by
Obododimma Oha
Attacks on Igbo interest -- Igbo presidency in Nigeria, economic sabotge of Igbo business investments, giving Igbo people a bad name and image, etc -- are not new. But what is more important is their genesis. Is it simple Igbophobia? Maybe so. Is it historical? Maybe so. Is it psychological? Maybe so. But, from what my late father told me in a conversation, some, if not most, of these people who openly and shamelessly attack Igbo interest are really descendants of Igbo people who were born through "away matches," "accidental discharge," mixed ethnic marriages, sheer escape from local communities, slave trading, etc. So, it actually means self-hate and expression of anger at having a painful and shameful history! It is actually an attack on "self".
The habit of "Away Match" is well-known in Nigeria, a football-loving country. The players of "Away Matches" leave the familiar and look for the unfamiliar playground. As players on this unfamiliar soccer pitch, they are at a great disadvantage and in the discomfort may score but lose the match. As players of "Away Match," they are still heroes. Their scores are not to be overlooked and if the scores of players live after them, then, their scores will.
Closely related to "Away Matches" in the metaphorical twist is "Accidental Discharge." Nigerian security men are good in shooting targets without missing, whether bullets or football. They are good gunners. They shoot and blast the net! An "Accidental Discharge" could occur if they are not quite ready but their guns are. The nets are only there to be blasted and to receive the harsh score. Anyway, a score is a score and has been received. So, an "Accidental Discharge" is accidental and a painful score.
What about mixed ethnic marriage? That one is not metaphorical at all. One can marry from Mars or the moon; who cares? Is it not the life and choice of somebody? But where it becomes the genesis, even the exodus, of something funny is when the product of this relationship has a stored-up bitterness for being neither here nor there and thinks that one of the parties is to be blamed. Blame again? Are Nigerians not yet overwhelmed with the illocutionary act of blaming somebody for our failings? Anyway, products of marriage across the Niger may have, hypothetically speaking, a little grouse informing their attitude and should not just be taken as postcolonial, righteous nationalists.
Slave trading is another possible candidate. Some people who were sold into slavery had descendants who heard the sad stories and nursed a big resentment and hatred for whom they thought was the source of their sorrows. The strokes of cane that they received or the hurtful words were seen as coming from their sellers or the sellers of their ancestors. Sad, indeed, for they have been handed over a sharp knife to cut off the heads of their imagined enemies, their own people!
One interesting angle was that those not eventually shipped away ended up in the big houses in the creeks but could not escape home. These hated all those from Alaigbo whom they saw as their real enemies. Of course, they were somewhat justified in their anger and hatred. Who would see his or her captor or the captor's relative and smile?
What about running away from local communities? That, too, deserves a serious attention. Such runaway fellows may have a good reason to abandon their local communities and run away, especially if women were involved. Why shouldn't a man follow a woman even to hell after eating the apple? So, runaways have to follow the women to the farthest end of the earth, hoping nobody from their communities would make the mistake of coming there at any time. And while there, a child of no fixed address could result.
A man may be intoxicated after drinking the love of a woman. We said that he could follow her afterwards to the farthest ends of the earth. That is not an exaggeration. From what my late father told me, they did not know that they would find somebody at Ovanika, a fishing town on the ocean which they reached after several days by accident in the forties when the boat on which they were travelling to Cameroon had some problems and was in a great danger of sinking. Water! Water! Everywhere! For several days! According to him, people (fishermen) appeared to just perch on their canoes far away like birds! When they got to Ovanika, they encountered even a greater surprise for they discovered a man from their area who had followed a woman to a place on the great ocean where people perched like birds on their canoes! It is possible that the lady transformed to a bird and took him up by the collar, flew for days on the ocean and later deposited him in nest at Ovanika!
This Igbo history is not ordinary ethnocentrism. We need to look closely at the private lives of people who appear to hate Ndiigbo with a great passion. Perhaps, we would find something interesting there. It is not enough to hate this writer or the dead parent who revealed this to him. Indeed, in Nigeria, there have been insinuations and unchallenged claims that some important people have Igbo origin. This claim needs to be taken seriously and investigated because biology is not something with which one should toy. Perhaps we could find traces of Igboness creeping in somebody's COVID bloodstream.
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