Onye Dot

By

Obododimma Oha

I didn't know that I would be writing a blog article on this dotty (dirty?) thing! It was one of my former students, Dr Blossom Ottoh-Agede, that inspired it with her interesting Facebook update. So, let me try the discourse.

At the first glance, the expression reveals that it belongs to two languages or is double voicing. This bilingual text is very ambitious, for it tries to link the indigenous with the colonial, stubborn Igboness with adventurous Englishness! So, one is in trouble.

But who is the author of this encroaching Englishness or to whom is it attributed? One does not want to be accused of plagiarism and so should be very careful and avoid giving honor to whom it is not due. Author: the ruler of a British colonial territory! Name withheld. (You want my father's house to be burnt?)  

There is the need to be faithful to context, while realizing that bilingual "onye Dot" is intertextual. It must have been uttered with English colonial thinking. The word, "dot", clearly shows that English is doing something again, this time through a person it pretends to befriend. I am not happy when people who do not want to learn other indigenous languages ( knowing that they could have been born in that other hut) suddenly become great language teachers! Anyway, it is all about the colonial wanting to remain, the past controlling the future.

When one language visits another language or enters another language, that's intertextuality. In "onye Dot," is one language not visiting and facing another language? Facing? Are they fighting? Let's be sure and separate them in time, before somebody breaks somebody's head with a beer bottle!

I have heard of languages in competition. For what are they still competing? For very crude and primitive oil or the huge debts in trillions? They must be mad to be competing over liability.

So, "onye Dot" is a sign of idiotic competition.

No problems if we now have Dot people. Maybe they are aliens and have come to take over our planet. Killing them is protective. When a Dot person is   down, our geography is safer. So, kill "onye Dot." It is a patriotic duty that must be done.

I said it. When a country starts counting millions as its population, it is overdue for self-killing. And dot people are responsible. They are everywhere! They are a pandemic! Terrible Dot people!

Dr. Ottoh-Agede, one is not surprised that you are interested. You are a discourse person. I hope you don't already have the dot strain. You have to be isolated and should be made to wear a mask. You are doing a very dangerous research. 

But, come o, I like that T-shirt carrying "one Dot" inscription. I need to get one. T-shirts have ways of turning fashion to politics. They are silent operators! So, "onye Dot," relax. You will eventually make tyranny hate itself. 

But "onye Dot" reminds me that citizenship is tentative. Maps do not last forever. There are no countries if there are no citizens. Remove the citizens and you are confronted by a barren land. No barren place can produce a thing of greatness. 

I prefer being "onye Dot" to being "onye nothing." Actually dots are not noticed in deep space. Same for circles. You can't jump to hyperdrive when you are still in your country that is not observable in deep space. That space is greater than circles and numerous dots still in the solar system. God is still greater and cannot be encircled. God is also not a dot out there. 

So, nothing should laugh at the expense of the dot. There is God o.