What is tribalism and how bad is it? If being a tribe is not bad. If associating yourself with your tribes men is not wrong. If being more comfortable among people who speaks the same language with you is not a bad idea. If preferring your tribesmen to other tribes is universally normal. Then tribalism should not be a problem. What we should be looking at is the system which makes it difficult to make natural choices. I tried looking up the meaning of tribalism in the dictionary, but alas I couldn’t find it. Yet the word tribalism has formed a very infamous place in Nigeria nay Africa political lexicon. In fact, virtually everybody has come to believe that tribalism is one of Nigeria greatest curse, I also try to believe so, but something doesn’t just make sense. We all see tribalism as a situation in which people dispense favour based largely on tribe affiliation, without looking at why was this necessary in the first place. I remember over 10 years ago, when a friend of mine went to write an exam for a job. There were over 500 for that interview and the slot for his state was just for 2. He was sure that he had written well, however it would be difficult for him to assume that his best would be enough to guarantee him a place among the 2 out of 500. As he came out of the exam hall, he saw a man surrounded by many of the candidates who have just finish the exam too. On enquiry, he discovered that the man is from the same tribe as he is. He forced himself closer to the man and greeted him in their language. The man immediately took cognizance of my friend and invited him to his office. My friend was eventually employed. Now, was this a positive tribalism or negative tribalism? Supposing he had not gotten the job, would he not have been justified to blame the man for failing to help him? If we are to look at this problem objectively at what led to the use of tribe’s advantage here in the first place, would it not be because of shortage of vacancies? So who/what should we blame, the man who assisted his “brother” or the system which threw up 500 for 2 people’s job? Again, Onyinye took a night bus from Owerri to Lagos. But she doesn’t know anybody in Lagos. After dropping at Ijora Bust Stop, she saw Ngozi who was speaking to Chinedu in Igbo Language, she immediately approached Ngozi and explained that she is just new in Lagos and doesn’t have where to sleep. Ngozi, who had earlier rejected Fatimah who had similar problem but came from Kano, welcomed Onyinye happily, took her to her home and gave her food to it. Now is that tribalism or nationalism? Funny enough, I have always found it curious that there are no tribes in UK, despite differences of languages existing there. It is rather deliberate that the different tribes there are refer to as nationalities and what we easily refers to as tribalism here is seeing as nationalism in over there. So that, while we strive to criminalise tribalism, the white man extol nationalism both of which are one and the same. Nationalism as used by Nigerian writers is nothing short of utopia, wishful day dreaming. Until Nigeria unites to become a nation, which on its own is almost impossible, there cannot be nationalism as used by Nigerians. It is easy to blame tribalism for everything, while we one way or the other indulge and sometimes benefits from it. That way the problem lies permanently unsolved, while we all continue to preach against it. The building of a united country would depend on mutual understanding and the feeling of equality of all the nations. We need to first accept the fact that Nigeria is not a country with different tribes but a country of many nations. These nations must be seeing as equal partners for our union to work. Parliamentary government is a system of co-equal partners, presidential government is a dominating system where the dominant nationalities would continue to lord over the rest of us. And that will never project the unity we most desire…. By Tijani Adisa Gadani
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:30:01 +0000
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