NIGERIAN-NESS: WHO ARE WE? WHO AM I? UNLOCKING NATIONAL IDENTITY.
My discourse in this piece I will start by using Lectures on the Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the foundation because of its significance in fleshing ''philosophical light'' on the background misconception and misrepresentation on the question of identity and the role of meta-rationality in elucidating Human history.
Hegel's in his attempt at clarification splits history into Original History, Reflective History and Philosophical History which he thinks forbid preconception while he himself relied on account of 19th century scholarship which is eurocentric bias in analysing World history by presenting view points that are not favourable to Africans broadly speaking. However, I am not flabbergasted whenever I am confronted with prejudicial comments that are predicated on misinformation.
This is typically the kind of scholarship, embedded prejudice one often encounters as an African and Nigerian in Europe when it comes to the subject of typifying behavioural paradigms associated with especially Nigerians. We hear people say these are typical Nigerian behaviours. These are their trademarks. Nigerian-ness! Nigerian-ness!! Nigerian-ness!!! presented from a negative persperctive but can we blame them? No.
It is from this Hegelian bias enriched by misbehaviour noticeable amongst our people that I will be attempting the unlocking of our national identity as a reflective questioning of the ontological characterization of the quality of being Nigerian.
Who is a Nigerian? What are the inherent character traits of a Nigerian? What is Nigerian-ness?
These are fundamental questions ruminating my mind after my recent encounters with groups of Nigerians in Tunisia and South Africa and I begin to wonder repetitively whether Nigerian-ness or the quality of being Nigerian is in association with certain ethnic amalgamation occupying a given geopolitical space or is it about intangibles, behavioural paradigms of cultural peculiarities/similarities.
I do not have any solid characteristic(s) to hold up into the sky as evidential reflecting the Nigerian-ness I often hear my country men talk about in a braggadocious mannerism, uhm maybe the braggadocious mannerism is really the Nigerian-ness that I am looking for fruitlessly?
Mindful of the negativity mere mentioning of the word Nigeria connotes globally, my reflective mind went into overdrive looking for elucidation in awkward places as to whether the elusive Nigerian-ness can be found in the rationalization and justification of a state of mind purvey by the concept of unity engendered with the amalgamation of Nigeria by Lord lugard in 1914.
This warp reflective mind of mine has been proven wrong when I take a vivid look into the historiography and identity problems of Nigeria from independence till date and I could not find one single unifying symbol reflective of the much talked about Nigerian-ness politically. Uhm, some people have told me that the fruitlessness of my search is in itself an answer to the ontological question WHO ARE WE? WHO AM I?
The issue here is how do I unlock our national identity? To do justice here is to posit for consideration the question WHO AM I? How can we know WHO ARE WE without knowing WHO YOU ARE. It would be fruitless to talk of WHO, WHAT and WHERE you belong when you do not know YOURSELF.
My Tunisia and South Africa encounters with Nigerians ''ginger my swagger'' to question whether there is any characteristic(s) that all Nigerians have in common. A common denominator(s) that we give the nomenclature Nigerian-ness.
Given the fact that most common denominator(s) behavioural paradigms-wise that I encountered during my trip to both countries amongst Nigerians have nothing to do with WHO I AM and there are so many Nigerians in my category, it is evident that behavioural paradigms cannot be the only means of identification eventhough they are necessary may not be sufficient to give a definite answer to the question what is Nigerian-ness.
I like to focus more on behavioural paradigms because of the perceptions weave around the power of habits in a communalistic society like ours wherein generalization as to WHO ARE WE? Is commonplace without taken into consideration personal identity in defining Nigerian-ness. I am a Nigerian, Philosopher and Management Consultant but I do not share the same behavioural paradigms with those Nigerians I met in Tunisia and South Africa yet we all claim to be Nigerians because of our identification with a geopolitical space which consists of ethnic, socio-cultural groups we identify ourselves with but that in itself is not Nigerian-ness.
The Nigerian-ness exhibited by Ibori and his supporters is exactly the replica of what I witnessed in Tunisia and South Africa, where Nigerian-ness is often identified with negative idiosyncrasies and stereotyping based on the previous or ongoing developments in respect of behavioural brigandage of our people. We need to move our narratives away from these pigeonholes of behavioural disaster by remodelling, reshaping and sustaining our identity doing something positively impactful in our host communities.
I may accept all other elements of identification previously mentioned in this piece as necessary but they are not sufficient to give a definite answer to the question what is Nigerian-ness, this is because there are other nationalities, ethnic groups who share the same or similar traits and elements of identification.
Therefore, being a Nigerian does not necessarily translates into having an absolute solid unifying edifice(s) or characterizations that we can typify as Nigerian-ness.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE IS A PHILOSOPHER
TWITTER @PEARL2PRINCE
Hegel's in his attempt at clarification splits history into Original History, Reflective History and Philosophical History which he thinks forbid preconception while he himself relied on account of 19th century scholarship which is eurocentric bias in analysing World history by presenting view points that are not favourable to Africans broadly speaking. However, I am not flabbergasted whenever I am confronted with prejudicial comments that are predicated on misinformation.
This is typically the kind of scholarship, embedded prejudice one often encounters as an African and Nigerian in Europe when it comes to the subject of typifying behavioural paradigms associated with especially Nigerians. We hear people say these are typical Nigerian behaviours. These are their trademarks. Nigerian-ness! Nigerian-ness!! Nigerian-ness!!! presented from a negative persperctive but can we blame them? No.
It is from this Hegelian bias enriched by misbehaviour noticeable amongst our people that I will be attempting the unlocking of our national identity as a reflective questioning of the ontological characterization of the quality of being Nigerian.
Who is a Nigerian? What are the inherent character traits of a Nigerian? What is Nigerian-ness?
These are fundamental questions ruminating my mind after my recent encounters with groups of Nigerians in Tunisia and South Africa and I begin to wonder repetitively whether Nigerian-ness or the quality of being Nigerian is in association with certain ethnic amalgamation occupying a given geopolitical space or is it about intangibles, behavioural paradigms of cultural peculiarities/similarities.
I do not have any solid characteristic(s) to hold up into the sky as evidential reflecting the Nigerian-ness I often hear my country men talk about in a braggadocious mannerism, uhm maybe the braggadocious mannerism is really the Nigerian-ness that I am looking for fruitlessly?
Mindful of the negativity mere mentioning of the word Nigeria connotes globally, my reflective mind went into overdrive looking for elucidation in awkward places as to whether the elusive Nigerian-ness can be found in the rationalization and justification of a state of mind purvey by the concept of unity engendered with the amalgamation of Nigeria by Lord lugard in 1914.
This warp reflective mind of mine has been proven wrong when I take a vivid look into the historiography and identity problems of Nigeria from independence till date and I could not find one single unifying symbol reflective of the much talked about Nigerian-ness politically. Uhm, some people have told me that the fruitlessness of my search is in itself an answer to the ontological question WHO ARE WE? WHO AM I?
The issue here is how do I unlock our national identity? To do justice here is to posit for consideration the question WHO AM I? How can we know WHO ARE WE without knowing WHO YOU ARE. It would be fruitless to talk of WHO, WHAT and WHERE you belong when you do not know YOURSELF.
My Tunisia and South Africa encounters with Nigerians ''ginger my swagger'' to question whether there is any characteristic(s) that all Nigerians have in common. A common denominator(s) that we give the nomenclature Nigerian-ness.
Given the fact that most common denominator(s) behavioural paradigms-wise that I encountered during my trip to both countries amongst Nigerians have nothing to do with WHO I AM and there are so many Nigerians in my category, it is evident that behavioural paradigms cannot be the only means of identification eventhough they are necessary may not be sufficient to give a definite answer to the question what is Nigerian-ness.
I like to focus more on behavioural paradigms because of the perceptions weave around the power of habits in a communalistic society like ours wherein generalization as to WHO ARE WE? Is commonplace without taken into consideration personal identity in defining Nigerian-ness. I am a Nigerian, Philosopher and Management Consultant but I do not share the same behavioural paradigms with those Nigerians I met in Tunisia and South Africa yet we all claim to be Nigerians because of our identification with a geopolitical space which consists of ethnic, socio-cultural groups we identify ourselves with but that in itself is not Nigerian-ness.
The Nigerian-ness exhibited by Ibori and his supporters is exactly the replica of what I witnessed in Tunisia and South Africa, where Nigerian-ness is often identified with negative idiosyncrasies and stereotyping based on the previous or ongoing developments in respect of behavioural brigandage of our people. We need to move our narratives away from these pigeonholes of behavioural disaster by remodelling, reshaping and sustaining our identity doing something positively impactful in our host communities.
I may accept all other elements of identification previously mentioned in this piece as necessary but they are not sufficient to give a definite answer to the question what is Nigerian-ness, this is because there are other nationalities, ethnic groups who share the same or similar traits and elements of identification.
Therefore, being a Nigerian does not necessarily translates into having an absolute solid unifying edifice(s) or characterizations that we can typify as Nigerian-ness.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE IS A PHILOSOPHER
TWITTER @PEARL2PRINCE
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