The “Worthless” Life of an “Aboki”, By Marcel Ojinnaka, published by Premium Times on Dec. 29, 2014. AN Excerpt: Growing up as a Southerner in Nigeria, you learn to think of the Hausa man as an aboki. The term actually means “friend” and its use may have originated from purely innocuous circumstances, but it is invoked in a wide spectrum of situations, from friendly jest to downright insult depending on how derogatory the speaker wants to get. In today’s Nigeria, aboki has increasingly become a coded ethnic slur which, placed on a spectrum, may imply anything from a poor working-class northerner to someone stupid, sheep-like or cow-like, ignorant, primitive, and uncivil; an oaf, unable to grasp the complexities of modern life. When we call someone an aboki we express how we think of them – a species behind on the evolutionary scale, to be relegated to the same level where sheep and cows occupy. We think of a people who can barely reason, can kill in defense of their religion with minimal provocation and whose minds lack any form of complexity. In short, the aboki is less human than those of us who are polished and higher on the evolutionary scale. This view of the Hausa man (and extended to almost every northerner), pervasive in southern Nigeria, might account for the way we quickly turn the page when we read about the massacres of the many school kids in Northern Nigeria, killed while simply trying to do what all of us do every day – better their lives. My Questions: Does this kind of reckless language qualify to be termed free speech, or freedom of speech? Should the Premium Times have published unedited this kind of opinion, regardless of the authors seeming attempt to sound objective? Should any news medium, be it online medium or traditional medium, wilfully pander to the reckless vilification or denigration of any ethnic or religious group in Nigeria in total disregard for the collective sensibilities of those to whom these unprintable and logically invalid attack was directed? Which decent, cultured, reasoning, thinking and responsible Nigerian would have welcomed this incomprehensible collective insults against his own? Is promoting bigotry, intolerance and hatred part of the media sacred professional, and ethical responsibility? When we call someone aboki..Who are the We?
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:59:52 +0000
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