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“Divide Nigeria now; sebi APC don enter, divide Nigeria if you get mind make we see which tribe go suffer. Divide Nigeria! Divide Nigeria!! Divide Nigeria!!!” This was a voice of a young man shouting, with so much strength, at a crowd at a newspaper stand in Ojota, Lagos State. It was so obvious that the man was extremely angry. One could sense, from the way he talked, that he was boiling inside. What has happened? Something might have provoked the anger in him – I thought. What is it? I needed to find out.
So I moved closer to the group of people, who had been reading newspaper headlines and arguing with one another on different issues. And so I found out what has triggered off the anger in the young man shouting. This man hails from the Eastern part of the country, and to his dismay, his tribe has just been wrongly alleged by the majority of the people (mostly Yorubas) at the newspaper stand that ‘Igbos are the major problem of Nigeria’. What has led to this, I wouldn’t know, and I really don’t want to believe any excuse would have justified this inciting notion from a group of a particular tribe. So I write to condemn this and any other form of tribalism that could endanger our togetherness as a nation.
It is quite worrisome that tribalism in Nigeria is now fully at its peak. In virtually everything that happens in Nigeria today, there will always be an element of tribalism. In politics, Nigerians cuddle tribalism just as a loving mother does to her new baby while breastfeeding him or her. In governance, we warmly embrace tribalism just as a true lover does to his partner. When we talk, tribalism reflects so much like a mirror. When we write, our pen, screenplays, languages and choice of words are made of tribalism. In our movies and films, tribalism is our veritable tool; it is our dialogue; it is our plots, and our characterizations must be strictly subjective to tribalism.
In the same vein, when you apply for an employment, where you hail from matters so much to your employers to the extent that what you have to offer is secondary. In our marital life, tribalism is a dominant factor. In gaining admission to lower or higher institutions of learning, tribalism plays a very vital role. Tribalism has eaten deep into our system that it affects us negatively as an entity in almost everything. The tragedy of it is that we take no notice of this as the country suffers seriously from tribalism. Indeed, Nigeria is seriously ill and dying gradually from this dangerous disease of tribalism.
Tribalism begins the moment a particular tribe starts pointing accusing fingers at another tribe, or blaming another tribe for the problems or challenges a country undergoes. Doing so is suggesting that the accused tribe has never contributed anything positively to the development of the nation, while the accuser is portrayed as a saint tribe, who has never done anything erroneously, at one point or another, to share in the blames for whatever challenge or problem the country is facing. It indirectly suggests that the accuser is a perfect tribe, while the accused tribe is seen as the only one that is always prone to errors and mistakes. This is not good enough for the peaceful co-existence of multiple tribes like ours as one nation.
Indeed, the application of a system theory will be appropriate and advantageous to Nigeria. Nigeria should be seen as a system (country) made up of different components and units (different tribes and regions). All tribes should know that if anything happens to a single part of the components or units of a system, it directly affects the overall performance of the whole system. If this happened, it would then no longer matter how effective a particular component or unit of the system had been. The whole system would have been affected irrespective of the individual contributions of each of the components or units.
In other words, all tribes in Nigeria must not consider a particular tribe least important or relevant to other ones. The moment a Yoruba tribe starts seeing any problem or challenge facing the Northern part of the country as his own, and vice versa, is the beginning of a more prosperous Nigeria.
Similarly, a day that Northerners start accepting that any problem or challenge confronting the Eastern Nigerians are not for easterners alone but them as well, this will be a reckoned day of better things for Nigeria as an entity.
The same thing is applicable to our dear brothers and sisters from the Eastern part of the country. I have heard many of our dear Eastern brothers and sisters say that their fellow indigenes residing in the North should come back home, adding that if ‘the Boko-haram sect’ like, it should continue killing its own people and destroying their properties. According to them, they are less concerned, what concerns them is the safety of the easterners alone. This is indirectly segregating the people of the east from others, and this is highly condemnable in all ramifications. This could trigger off anger in others, bearing in mind that the northerners constitute higher percentage of the victims of the menace of Boko-haram sect. Therefore, easterners should stop considering any negative things happening in the North as purely northern business. They should remember that Nigeria is a system made up of different components. If anything negative happens to any of the components, it automatically affects other components. If anything positive happens to any of the tribes we have in Nigeria, it reflects positively on other tribes.
My dear fellow Nigerians, it is high time we traded tribalism for the progress of this country. As long as we remain together under the entity of one Nigeria, there is no point for anybody from the Yorubaland or Hausaland to start pointing accusing finger at Igbos or other tribes. Similarly, there is no point for the Igbos or other tribes to claim, either correctly or erroneously, that they are the brain behind the economic survival of a particular state or Nigeria. From which part of the country you hail should not be the criteria for making you my friend, wife, employee, student, and vice versa. Tribalism is a dangerous disease that must wiped out totally from our system (Nigeria) if truly we want to continue to remain together. On this note, I say let us extinguish tribalism before it destroys us as a nation.
