Every Tribe is Guilty of Tribalism by Ijeoma Ozichi Omotade

Dear Chimamanda,

I was scrolling through twitter to see what was trending especially with regard to Lagos elections, and stumbled upon your write-up on the Oba of Lagos’s disrespectful remarks to the Igbos and their right to exercise their civic rights. Of course being an ardent admirer of your work and also a fellow Igbo girl, I clicked on the link and hungrily lapped up each word you poured out, eager to hear your opinion and ready to carry emotional placards with you by clicking “share” on my Facebook page. But the more I read, the more my excitement waned. Because just as I could feel you word for word, I also disagreed with you, and at a point I had to put down myopic glasses that beheld Lagos through your admirable eyes and wear one that showed me our stark reality.

You see, I AGREE that the Igbo community was unjustifiably grieved. However, as I wave my solidarity flag with my fellow Igbos, I can’t help but also bite my tongue when I remember unpleasant comments many Igbos regularly make toward other tribesmen. For example, the disrespectful way some Igbos address Hausas as “Northerners”, dumbheads, and “nama” meaning cow! As you may know, “Northerner” means friend but watch an Hausa man when an Igbo calls him that in a disrespectful tone. He stiffens and looks annoyed because he knows the tone he is called with is one of disrespect and insult. (some Yorubas call northerners “mulla”; I dunno what that means but that’s for another day *sigh*)

Chimamanda, every tribe is guilty of tribalism; it’s by default. It’s not right. It should be fiercely fought against but shamefully this is the current reality. HOWEVER not every tribe is guilty of “PEACEMAKER-ISM”, and I would love the Igbos to be known more for the guilt of MAKING PEACE.

So we go on and on about the Oba’s comment and what happens? Fights, fracas, and some fathers and sons on both sides lose their lives and people lose property and investments.

As you may have noticed from my name Ijeoma Omotade, I am Igbo married to Yoruba and happily married too. I went into the Yoruba culture and CONSCIOUSLY took time to learn about it. It was when I decided to marry that I knew how deep tribalism has eaten even into our so called Igbo and Yoruba elite. *Sigh* Having also schooled in the north during my secondary school days, and as much as I greatly admire the peaceful and simple nature of the average northerner, sadly they are not left out of the “tribalism” card-carrying.

As an Igbo woman, I may not agree with all the Yoruba do but I live in their culture and I’m in their land, so I respect them and in turn they sense my aura of respect and willingness to understand them and they treat me well. And when I get an opportunity to talk about MY CULTURE and correct some misconceptions they have about Igbos, I do so with GREAT PRIDE because there are so many great things about us they don’t know! And BECAUSE I respect them, THEY LISTEN and LEARN, even through jokes and laughter.

Even the few who were antagonistic toward me, embrace me now, or are at least civil toward me. It didn’t make me any less dignified to understand better another man’s culture; it made me wiser, and stronger and more appreciative of the richness of our country. The flagrant disregard for other’s culture exhibited by many Nigerians is really bad! How do you expect to reason with someone unless you understand their worldview?

Truly, we wouldn’t tolerate half the things we expect from Lagos in Aba or Onitsha or Enugu. Igbos want to be part of the House of Assembly and be among the decision makers for Lagos state. That in itself is not bad because a state stakeholder HAS A RIGHT to be among those making decisions for the state. But historically and by default, people kick against non-tribesman being at the decision-making level and our flippant comments about “taking over the land” is not helping matters either! Why do we want to “take over” another man’s land? It wasn’t bare land before people came and developed it. It’s people’s ancestral homes, and even in a democracy where many are working tirelessly to water the progressive idea of ONE NIGERIA, it is still important we recognize and help preserve each other’s heritage. For only then can we truly build the foundation for lasting synergy and proudly BECOME ONE, for the greater good of OUR LAND.

Personally I’m deeply hurt hearing some Yoruba leaders telling my people that we should be “grateful” living in Lagos; that is utterly unfair, point blank. Any Yoruba person saying that is very shallow minded. We Igbos work HARD for our living, and add IMMENSELY to the growth and development of the city. Try shutting down major trade markets dominated by Igbos for just one week and watch Lagos economy go haywire! But so does the Hausa community in the east that bring in food and supply our markets; they work hard too! Let them stop the lorries from bringing in food to the south and watch what happens. So I plead with EVERYONE, my IGBO KINSMEN inclusive. And this is my plea, that we PLEASE speak as we would like to be spoken to; “do as you would be done by”, RESPECT AND LOVE your fellow man…ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL BY GOD!

I also share a bit of the Lagos indigene sentiment. I wouldn’t want my hometown to be “cosmopoliticized” and my ancestral homes snatched away and turned into highways and hotels, and be told my home town is “no man’s land”. That’s highly disrespectful. History has deep roots in this land.

I don’t support the Oba, he is not my relative, nor did he “settle” my family. In his heart he is just like many other Igbos, Hausas and Yorubas; TRIBALISTIC! The only difference is that he is an influential public figure and so we can all tweet and Facebook his bad communication skills; a public figure who didn’t think about the implications of his words before he spoke. However, that statement would have been made by even an angry IGBO king or Hausa Emir because I don’t see anyone of them doing any better!

In a quest for peace, there are two parties; the one making amends and the one accepting the apology. Let us the grieved accept, and move on. Let us all learn to APPRECIATE and LOVE one another. The other alternative is not better. No one wants tribal clashes; people will die, women will be widowed, children will be orphaned, on both sides…and Chimamanda, you will probably write a book about it, far away from all the madness, on your creative desk; the one that IS NOT IN LAGOS!

…I still remain an ardent admirer….                        NB: This article was not originally published in this site. 

The Keys to a Successful Relationship

A relationship is like a dance: to stay close without stepping on each other's toes takes practice. – Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Intimacy

Being in a loving long-term romantic relationship is one of the surest routes to long term happiness. But it doesn’t happen naturally, it requires certain skills. The good news is that these skills can all be developed, they’re all skills you should already be developing, and they’ll help you with all your other relationships as well. please note that all these keys works with integrity and sincerity........ 
Expectations:
Discuss what you each expect out of the relationship, what you’re committing to, and what your respective roles will be.
Expect ups and downs in even the best relationship, and realize that love isn’t an absolute that you’re either in or out of but something that ebbs and flows over time.
Openness:
Open communication is necessary to genuinely know your partner and let them know you. You can’t help your partner utilize their strengths, move in the direction of their passions, and realize their dreams if you don’t know their strengths, passions, and dreams.
You also need to discuss attitudes toward the topics that cause nearly all relationship problems: gender roles, money, relatives, sex, and children.
Intimacy:
Work at strengthening your closeness, because there is no stasis; if you aren’t getting closer together, you’re drifting further apart. Foster intimacy though honesty, acceptance, and trust. Spend time together. Touch. And for at least a few minutes a day, stare into each other’s eyes.
Caring:
Be as concerned for their well-being as for your own, and look for opportunities to make their life better. Help them to succeed, and celebrate their successes with them.
Empathy:
See things from your partner’s perspective as well as your own. Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.
Respect:
Respect your partner, and act in a way that earns their respect, both inside and outside the relationship. Respect them even when you’re disagreeing. Listen without judgment. Accept them as they are, and don’t try to change them, but help them to change in ways they want to change. Focus on your partner’s strengths and cultivate a high opinion of them.
Self-Respect:
It’s much easier for someone to like you when you like yourself. Don’t compromise your authenticity or sacrifice who you are for the sake of the relationship. And don’t put your partner’s needs above your own; treat each of you as equally important.
Constructive Disagreement: When disagreeing, don’t criticize, don’t blame, and don’t be hurtful or bitter. Most relationship problems start with hurt feelings that escalate. Learn to manage differences and conflict through communication, negotiation, and cooperation.
Solve problems as they arise, and never go to sleep angry.
Teamwork:
Make decisions together, with the interests of both given equal weight. In the best relationships, each person cares as much about the other as about themselves.
Progress:
View the relationship as an opportunity for you two to co-create your ideal lives together. Be committed to the continual development of each of you individually as well as the relationship itself. Look for opportunities to align your desires and goals with each other and to create shared meaning.
Positivity:
Have the celebration of life and of each other be the emotional tone of the relationship. Say positive things to and about your partner at least five times more often than you say negative things.
Gratitude: Don’t take the relationship for granted. You are becoming an amazing person, in the fortunate position to be highly selective about whom you spend time with. You have chosen a wonderful person to build a life with, and you are blessed that they have chosen you as well.
Adventure and Variety: Share new, exciting, challenging activities with them. Seek out and embrace spontaneity together. Foster bonding and intimacy by infusing each day with spontaneity. Make romance and seduction lifelong passions.
Attraction: Remember that we don’t choose what we’re attracted to, but we do choose whether to be attractive. Do the things that your partner finds attractive, and tell your partner all the things you find attractive about them, inside and out.
Effort:
Don’t think good relationships just happen. All the skills on this list require ongoing effort to master.
Love:
Without love, time turns couples into enemies or strangers.
With love, anything is possible. When two people love each other as much as themselves, the tug-of-war disappears, and compromise and sacrifice become meaningless concepts because what’s best for one is best for the other. When you love another as much as yourself, working at the relationship becomes a joy and not a chore, and you celebrate the opportunity to help your partner’s inner radiance shine more brightly.

How to choose a Family Lawyer

Most families find that sooner or later they will need the services of a family lawyer. It might be simply to read out a will or to draw one up for you, or maybe you are planning to go into business and need to have a lawyer look over the contract. Even buying and selling a home requires a lawyer to ensure everything is done correctly.

However, with an imperfect world, there is often the need of a lawyer to take care of such things as divorce, litigation and dispute resolution. Having a professional on your side during these times of trauma can make the most difficult situation a little easier to cope with. It can also save you a lot of money and heartache if you get a solicitor to take care of all the legal matters so that you are not ripped off by anyone dishonest.

However, when you are in need of such a professional service, make sure you choose someone who majors in the kind of work you want done. There are many different areas of law and no one person can be really good at all of them.  Even large companies and small companies have different legal requirements.  Then there is family law, commercial law, estate planning, wills and probate, tourism and leisure, entertainment, media and technology law and so on.

Wills and estate planning is what most people will need and they should seek legal help with this well before they get old. In addition, updates are necessary as your life circumstances change. If you die without a will, it can take years to sort out your estate and the value of it will not be enjoyed by your heirs.  Your last wishes may not be taken into account unless there is a legal will stating what they are.

However, with many people turning to small business as being more secure than their jobs, the need for franchise agreements is increasing. Never go into any kind of business without understanding exactly what that contract or agreement means.

A lot of people see a franchise as the ideal way to get into business as the start-up costs are more affordable and you don’t have to worry about branding so much if the company is well-known. However, you still have to be prepared to work hard and go the extra mile to succeed. So it is essential that you understand exactly what you are getting into – and that is where a lawyer can help you.

'The Oba’s Words Matter' - Chimamanda Adichie's response to Oba of Lagos

A response to the Oba of Lagos over his threat to Igbos from award winning writer, Chimamanda Adichie. Chimamanda says the Oba’s words are quite disturbing. Read below...

A few days ago, the Oba of Lagos threatened Igbo leaders. If they did not vote for his governorship candidate in Lagos, he said, they would be thrown into the lagoon. His entire speech was a flagrant performance of disregard. His words said, in effect: I think so little of you that I don’t have to cajole you but will just threaten you and, by the way, your safety in Lagos is not assured, it is negotiable.

There have been condemnations of the Oba’s words. Sadly, many of the condemnations from non-Igbo people have come with the ugly impatience of expressions like ‘move on,’ and  ‘don’t be over-emotional’ and ‘calm down.’ These take away the power, even the sincerity, of the condemnations. It is highhanded and offensive to tell an aggrieved person how to feel, or how quickly to forgive, just as an apology becomes a non-apology when it comes with ‘now get over it.’
Other condemnations of the Oba’s words have been couched in dismissive or diminishing language such as ‘The Oba can’t really do anything, he isn’t actually going to kill anyone. He was joking. He was just being a loudmouth.’

Or – the basest yet – ‘we are all prejudiced.’ It is dishonest to respond to a specific act of prejudice by ignoring that act and instead stressing the generic and the general.  It is similar to responding to a specific crime by saying ‘we are all capable of crime.’ Indeed we are. But responses such as these are diversionary tactics. They dismiss the specific act, diminish its importance, and ultimately aim at silencing the legitimate fears of people.

We are indeed all prejudiced, but that is not an appropriate response to an issue this serious. The Oba is not an ordinary citizen. He is a traditional ruler in a part of a country where traditional rulers command considerable influence – the reluctance on the part of many to directly chastise the Oba speaks to his power. The Oba’s words matter. He is not a singular voice; he represents traditional authority. The Oba’s words matter because they are enough to incite violence in a political setting already fraught with uncertainty. The Oba’s words matter even more in the event that Ambode loses the governorship election, because it would then be easy to scapegoat Igbo people and hold them punishable.

Nigerians who consider themselves enlightened might dismiss the Oba’s words as illogical. But the scapegoating of groups – which has a long history all over the world – has never been about logic. The Oba’s words matter because they bring worrying echoes of the early 1960s in Nigeria, when Igbo people were scapegoated for political reasons. Chinua Achebe, when he finally accepted that Lagos, the city he called home, was unsafe for him because he was Igbo, saw crowds at the motor park taunting Igbo people as they boarded buses: ‘Go, Igbo, go so that garri will be cheaper in Lagos!’
Of course Igbo people were not responsible for the cost of garri. But they were perceived as people who were responsible for a coup and who were ‘taking over’ and who, consequently, could be held responsible for everything bad.

Any group of people would understandably be troubled by a threat such as the Oba’s, but the Igbo, because of their history in Nigeria, have been particularly troubled. And it is a recent history. There are people alive today who were publicly attacked in cosmopolitan Lagos in the 1960s because they were Igbo. Even people who were merely light-skinned were at risk of violence in Lagos markets, because to be light-skinned was to be mistaken for Igbo.

Almost every Nigerian ethnic group has a grouse of some sort with the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state has, by turns, been violent, unfair, neglectful, of different parts of the country. Almost every ethnic group has derogatory stereotypes attached to it by other ethnic groups.

But it is disingenuous to suggest that the experience of every ethnic group has been the same. Anti-Igbo violence began under the British colonial government, with complex roots and manifestations. But the end result is a certain psychic difference in the relationship of Igbo people to the Nigerian state. To be Igbo in Nigeria is constantly to be suspect; your national patriotism is never taken as the norm, you are continually expected to prove it.

All groups are conditioned by their specific histories. Perhaps another ethnic group would have reacted with less concern to the Oba’s threat, because that ethnic group would not be conditioned by a history of being targets of violence, as the Igbo have been.

Many responses to the Oba’s threat have mentioned the ‘welcoming’ nature of Lagos, and have made comparisons between Lagos and southeastern towns like Onitsha. It is valid to debate the ethnic diversity of different parts of Nigeria, to compare, for example, Ibadan and Enugu, Ado-Ekiti and Aba, and to debate who moves where, and who feels comfortable living where and why that is. But it is odd to pretend that Lagos is like any other city in Nigeria. It is not. The political history of Lagos and its development as the first national capital set it apart. Lagos is Nigeria’s metropolis. There are ethnic Igbo people whose entire lives have been spent in Lagos, who have little or no ties to the southeast, who speak Yoruba better than Igbo. Should they, too, be reminded to be ‘grateful’ each time an election draws near?

No law-abiding Nigerian should be expected to show gratitude for living peacefully in any part of Nigeria. Landlords in Lagos should not, as still happens too often, be able to refuse to rent their property to Igbo people.

The Oba’s words were disturbing, but its context is even more disturbing:
The anti-Igbo rhetoric that has been part of the political discourse since the presidential election results.  Accusatory and derogatory language – using words like ‘brainwashed,’ ‘tribalistic voting’ – has been used to describe President Jonathan’s overwhelming win in the southeast. All democracies have regions that vote in large numbers for one side, and even though parts of Northern Nigeria showed voting patterns similar to the Southeast, the opprobrium has been reserved for the Southeast.
But the rhetoric is about more than mere voting. It is really about citizenship. To be so entitled as to question the legitimacy of a people’s choice in a democratic election is not only a sign of disrespect but is also a questioning of the full citizenship of those people.

What does it mean to be a Nigerian citizen?
When Igbo people are urged to be ‘grateful’ for being in Lagos, do they somehow have less of a right as citizens to live where they live? Every Nigerian should be able to live in any part of Nigeria. The only expectation for a Nigerian citizen living in any part of Nigeria is to be law-abiding. Not to be ‘grateful.’ Not to be expected to pay back some sort of unspoken favour by toeing a particular political line. Nigerian citizens can vote for whomever they choose, and should never be expected to justify or apologize for their choice.

Only by feeling a collective sense of ownership of Nigeria can we start to forge a nation. A nation is an idea. Nigeria is still in progress. To make this a nation, we must collectively agree on what citizenship means: all Nigerians must matter equally.

Morocco bus crash: Children among 33 dead in collision

Schoolchildren returning from a sports competition were among at least 33 people killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a gas tanker in southern Morocco, officials say.

The bus burst into flames after the crash on Friday morning near the city of Tan-Tan in the district of Chbika.

Nine people were injured and taken to hospital but two later died.

Local media said the children had been taking part in an athletics competition and were travelling with their coaches.

One survivor said, "We were sleeping, most of us were sleeping. We heard the explosion, followed by the burning."

Some reports said they were travelling from the capital, Rabat, to Laayoune, which is in the Western Sahara.

"A majority of the victims are children aged eight to 14," an official from the regional sports and youth ministry told the AFP news agency.

Hassan Issengar, a well-known athlete, was travelling with the children and is among the dead, reports said.

King Mohamed VI has sent a message of condolences to the families and said he would pay for the burials as well the hospital fees for the injured.

Road accidents have been on the rise in Morocco as car ownership has nearly doubled over the past 15 years, according to Reuters news agency.

An average of 10 people are estimated to die every day in road accidents.

Be Your Self!!!!!

Sometimes, you keep on wondering why certain things happen. You want to escape but you can’t. Something pulled you to the ground and make you stumbled. Your body frail, your eyes weeping, and your face have devoid of feelings. You tried to hail but you are just afraid to get ignored, to hear criticisms, and to be judge. “No one is perfect” indeed. However, there are some people who are judgmental, having crab mentality, and fond of creating nitty-gritty issues, but you can’t please them anyways.

But no matter what happen Be Positive even if your life full of messed. Be glad. Even if you only have five cents on your wallet, one pair of shoes and slippers, walking in the edge of the street going to school or work, and live in a house that seems so small. Be thankful. Even if you can’t have what you want but you can have everything you needs. In life, it is not a about a position and possession, but it is all about your disposition and being contented in all the things that GOD has bestowed. You will not be happy if you make yourself feel empty and nothing.

Value yourself; unload the excess baggage that you’re always carried like grudges, pain, envious, peevish, doubtful, mourn, and other negative traits that make you feel hapless. Ignore what other might says about you, it’s your life not them. They are just tenterhooks to criticize your goof. A gossip is only a gossip; you don’t have to explain yourself because they don’t even comprehend. Smile. It's a simple gesture that brings happiness to others.

Futhermore, just DO what you want, and love what you are doing; in the end it only matters between You and God, not the crowd.

Read more at http://www.sunnyskyz.com/feel-good-story/1704/Be-Yourself-#LH9tUMOGPAtjFx6Y.99