Fri May 18, 2012
Yoknyam Dabale
Out of Africa
By Yoknyam Dabale, Nigeria – December 2009
As a native of Nigeria, every time I hear, “Africa is the greatest place on earth!” I get goose bumps. Considering the economic state of affairs in Africa today, I find these expressions rather problematic, particularly when they are said by Nigerian immigrants living in the United States.
Let’s not forget, it was terrible social injustices which drove most Nigerians living in America to leave their homeland. Only those connected with someone in power have opportunities to work – most people live in poverty.
If you are from one of the smaller tribes such as mine, the Yotti tribe, you see your future wrapped around the thorns of poverty. Most people from my tribe are farmers, which means whenever there is a drought, many go to bed hungry.
In early 1980s the Federal Republic of Nigeria, drafted a law (quota) which provided financial aid to regions of the country to help support tribes living in the most desperate situations ostensibly providing equal employment opportunities to all Nigerians. On the surface, this seemed like an excellent law.
However, like most nations around the world, the Nigerian government is run by officials who don’t keep their promises. For example, in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, most people live in abject poverty. Failing to provide opportunities that could enable people to thrive with their intellects and crafts, the Nigerian government instead wonders why youths continue to blow up the oil pipelines.
“[Africans] feel they are not important. They are made [by the government] to feel irrelevant,” said 27 year old Seun Kuit who is a musician and human rights advocate in Nigeria. “We are told to bow down and not ask questions,”
This irrelevance has been going on for centuries. When European colonizers left the African continent, their form of governance – dictatorship – remained. There is no free speech in a majority of African states. People are told what they can and cannot do and their ideas are not welcome. In fact, this kind of oppression coupled with poverty is what drove most Africans and Nigerians to seek a better life in foreign lands – leaving their wretched lives behind.
But as the aphorism of the Igbo tribe goes, “You never know the value of an egg until it is dropped.” And although at first it seems leaving is the right solution, most Nigerians in the Diaspora yearn for their African social culture – a culture that is quite close to their hearts.
Nigerians are family oriented people. It’s not unusual for grandparents to live with their grown children and for grandmothers to help care for their grandchildren. This sort of nuclear and extended family structure is not pervasive in American society where it’s more about the individual, which causes many Nigerians to feel out of place – disconnected from the community in which they live.
So when I hear Nigerians in America express their patriotism for their homeland, even though most of them are naturalized, I wonder where they feel they belong. Do they feel alienated from a homeland where life was so difficult? Do they feel at home in America?
A friend once told me that assimilating into American society is difficult because she felt certain cultural ways of life tie her to her inextricably to her birth land. Other immigrants feel that when they try to accept America as home, they feel rejected and labeled as ‘outsiders’ or aliens by the dominate culture.
Everyone wants to feel as though they belong some place. And despite the governance problems and the terrible hardships indigenous to many places in Africa, it’s probably not hard to understand why Afrikaners still feel patriotic for their homeland – perhaps even romanticizing life there as they prefer to remember it.
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Yes, the cultural differences are real and sometimes difficult to negotiate. It is an important issue you raised.
But as an African American I am compelled to note that America the most belligerent nation on the planet. Our government has sanctioned the assassinations of democratically elected presidents or the undermining of foreign regimes merely because these nations don’t follow American dictates. The problem is far more egregious than anything going on Nigeria. Which is not to deny that Nigeria has some serious problems to grapple with. kzs