association was mainly for teachers and lecturers. I needed some training that could qualify me as a professional counselor. I went online and saw some information about two counseling institutes in Lagos. They offer professional training.

One is in Ikeja, which is the ADI, and the other is in Victoria Island. I spoke to some counselors and one recommended ADI. After some telephone conversations and WhatsApp exchanges with the director of the Institute, I enrolled in its diploma class. The classes are held once every week. I joined the second week. After my first class, I realized that I was in the right place and that the program that they offered was what I was looking for. It was a twelve-week program, very intense. The courses included the foundations of counseling, counseling theories, and skills, children/teenage counseling, marriage/family counseling, and crisis/trauma counseling. Some of the courses focused on Christian counseling, grief counseling, sex therapy, and mental health. When I started I was worried that the lectures would be bland, another monotonous exercise in issuing handouts, but they were not. The lectures were interesting. And the lecturers were engaging and entertaining. They were very articulate and used so many examples to illustrate their points. The program occasioned some intellectual shocks and dissonance. It has helped me to correct some misconceptions about counseling and counselors. First I realized the importance of counseling and counselors. Look, human beings suffer both physical and emotional injuries. Both injuries are treatable. While medical doctors help treat physical wounds, counselors as therapists help treat emotional and psychological injuries. Again, counseling is widely understood to mean advice. We were told several times that counselors were not advisers. They do not advise their clients. A foremost counselor, Irvin Yalom whose book, Love’s Executioner, we reviewed throughout the course said the task of a counselor was to make himself or herself obsolete. Yes, it is tacitly saying that for the counselee to live, the counselor must die. He noted that the counselor’s role was to help the client take responsibility for making himself or herself better. Instead of advising, counselors support counselees to take control of their healing and living.

Again, throughout the program, the lecturers made it clear that one of the characteristics of a good counselor was listening. A counselor must be a good listener. He or she must have good listening skills. Also, counseling was not meant for some people, some psychologically troubled and maladjusted people. Instead, the lecturers made it clear that counseling was for everyone, for both the counselors and the counselees. In the course of the lectures I kept flashing back and recalling so many people that I have met in life who needed counseling. Everyone is grappling with some trauma or emotional issue at one time or the other. They encouraged the trainees to go for counseling. Each class was indirectly an exercise in group counseling and therapy because the classes provided opportunities for members to pour it out, to draw from their life, work, and family experiences in discussing the topics.

Yes, I realized that everybody needed counseling. And nothing illustrated the need better than a particular incident that happened during the program. Due to some miscommunication, one of the counselors managing the program communicated the wrong date for the class graduation to the management. When she came and informed the class, she was told that she communicated the wrong date. And this counselor became furious(meanwhile her name is also Fu…something). Discussions became quite heated and tense because she continued to insist that she communicated the correct date. The room became very noisy and rowdy because some people were trying to correct her but she refused. At some point, a member of this class set that calls itself, Ignite, raised her voice. She is in this class of women with a huge and imposing stature, looked quiet from the outside, and could be mistaken as phlegmatic. She said emphatically while pointing her five fingers at this counselor and swinging the hand up and down: “You are not listening”, “You are not listening”. At that point, the counselor tried to calm down. A senior management colleague intervened and urged the counselor to leave the room. As soon as she left, another class member said: “She needs counseling”. And some class members chuckled.

So, everybody needs counseling in Nigeria.

Igwe,PhD, is a trainee counselor at the Attitude Development Institute, Lagos.

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Opinion

Professors On INEC’s Will (4)

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

    These past three weeks have been three supreme weeks of supreme value to all of us who have been gluing ourselves to this column for the right reasons: No room for lying; no room for deceits; no room for propaganda; no room for vanity. No room, no room, no room for what should not be here. Thoughts of the streams, thoughts of the spheres, music of the streams, music of the spheres enhance the column in diverse ways. 

    Our debaters for the past three weeks have demonstrated this. Each of the professors (all of them, in fact) has demonstrated this in the geometry of their presentations, in the minds of their geo-biographies, in the arithmetic of their convictions and persuasions. They in varying degrees did not support the will of INEC in the presidential election, even though the INEC chair is one of them, a fellow professor in the sphere of the humanities. In going over the longitude and latitude of the flow of our professors, of our debating professors, in their authentic and responsible sphere of spheres the clarity and precision of the geo-biography and nature of patience moved towards me. This may not be the right way of putting it, but I found and still find each debater to be a patient debater. Goodness! How a patiently patient listener and presider over the debate Professor Olu Obafemi was/is! The rhetoric of his ears or of his eyes or of his tongue was/is the rhetoric of the sage. If I imagined this, I imagined it well. His rhetoric was/is not the creation of this recorder, but it is the rhetoric of the music of the shaping of the debate and the words of the debaters who like him are fellow writers and creators. 

    Now I present to our readers the summation of Professor Olu Obafemi who presided over the reported affairs of the literati:

“This debate has gone on very well and quite enlightening. I have learnt quite a lot from the various positions eloquently proffered here. I like to chip in this bit: (1) there will not be much ideological departure from PMB to BAT. We will still operate a neoliberal economy, fraught largely with parasitism and consumerism. It is very likely, from his experience in investment, creative commercialism/commodity consciousness and cosmopolitanism in governance, Tinubu will be a lot more distribution-prone, more productive, and more people friendly than his predecessor; (2) having operated in comprador praxis in the US, Tinubu will engage globalization with discretionary envisioning (these are loaded, unconventional concepts that may require greater elucidation in future; (3) having not operated unitarist governance strategy that we have had since Ironsi till date, and with his governance experience in Lagos, including standing up to OBJ to run a well-structured State in Lagos, BAT will be more of his own man who will surround himself with talent rather than a cabalistic instinct (I am talking here about power delegation as opposed to power relegation); (4) we have good reason to believe that Tinubu will not go for a winner-take-all, conclave-prone governance and will strive to deliver goods and services— democracy dividends more generously/humanely. May the future be better and more tolerable for our people and all of us in this country, and all our fellows and compatriots in foreign lands, that is, the diaspora.”

But the pastor-spirit as well as the track of traditional culture in him elicited from Professor Ademola Da Sylva what amounted to a kind of vote of thanks to Professor Olu Obafemi and the co-debaters in the literati.

“Many thanks, Baba O.O., for your thoughtful, clinical and lucid interventions; and IBK’s, (and others’) too! So palpable and infectious are the feelings of hope, and delight of the innocent, that you have demonstrated in your concluding postings, and my silent response was a loud A-m-e-n! Then I turned to God the Almighty, and said, “Baba-God, these genuine feelings expressed by these great minds, aggregate what is uppermost in the mind of the Nigerian people at this point of our history. Can you, please, do this one last favour for the masses of this country? I believe it is not beyond what you as the Almighty can do for an otherwise potentially great country like Nigeria! Simply protect BAT, from the powers that have constituted themselves into human principalities in the corridor of power; completely and permanently seal the mouths of those demonic lions labelled as Cabals in Aso Rock that have, thus far, truncated Nigeria’s destiny! AMEN!” Perhaps we should remind ourselves that our hope was this high when many Nigerian voters, including yours truly, trouped out to vote in Buhari as President! Now, I remember, “demonic forces” written about by Reuben Abati during the Presidency of GEJ, unfortunately, like some nameless hydra monsters they always rear their ugly heads with every new administration, these Aso Rock principalities. PMB has his good share of them in the Abakyaris, and very familiar ones, for obvious reasons, like the Ngiges, et al, never for once did they allow PMB to be! They took advantage of his visibly infirm state, to take over the reins of governance in what could be described as a “civilian coup” and ran-over the ship of the country crashing against the Aso rock! The reason we are where we are, right now! BAT like PMB, also has a visibly infirm visage/characteristic unless we pretend to not acknowledge it, a new set of cabalistic demons would join forces with the existing ones, after all, it is still the same Political Party, to take advantage of BAT’s current clinical status! BAT of 20 or 10 years ago, isn’t the same BAT today on account of age and health. Yes, unless God Almighty does something about these principalities through His human agents, they might yet soon take over the affairs of Nigeria under BAT too, to do what they know best: to steal, to kill and to destroy, and ensure that the status quo remains as it has always been, in the spirit of Ted Hughe’s very famous poem, ‘The Eagle’!”

Well, well said, O debaters. But let the columnist-terminator and terminator-columnist have the last word. The time won’t be long to ask INEC this simple question: Did INEC lavish allegedly over three hundred billion naira to register the paltry figure or number of voters for the 2023 elections? Did the very small number (below ninety or so million) match the more than very huge sum of money that INEC got for registration of voters and for other election related matters, duties and responsibilities? How much money in millions upon millions did not allegedly go under and distributed to “principalities” and “demonic forces” hovering over Aso Rock and the Presidency of the presidencynologists? Any clear or unclear answers to these questions cannot or may not but tell us that the presidential election in particular was INEC’s will. Our debating Professors will not say on oath that they did not know. Did the presidential and other elections meet the expectations, wishes and will of the people generally? INEC has the answer. And our debating professors will bluntly tell the chairman of INEC this.                                                   

    Because our professors are fellow writers, I must terminate the discourse by drawing their attention to the following poem “For the Consideration of Poets” by Haki R. Madhubuti (original name Don Luther Lee), the 81 years old African-American poet, author and publisher, and a native of Little Rock, Arkansas:

where is the poetry of resistance, 

the poetry of honorable defiance 

unafraid of lies from career 

politicians and business men, 

not respectful of journalists who write 

official speak void of educated thought 

without double search or sub surface questions 

that war talk demands? 

where is the poetry of doubt and suspicion 

not in the service of the state, bishops 

and priests, 

not in the service of beautiful people 

and late night promises, 

not in the service of influence, 

incompetence and academic 

clown talk?

The above lines speak volumes. Let them stay glued to our memories day by day. And may INEC’s chairman become the poet and historian of resistance after finding time to read this!

Terminated for now.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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Opinion

Iwuanyanwu And The ‘Political Rascals’ Rhetoric 

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Nigerian Destiny: In The Hands Of The People
Dr. Promise Adiele

By Promise Adiele

Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot avails itself of multiple interpretative tools with a compelling grip on the moral imagination of the audience. As a timeless drama, it thrives on the hopelessness of the human condition dramatized by two vagabonds, Estragon and Vladimir who waited for a mysterious, titular Godot that never came. One of the features of the absurdist literary tradition portrayed in the play is the failure of language in the verbal context as a means of communication. The verbal exchange between the two vagabonds is evident of misinterpretation. One says one thing, the other interprets it differently. Thus, it calls to question the potency of language in the verbal medium as a means of communication. The preceding analogy reminds me of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu and his purported insult to the good people of the Yoruba ethnic group. Perhaps, misinterpretation currently manifests as an inexorable content of Nigeria’s absurd credentials.

Last week, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, philanthropist, accomplished businessman, the Balogun Babaguwan of Yorubaland, Ahaejiejemba of Igboland and elder-statesman, while reacting to events that happened in Lagos during the last election when many Igbo people were bloodied and harassed, assured the world that “the Igbo and Yoruba are not at war”. On the heels of that statement came another one “they are Yoruba political rascals”. A syntactic analysis of the two sentences affirms that the Chief never meant to insult the entire Yoruba ethnic group. Rather, he was referring to rascals in Lagos who maimed, killed, and vanquished Igbos, non-Yorubas, and even some Yorubas with Igbo semblance, stopping them from exercising their voting rights during the election. He also said “we know them and we will deal with them”. Language scholars know that Chief Iwuanyanwu did not mean to insult the Yoruba. Sadly, some social nitwits, victims of acute cognitive impairment, went on a rampage to misinterpret and manipulate his statement to suit their treacherous, mischievous purposes. It is absurd. 

 Anyone who knows Chief Iwuaynanwu’s antecedent will never ascribe offensive rhetoric to him. He is soft-spoken, conciliatory and peace-loving. Like every sensible person around the world, not just the Igbo, he was aghast with lurid photos and video evidence of harm against the Igbo in Lagos during the last election. Unfortunately, people who ordinarily frolic in the whirlwind of ethnic hate have seized the opportunity to insult the Igbo ethnic group while using acerbic words on the revered Chief. These people, in their degenerate and diseased mentality, are trying to install a wall of hate between the Igbo and Yoruba. Let me state categorically that the Yorubas are wonderful people whose spirit of brotherliness, conviviality, and tolerance speaks volumes across the world. I have maintained over time that the Igbo and Yoruba share a cordial, interwoven relationship in marriage, business, friendship, association and neighbourliness. The two ethnic groups can never be involved in a conflict. Many Yoruba people have helped many Igbo people to their destinies and many Igbo people have helped many Yoruba people to their destinies too. An attempt for one ethnic group to harm the other will result in serious harm for the two. It is as implicating as that. 

Since the presidential elections, keenly contested by different candidates from different ethnic groups in Nigeria, some people have desperately sought to reduce the entire development to an ethnic affair. It is myopic and at once condescending. Does Peter Obi represent the Igbo? Does Bola Tinubu represent the Yoruba? Does Atiku Abubakar represent the Hausa/Fulani?  These candidates all have supporters across the country. Of course, they will have a preponderance of support from their ethnic base. That is the way of politics. Unfortunately, ethnic jingoists have, in the inerrancy of their bleak convictions, reduced the entire political discourse to an ethnic affair especially Yoruba vs Igbo. These people, stranded in the realm of ethnic hate and communal intolerance, have done everything within their powers to inflame ethnic tension to crucible dimensions. It is wrong for anyone to insult a whole ethnic group in whatever guise. In Chief Iwuanyanwu’s case, he has put the records straight by clarifying what he meant, insisting that he was quoted out of context. But the morbid and decadent will not hear of it. They insist that Iwuanyanwu and all Igbo should be roasted alive. As far as these simpletons are concerned, the Chief spoke the mind of all Igbos. How idiotic and harebrained can anybody be? 

Recently, some people have also indulged in ethnic slurs. Unlike Chief Iwuanyanwu that clarified himself, Bayo Onanuga offered no apology and insisted on standing by his words. Onanuga spoke for himself and couldn’t have insulted the Igbo on behalf of the Yoruba. MC Oluomo, while registering his socio-political disorientation, spoke for himself when he threatened the Igbo on an  election day and went on to make good his threat which the police shamelessly called a joke. FFK has also made inflammatory remarks which were his personal opinion and not the opinion of Yoruba. It is therefore, a function of disabled, primitive awareness for anyone to insult an ethnic group based on the comment of one person. Such insults and abuses expose the quiddity of phenomenal foolishness which, hitherto, was concealed in some people by the façade of education. No, these hate mongers belong to the stone age. Nobody should be deceived by their pretentious liberalism. 

The question is, are there political rascals in Nigeria? Definitely yes! These are the particular people Chief Iwuanyanwu referred to concerning what happened in Lagos during the last elections. Of course, all parts of the country have their share of political rascals. It is not peculiar to one ethnicity. Political rascals are those who walk the streets, snatch ballot boxes, stab people due to their ethnic origin and prevent them from exercising their civic rights. They are not educated. They are thugs, street urchins and never-do-wells employed by politicians to advance nefarious objectives. There are also some educated political rascals. They don’t walk the streets, but demonstrate humane deficiency of unimaginable proportions using social media and sundry news outlets. They spread hate, provoke enmity and fan the embers of war. They incite the uneducated, urging them to bay for the blood of ordinary citizens. Their social media handles are replete with expletives and insults. Abusive engagement allows them to flourish. Another category of political rascals populate government establishments like INEC, the Police and different security agencies. These people compromise the electoral process in exchange for financial inducement and material gains. They are unconscionable, desperate and invidious. Are these people from another planet? No, they are among us. We know them. 

The ethnic hate narrative is a device enunciated by the political class to keep the people divided, breaking their rank and file to unite and fight a common enemy. The opposition LP and PDP are convinced that the election was marred by sharp, underhand practices and therefore have gone to court. Is going to court to challenge the outcome of an election a legitimate practice? If it is, why can’t detractors of equitable process allow the law to run smoothly? The call by some decidedly frustrated fellows in search of relevance and pecuniary patronage for the arrest of the opposition presidential candidates is from the pit of purgatory. The propaganda that there is a plan to disrupt the handover ceremony is a bundle of falsehood from the depths of Hades. Although many Nigerians regard the judiciary with a pinch of salt, people of goodwill should advocate for a peaceful resolution of Nigeria’s political challenges. Ethnic rhetoric should stop immediately. People should sheath their swords. Let us all close the road to Rwanda. 

Adiele, PhD, writes from Mountain Top University.

Promee01@yahoo.com

 

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