Discarding the Achebes and the Kayodes.

Here is the bitter side of history, that it is never fully recorded or reported. The sparse record of it that remains was written by individuals who viewed, experienced and interpreted events strictly from own limited point of view. In other words, we can never truly recover the full facts of the past by reading the skewed accounts presented by the historians. An Hausa man would write the history of Nigeria in a light that protects the perennial interest of the Hausas. The Chinua Achebes would go to the extent of unnaturally bending past record and presenting it in light that makes one view the Igbos as permanent victims of undeserving malevolence directed at them from all other ethnic groups around. And when a Yoruba man, the Fani-Kayodes, writes his own version and surnames it The Bitter Truth, he goes all the dubious way to marshal his craft and craftiness to present the Yorubas as some noble ethnic group, one that is all accommodating and never given to crime and suspicious dealings...

But as a Nigerian I now write: our self-appointed historians have failed us.

The Chinuas have failed, and so have the Kayodes of this country. For they are no more than a servant of their own gall and bitterness.

For, what is the purpose of a history that does not solve any problem or make a single meaningful contribution to the life of a Nigerian? Instead, their account of the past was designed to keep us chained down by the fetters of blood, of intrigues, of hatred woven by these same men and their colleagues. And this they did supposing Nigerians shall have no other place to find meaning than in looking back over their shoulders at the failings of their fathers and then refusing to move forward.

But they have all failed, these servants of discord and bitterness.

When great men die, shouldn't they leave behind a legacy of benefits that should tell their tales? Great men have lived and died and by the products of their lives established scholarships and foundations that have continued to benefit humanity, even the children of strangers, centuries after they were gone. Chinua died and left behind a call to hatred, and Fani-Kayode's very life labours to fan such embers to full blood. Should Nigerians be deceived about their motives?

Should we be deceived?

Perhaps we are really so dumb- as opined by Tunde Bakare- dumb enough to allow these selfish and hateful interpreters of history to sway us by their own demons and venom. Perhaps we are dumb enough to ignore the fact that the same challenges befall all as Nigerians: 1) Boko Haram doesn't care that you're Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa before they seek to kill you; 2) your ethnicity makes little difference when poverty and joblessness come calling at your door; 3) before the Police man forces a bribe out of you you're not required to justify your ethnicity; 4) ... I shall stop here, but we all know there are more. Why not conduct a small experiment. Make a road trip to Katsina, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa, Oyo, Anambra or Ekiti State..., some place, any place away from your ethnic origin. Perhaps then you shall understand better the problems and situations that unite us are many more than the ethnicity that (some persons want to) divide us.

Isn't it silly and utterly unintelligent that one should take credit for something not a product of one's own choice? If you did not do a thing to become an Igbo man, why then should you wear your Igbo-ness as some proud warrior would do after his conquest of the Land of Ticks? If my Yoruba-ness was beyond my choosing why then should it be the basis for differentiating me from all other ethnic groups both in Nigeria and beyond? Should it be land and claim to it? Millions of people that had laid claim to the same land have come and gone, not able to leave with a handful of earth from it. We too have come, and shall certainly go when we are done here. Isn't it silly that we should lay a bloody claim to a thing that shall survive our mortal existence?

Education, business empires, sound political career and legacy: these are direct products of human diligence, resourcefulness and effort. If you're tempted to boast because of any of these the world will understand and congratulate you that your boast is well deserved...

A thousand of thousand years from now, and perhaps just a thousand years from now, every Nigerian will likely have in his veins the blood of all ethnic groups. Even now, there are millions of Nigerians within whose veins the bloods of different ethnic groups have achieved an harmony. Which side should these people then pledge allegiance to? Where should we chase them the next time we consider them too unsightly and poor to adorn our state capitals? Or should we simply call them a no-man's people the next time we seek a reason to relieve them of their jobs in the state civil service?

These past months and weeks given us reasons to bite and malign one another, no thanks the self-sponsored Achebes and Kayodes. I am to remind us that at the end of the day we all must return to tending the wounds that we commonly share as Nigerians. And that many of our historians are men so much overwhelmed by their own bitterness and failings that they must incite public discord for them to find some relief from their affliction, their narrow view of the Nigerian history and situation. But this is the very reason we are humans, capable of individual interpretation of our circumstances in a way that improves the present. Most Igbos had never personally had a reason to specially hate a Yoruba man until Prof Chinue Achebe's "There was a country". Then the Igbos suddenly remembered, as one jolted out of a dream, their ethnic duty to hate and distrust the Yorubas. Then also came the champions of the Yorubas, Fani-Kayode, who reminded the Yorubas their sacred duty to view the Igbos with immense suspicion. And in this induced silliness, many Yorubas chanted, "Go home ingrates". These they did, as though afflicted by a strange amnesia, ignoring the personal relationships they have had (and still do have) with many Igbos, some of whom they have married, some of whom they have fathered and mothered, and some of whom are their Pastors and fellow-sharers of the same faith and trade.

And for a Nigerian, where is home? Isn't it silly to be asked such a question when you are at home?

Happy nation.

We are a happy people                                    
Let us celebrate and sing a song                         
We are a happy nation                                    
The last strand of our ill                               
The pretense that our GEJ would certainly fight corruption
Has finally breathed its last                            
Our corruption once again lives and kicks in fine health 

We are a happy people                                    
Let us celebrate and bring a bomb                        
We are a happy nation                                    
Sultan calls for amnesty                                 
The pretense that GEJ was surely atop the situation      
Has finally breathed its last                            
Our politics of violence gains life as from the dead

We all are Nigerians and we have no worries              
We have Goodluck Jonathan                                
And Alamieyeseigha                                       
We have the Sultan, and he has Boko Haram                
And we're quiet as the mouses in our Temples             

We are a happy country.

My tale as a country

I'm not likely to explain to you the reason for my hope, but then it's probably enough to tell you I had one day met a middle-aged woman who told me stuffs. Sad and interesting and hopeful stuffs. She had no shoes and it's about impossible to question the reasoning of one without shoes. Such a sad sad little woman, clad in a faded richness and a sleepiness that made me think she's incapable of seeing outside her cosy little world.
It was in the farming years and even though the pleasant palms and nuts and cocoa trees were about all gone from my gardens, I had at that time retained the pleasure of relishing the stretch of my land--the richly dark forest nourished by coast and rains, and the sandy brownness Northward ploughed into richness by Nomads' feet. I must say it wasn't always this way with me that I should relish in the tell-tale marks of my extinct crops like one rejoicing at the vestige of a departed Sunshine. Instead I had lived my days as night and my night to sorrow over a growing apprehension: would I again regain my rich coat of white and green and be able to feed my children with meat unborrowed? But then the Messenger of the Winds visited me on one of my gloomy nights with report of the vast richness by my springs. I despaired to believe, to trust any good should come from turning springwardt rendering my house panting after and tearing apart one another for a bite at the strange nourishment. Also, who shall fight to restore my greens, my crops and my trade? And what shall become of a house raised on hand-downs after the springs do dry?

The Messenger in words was sweet and in motive ruthless. He was also very good at commerce for he sold to me my own possession and in exchange took my pleasant gardens of nourished forest and sandy brownness. And when I thought all I ever had was now lost, he showed me a means of being at peace with my destiny. For, he said, a man must accept his destiny or be crushed by it. With many such words he separated me from my miseries and preserved me comatosed and proper for his use. I contended vigorously, within me, to tell him I was no longer a man but a piece of rag soaked in oil and hanged on termite-infested props. That mine was not a destiny but a woe of my own gullibility, the doing of an indifference to the state of my father's house. That I was already crushed, long crusehd, the very moment I tarried to hear his message of Winds. Yes, I contended vigorously but my contention died within me for my very voice was owned by him.

Was I deceived? I have no means of judging. I am so far removed from my own conditions and from how things should be or should have been. My surviving children were born in the time of oiled rags and are all grateful for the remnant oiliness in our rags, and the older ones dig insatiable wells with million pipes running underground on their deepening bellies to drain out the little breath that in us is left.
Was I deceived?
Perhaps. But then that was the last of the deception that I should suffer,  The Messenger of Winds having these days grown somewhat quiet and distant, or perhaps bored by the vastness of his loots. And gradually I have found some way to grow my own crops from the brilliance of my children-from letters and inks, and make the remnant of my oily inheritance cater to my house. Some disturbing tales from abroad had sometimes ago breezed in that some of the goods stolen from me were found on foreign shores, and then returned to my land. I've asked around but none could tell me where it landed-within my yard or in The Messenger's barn. But when some said it had all invisibily gone into oiling my rags I decided to let the matter rest for I have no way of deciding whether or not I was being deceived. It had seemed enough that a small fraction was recovered from The Messenger. It had also seemed appropriate, that I should be left alone to tend to my fading embers especially now that I have met a shoeless friend.
Sitting there opposite and facing me on my rotten bench, I had never felt a deeper connection to anyone. She's clad in the skin of my own offsprings, and in a shoelessness that echoes my own nakedness. She had stared long at me and suggested she would champion a cause to recover my stolen life. I patted her softly on the back to solidarise in her meaningless ambition, I was very much at home with much meaninglessness. She swayed back and forth and from side to side, lifted up one foot after the other to make sure I had not missed the pitiable sight of her unshod feet. I told her I saw it all and that it's nothing to compare with my broken will. She answered every one of my questions with a blank stare, and had proposed befriending the Messenger as a means of compelling him to return my stolen goods. It was a simple plan, easy to memorise. It had also come with the tenth of a bag of rice and the rat-size of Ankara cutting; my children hailed her so I gave her my vote and companied her with drums and the last of our breath to the Rock. But suddenly I found myself arguing over the ownership of our remaining metre-square land, praying to the Winds to give light, and begging a shoeless friend for a chance to shoe my children's feet. My sandy brownness now enriched in blood to the overflowing, and in my dark forests robbers and kidnappers form an empire.

Did the shoeless woman deceive me? I have no way of telling, for my bent back and feverish gash are to me a much closer reality than those that though shoeless shall deprive me of my last oily rag.