THE TRIBAL MAN

THE TRIBAL MAN
By @McChimeFrancis
In my life I have never felt tribalism until this moment, and it didn’t just come in a fold, it came in two folds which I fell victim twice. Personally I felt the second time I shouldn’t be a victim because in the first time I accepted I was a victim in the case. I know you didn’t understand these first few lines. Let me explain.
I was in a commercial bus in Lagos, I was heading home. The bus I entered was a straight bus, a straight bus in the sense that it wouldn’t stop along the way until it got to a certain destination, because of this the driver took in an armed personnel of the Nigerian force which actually is a tradition in Lagos when you are plying such routes. The bus was calm and peaceful until suddenly the armed man began exchanging words with a female passenger. I personally didn’t have an idea about what ensued prior to their argument. All I knew was that the armed man decided to highlight from the bus, telling the young lady who was Igbo to come down which she refused so the armed man decided to look for another bus. The driver was not happy with the development, everyone in the bus weren’t happy too. The story is quite complicated but I just have to be brief and tell you a bit of it.
This recent development, lead to abuses raining on the poor young lady who also didn’t hesitate to reply the other people in the bus-word for word. I already had issues with the lady on my side who was Yoruba because of the way she talked to me like I was one secondary school boy (you how my size is now-small). She insulted the hell out of this young Igbo lady, in fact she insulted the whole Igbos in general, and saying all sought of crude things. There and then I knew tribalism was real. Well when I came down from the bus I wasted no time in telling her that she should go and learn how to talk. It was quite an awful experience. I accepted I was a victim in this one because I was Igbo.
Remember I said it happened in two folds, my second experience happened here in the east where I stay with my course mate. We stay in a compound that consisted of Igbo people who spoke Nsukka-thick Nsukka language which I personally have found it hard to come to term with. so due to this reason the first day the elderly woman in the yard asked me where I was from I claimed to be a Yoruba boy, so that at least this Igbo speaking people who had so much love for their language would at least try and communicate with me in pidgin or English. Well it didn’t turn out that way. I always sang songs with Yoruba lyrics anytime I was moving around the compound or going to have my bath.
The landlord of the yard came around sometime when I wasn’t around and the next day, whole and behold I was summoned by the caretaker of the house and the bombshell was unleashed on me. I was told to leave the yard immediately, because I wasn’t Igbo, because I was Yoruba.
Imagine, An Igbo man telling a fellow Igbo man to pack out of his compound, just because he claimed to be Yoruba. That was the height of tribalism. The man was tribal. I had to correct the impression that I was Igbo and not Yoruba.
Many people today still have deep issues with the phrase “where are you from?”, and they don’t ask themselves the simple question “can you survive without their existence?”
Man is very tribal in nature and we must pray for enlightenment. I cry when I see people in the frontiers of tribal actions, it pains my heart. Even the one Nigeria slogan now sounds like mockery to a certain tribe from another tribe. Can this nation be one? I don’t think so because the hatred for one another is enormous. It is a very deep cut that even when it heals, there exists a big scar. Mcchimefrancis.blogspot.com