My Advice to the Igbo Race... By Pius Adesanmi

Not everyone should be writing for the public. Sadly, the democracy of social media and the internet is such that we must endure the co-presence of all sorts of opinionated intellectual dilettantes who can wear the toga of "public commentator".

There are always the giveaways. You will always recognize the dilettantes through their slippages and errors of the rendering. In the Nigerian context, you recognize them when you see the inexperience, the ignorance, often powered by an intractable, self-assured arrogance and presumptuousness.

There is the presumptuousness of thinking you have lessons and lectures for an entire race.

My advice to the Igbo...
My advice to the Yoruba...
My advice to the Hausa-Fulani...

Anyone you see wielding lectures and lessons for an entire race is an inexperienced dilettante who shouldn't be writing for the public.

In the Nigerian context, those who are wiser, cleverer, and more intelligent than an entire race; those who are better positioned to lecture an entire race about what is good for them are very often outsiders to such a race.

These are always little intellects on high horses thinking they are wiser than a whole people combined. My friend, Sam Amadi, is the prompter and instigator of this update.

I am so mad at Sam I can hardly contain myself.

So I notice in passing that Sam is fuming and taking umbrage at some piece written by Reno Omokri. Sam says if it is true that Omokri insulted the Igbo, etc etc. Omokri rushes in to claim that he did not insult the Igbo at which point Sam tenders his apology.

I decide to do what Sam ought to have done before rushing to offer a nonsensical apology: go and check the article in question. Hear Omokri:

"My advice to you and the Igbo race, go and learn diplomacy."

Omokri has lessons and lectures in diplomacy for an entire race? Allah be praised that he did not insult the said race!

My advice to Sam Amadi: withdraw your ill-reflected and hasty apology.

My advice to you, any you, writing for the Nigerian public. You are a member of a race that Europeans enslaved and colonized for more than 500 years. During those years, it was part of the scribal and epistemic culture of the white man to have lectures, lessons, and advice for your entire race. From time to time, an idle white man would mount his high horse and advise "the blacks", "the Africans", "the negro race", "the natives". Every white man assumed he was wiser and more intelligent and had lectures and lessons for your entire race.

The entire history of epistemic resistance mounted by your race is rooted in countering such rudeness and arrogance. This resistance has informed protocols of black and African writing and discourse. In other words, your sorry little outsider ass cannot have lessons and lectures for an entire race, perched on a dwarfish horse.

That is arrogance and presumptuousness taken too far. Every Nigerian ethnic nationality has a coterie of outsider advisers who invade social media with goatskin bags of advice.

I see outsiders advising the Yoruba race all the time.
I see outsiders advising Arewa all the time.

Outsider advisers of the Igbo come in truckloads and lorry loads.

When next you see a Nigerian wielding the stick of wisdom for an entire race of his compatriots to which he does not belong, skip the update. He is one sorry little fellow who should not be writing for the public.

NB:

This does not mean that you cannot have viewpoints on issues pertaining to other ethnicities and identities. If I need to break that down for you, you probably also shouldn't be consuming public discourse.

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Jim in Paradise by Omoruyi Uwuigiaren

Distance can hurt but life remains a choice. A man can win if only he can bend circumstances to his favour. I was on a good run and my happiness was taller than the pair of legs that carried me. With more grounds to cover, and the sun at its peak, I went past a bend down a street where I stumbled on a creature. Coincidence is part of the game of life. We can play to win.

The creature was an old friend whose name was Jim. He was translucent. I could clearly see what life had done to him. He was like a ship given much to bear. After covering a huge distance, began to sink. He was in the lower estate of life where good things are luxury, and securing them is often elusive.

Jim was barely forty but he looked as if he was in the pool of old age. Looking pale and drawn, his pair of legs could barely carry him.  He was a slice of his past.

In the past, Jim carried himself about as if unable to hurt a fly. The world was at his feet. Always well dressed, with bloated ego, he was better than a fine wine.

I wonder why he had deteriorated. Tortured by the scorching sun that revealed his emptiness, easily tossed about by the poor hands of the gentle breeze, Jim was pathetic, awful and lost.

He carried himself on the earth, dominated by blood, sand and the rising sun. His boots were clothed with dust and his suntanned face was a foul weather. One could see the misfortune that hung from his neck like an Olympic Medal. Life can sometimes be cruel. Jim was down. He was a shadow of himself. There were other people around him as he approached me.

As he masked his frustration with an exaggerated smile, more revealing were the wrinkles that paraded his face.  Behind him were six or more kids who were his miniature version.

“Jim,” I flashed a smile as we shook hands and hugged.

“Ruyi,” he managed to croak. “Where have you been?” He raised an eyebrow that gave birth to furrow on his forehead.

“Ah,” I pulled away. “I am in Lagos.” I glanced at the kids around him. “Who are they?” I threw out a question and waved my hands at them. They responded by waving their tiny hands towards me in acknowledgment. Satisfied with the courtesy, I returned my gaze to my friend.

Jim scratched his head and could hardly stomach his guilt. He looked at the children and then he returned his gaze to me. He swallowed hard and answered, “They are all mine!”

“WOW!” I gasped and choked. “They are all your children?”

He nodded like a terrified lizard and shifted his weight to one leg. How could he have denied them for all the kids looked like him.

I felt betrayed for Jim had once said to raise a family is luxury. He would be fair to himself if only he has just two kids. Keep them close to his chest and bend any circumstance to his favour. Talk is cheap but life is no bed of roses.