By
Obododimma Oha
It has become quite clear that many African societies that cling to Western orientations in religious values, criminal justice, education, and so on, pushing aside African values in these or even seeing the acquisition of Western practices as implying dispensing with African values completely, do not quite get it. The idea that African values are antithetical to Western approaches is wrong-headed. There may be areas of tension, but then, it is the challenge for the individual living between these values to resolve them. Indeed, in many cases, it is a matter of complementation; it is not everything that Western approaches can handle alone in Africa. The novelist Chinua Achebe was quite philosophical in creating the protagonist of Arrow of God, who, as a visionary African elder, allowed his son, Oduche, to interact with the whiteman, to be his “eyes” and his “ears” in the incoming system. Being his “eyes” and “ears” could mean any or a combination of some of the following: being his or his culture’s (1) representative, (2) spy, and (3) his ally. Being a representative of the indigenous system is not only an assumption of the role of an observer, but also a combination of a contributory with a defensive role. One cannot just look on in the global ilo, without establishing a presence and showing what one has to contribute. It is said by the Igbo that only the foolish, onye nzuzu, would be around and not know when the fuelwood from ukwa the breadfruit tree has been shared out, without the fellow being given a share.
Unfortunately, some contemporary postcolonial societies in Africa are acting like that onye nzuzu in many spheres of life, following the West blindly as if the West must lead and they must follow. It is as if they merely accompanied the West to this world and have little or nothing to contribute. The case of Nigeria is particularly exasperating! Its democracy is authenticated by a presentation of a political talk or manifesto at Chatham House or a visit to a white leader for handshake and endorsement, even when the politician has not paid a visit to local constituents, or when the country is in one political crisis or another! Nigeria and some other African countries must recognise what they bring to the ilo.
That onye nzuzu who thinks that being the “eyes” and the “ears” of the African society is to play dumb and slavish to the rest of the world remains Africa’s major problem! That onye nzuzu could be found anywhere – in politics, religion, education, security services, business, just anywhere. That onye nzuzu thinks that he or she is a mere consumer of ideas from elsewhere, that home has nothing to offer.
Let us reflect on politics. Oh, it’s obvious. I have already mentioned the authentication from Chatham House and other Western settings of endorsement. What is Africa’s democracy if it is not an assignment given by the West the classroom teacher and evaluated by the West? The school of politics in the postcolony must have some assessment from the West, the only authentic authority. Just as you need a “safitiket” in the world of learning, you also need a testimonial from the school teacher for the rest of the ilo to take you seriously.
Do you need to know what this politics legitimised by the ex-coloniser has done with indigenous political institutions? Do you still want to know? The indigenous political institutions have been turned to fictions re-narrated by the irresponsible “eyes” and “eyes” of new postcolonial Africa. The Oba, Obi, Igwe, Obong, etc have become mere fictional characters in the storybooks badly written by the descendants of Oduche in the political sphere. If you live in Ibadan Kingdom, you are no longer a subject of the Olubadan as you should, but of a governor who may have touted his way into office for six years or so. But, if you have eyes in your head still and if there is still an element of Ezeulu left in you, you should prostrate to the Oba and encourage the governor to do so, as he must have done initially during his political campaign. For governors come and go, but the Olubadan remains!
In education, too, you could shed tears if you still have some to spare. The way you follow soccer clubsides in the Western league, is the way you have heroes in the Western circumference of knowledge. You Chelsea it there and Manchester it there, in order to win Western fellowships, grants, employments, etc. If you have no heroes from whom to learn academic languages, poor you, indeed. You are marooned. You are lost at sea. In fact, in some cases, it is obvious or made clear to you, as it happened to me sometime in 2000 or thereabout when, as an academic looking left and right in trying to make a living the European Association of Feminists bluntly taught me. I had submitted an abstract for its conference in Italy and it was accepted. I was to be sponsored by the association and I was glad. But when my invitation and sponsorship letter arrived (then I was resident in Senegal and teaching at Universite Gaston Berger in St-Louis), I was addressed in it as “Ms Obododimma Oha.” I felt that mode of address might be a problem for identification; visa officials or airlines might not consider it trivial and might think one desperate Nigerian was playing tricks with femininity. Then, I wrote to the host organisation to clarify my sex, saying that I was male and that it should change “Ms” to “Mr.” The email was delivered but was never replied. Oku anyuo. The fire was extinguished. My participation at the conference of European feminists ended right away!
If you are in this ilo and you are ready to say that your mother is a prostitute and your father is an armed robber, then, the West is ready to listen to you. It is like the politics of newsworthiness in periphery of the ilo called Africa. Unless things begin to get very ugly in the periphery, unless countless numbers are slaughtered in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, it is not news for the ilo controlled by the West. Your tragedy is my entertainment. Oh, why would you not be encouraged to reduce your number? Why do we bother to save Africa from Africans? Allow Africans to turn Africa to a gladiatorial show. We missed the sport when the Roman Empire fell!
Is the manifestation of nzuzuness not present in Africa’s justice system? What have African societies done with indigenous methods of identifying criminals and preventing crime? Didn’t the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu push for indigenous justice practices to be eradicated, saying they were fetish, so that those “eyes” and “ears” would remain usu the bat, neither a bird of the air nor a ground four-footed, animal? The usu postcolonial society then carries on, pretending to hang on to the values of Western justice system it neither understands not practises. The criminal cannot swear by the oracle because his or her religion forbids it, but that does that same religion forbid committing the crime? Or, maybe because judgement and punishment are deferred matters. Only after death will they happen, and no one is sure whether they would happen at all. No one is certain. So, the criminal can carry on for the moment.
What really do the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu do in the ilo? Have they come to watch a foreign egwugwu performance on behalf of the priest-king? Do the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu still look into the soul of their hosts to understand what they are thinking? Ezeulu’s “eyes” must have gone blind if they can no longer see beyond looking at what is happening at the ilo. Ezeulu’s “ears” must have gone deaf if it can longer hear the sounds of the ikolo that are following it.
Obododimma Oha
It has become quite clear that many African societies that cling to Western orientations in religious values, criminal justice, education, and so on, pushing aside African values in these or even seeing the acquisition of Western practices as implying dispensing with African values completely, do not quite get it. The idea that African values are antithetical to Western approaches is wrong-headed. There may be areas of tension, but then, it is the challenge for the individual living between these values to resolve them. Indeed, in many cases, it is a matter of complementation; it is not everything that Western approaches can handle alone in Africa. The novelist Chinua Achebe was quite philosophical in creating the protagonist of Arrow of God, who, as a visionary African elder, allowed his son, Oduche, to interact with the whiteman, to be his “eyes” and his “ears” in the incoming system. Being his “eyes” and “ears” could mean any or a combination of some of the following: being his or his culture’s (1) representative, (2) spy, and (3) his ally. Being a representative of the indigenous system is not only an assumption of the role of an observer, but also a combination of a contributory with a defensive role. One cannot just look on in the global ilo, without establishing a presence and showing what one has to contribute. It is said by the Igbo that only the foolish, onye nzuzu, would be around and not know when the fuelwood from ukwa the breadfruit tree has been shared out, without the fellow being given a share.
Unfortunately, some contemporary postcolonial societies in Africa are acting like that onye nzuzu in many spheres of life, following the West blindly as if the West must lead and they must follow. It is as if they merely accompanied the West to this world and have little or nothing to contribute. The case of Nigeria is particularly exasperating! Its democracy is authenticated by a presentation of a political talk or manifesto at Chatham House or a visit to a white leader for handshake and endorsement, even when the politician has not paid a visit to local constituents, or when the country is in one political crisis or another! Nigeria and some other African countries must recognise what they bring to the ilo.
That onye nzuzu who thinks that being the “eyes” and the “ears” of the African society is to play dumb and slavish to the rest of the world remains Africa’s major problem! That onye nzuzu could be found anywhere – in politics, religion, education, security services, business, just anywhere. That onye nzuzu thinks that he or she is a mere consumer of ideas from elsewhere, that home has nothing to offer.
Let us reflect on politics. Oh, it’s obvious. I have already mentioned the authentication from Chatham House and other Western settings of endorsement. What is Africa’s democracy if it is not an assignment given by the West the classroom teacher and evaluated by the West? The school of politics in the postcolony must have some assessment from the West, the only authentic authority. Just as you need a “safitiket” in the world of learning, you also need a testimonial from the school teacher for the rest of the ilo to take you seriously.
Do you need to know what this politics legitimised by the ex-coloniser has done with indigenous political institutions? Do you still want to know? The indigenous political institutions have been turned to fictions re-narrated by the irresponsible “eyes” and “eyes” of new postcolonial Africa. The Oba, Obi, Igwe, Obong, etc have become mere fictional characters in the storybooks badly written by the descendants of Oduche in the political sphere. If you live in Ibadan Kingdom, you are no longer a subject of the Olubadan as you should, but of a governor who may have touted his way into office for six years or so. But, if you have eyes in your head still and if there is still an element of Ezeulu left in you, you should prostrate to the Oba and encourage the governor to do so, as he must have done initially during his political campaign. For governors come and go, but the Olubadan remains!
In education, too, you could shed tears if you still have some to spare. The way you follow soccer clubsides in the Western league, is the way you have heroes in the Western circumference of knowledge. You Chelsea it there and Manchester it there, in order to win Western fellowships, grants, employments, etc. If you have no heroes from whom to learn academic languages, poor you, indeed. You are marooned. You are lost at sea. In fact, in some cases, it is obvious or made clear to you, as it happened to me sometime in 2000 or thereabout when, as an academic looking left and right in trying to make a living the European Association of Feminists bluntly taught me. I had submitted an abstract for its conference in Italy and it was accepted. I was to be sponsored by the association and I was glad. But when my invitation and sponsorship letter arrived (then I was resident in Senegal and teaching at Universite Gaston Berger in St-Louis), I was addressed in it as “Ms Obododimma Oha.” I felt that mode of address might be a problem for identification; visa officials or airlines might not consider it trivial and might think one desperate Nigerian was playing tricks with femininity. Then, I wrote to the host organisation to clarify my sex, saying that I was male and that it should change “Ms” to “Mr.” The email was delivered but was never replied. Oku anyuo. The fire was extinguished. My participation at the conference of European feminists ended right away!
If you are in this ilo and you are ready to say that your mother is a prostitute and your father is an armed robber, then, the West is ready to listen to you. It is like the politics of newsworthiness in periphery of the ilo called Africa. Unless things begin to get very ugly in the periphery, unless countless numbers are slaughtered in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, it is not news for the ilo controlled by the West. Your tragedy is my entertainment. Oh, why would you not be encouraged to reduce your number? Why do we bother to save Africa from Africans? Allow Africans to turn Africa to a gladiatorial show. We missed the sport when the Roman Empire fell!
Is the manifestation of nzuzuness not present in Africa’s justice system? What have African societies done with indigenous methods of identifying criminals and preventing crime? Didn’t the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu push for indigenous justice practices to be eradicated, saying they were fetish, so that those “eyes” and “ears” would remain usu the bat, neither a bird of the air nor a ground four-footed, animal? The usu postcolonial society then carries on, pretending to hang on to the values of Western justice system it neither understands not practises. The criminal cannot swear by the oracle because his or her religion forbids it, but that does that same religion forbid committing the crime? Or, maybe because judgement and punishment are deferred matters. Only after death will they happen, and no one is sure whether they would happen at all. No one is certain. So, the criminal can carry on for the moment.
What really do the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu do in the ilo? Have they come to watch a foreign egwugwu performance on behalf of the priest-king? Do the “eyes” and “ears” of Ezeulu still look into the soul of their hosts to understand what they are thinking? Ezeulu’s “eyes” must have gone blind if they can no longer see beyond looking at what is happening at the ilo. Ezeulu’s “ears” must have gone deaf if it can longer hear the sounds of the ikolo that are following it.
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