There was a robust debate online about whether or not President Jonathan endorsed the sitting Governor of Akwa Ibom State in his comments when he visited the state recently. The gist of the debate involved accusations and counter accusations about the performance of the governor given that Akwa Ibom State gets the largest allocation among the thirty six federating units and his second term ambitions. Throw in issues of ethnicity, name calling, the kidnapping saga … and eureka you get a very clear picture. The whole brouhaha about endorsement is a throwback to the conviction that without this (not the voters who wear the shoes and feel the pinch, if any!) the incumbent would not make it at the polls.
The ethnicity question is really my concern here and you can extrapolate my thinking to the Nigerian nation; the choice is yours. The governor is from the minority Annang ethnic group and there are charges that he is promising to deliver the governorship title to other minority groups like the Oron, Eket … to spite the Ibibios who he perceives to be more stridently opposed to his second term ambitions. Again, voters are not factored into the equation when democracy involves the minority having their say and the majority having their way.
Like Achebe, the distant kinsman is a brother in a far country. Akwaibomites living outside of the state regard themselves as brothers and sisters, and the common term is akobusem (if you are expecting me to get the spelling right, you must have another think coming having never lived in the state for up to a year continually at any given time). The Ibibio language that I speak is the real mother tongue (from my parents, of course). I did pick up a few words during my undergraduate days at the University of Calabar but I did also notice that the Efik speakers looked down on my brand of Lagos Ibibio while seeming to understand the Uyo etc brand so I had to tuck in my neck and speak English as much as possible to avoid being corrected over and over again. I was pleasantly surprised when my mother came to visit once and I could hear her speak fluent Efik for the first time to a cab driver. I also recall going to visit my Aunt in the village and she commented on my code switching with something like “you can’t even speak proper Efik (not Ibibio which we all speak)”.
Our oneness as a people came out clearly during one of my long distance bus trips to Uyo. A quarrel ensued between two of the passengers on the bus. I could feel for the lady as she launched into Ibibio to verbally abuse her opponent. He quickly switched from the Ibibio he was speaking to Oron language (I presume, which was Greek to me) which he was more comfortable with for the purpose of hitting back. The lady screamed at him to speak the language she could understand and the other passengers who could follow both languages insisted that it was OK since he was speaking an Akwa Ibom language. Talk of another Lagos Akwaibomite in addition to yours truly.
The plot thickens. My late in – laws are an interesting example. My father – in –law was from the Annang ethnic group and my mother – in – law was from Eket and they lived in Lagos almost all their lives. As a compromise, my wife and her siblings learnt and speak the neutral (for their purpose) Ibibio language. Of course, my wife is proud of her Eket roots and tries to dazzle me once in a while with some Eket (as opposed to Annang) words. At home, we speak English and Ibibio; and Yoruba if we do not want Akwa Ibom people around us to understand what we are saying. If we do not want the children to be privy to our discussion we speak Ibibio although my eldest daughter is picking up, maybe we should try Yoruba; what do you think?
Another case in point, my traditional wedding was in Lagos and we tried to replicate as much as possible how it is done in the motherland. In fact, when I told some people in Uyo that we did our traditional wedding in Lagos they insisted that we got it all wrong; it should have taken place in Akwa Ibom state. My response: It is a free world and everyone is entitled to their opinions. I mean look at the Yorubas, who do traditional weddings of their sons and daughters using pictures of the couple who are domiciled abroad and the Heavens do not fall. How does the venue add or detract from the marital bliss which should be the natural outcome of the married state? You can search me too.
The moral is that we have lived together for too long to allow politicians and other self serving persons to play up our differences to Rwanda and Burundi us in this towering Babel of ethnicities and languages that is Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria and Africa.
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