BECAUSE HUMANITY IS EVERYWHERE

I had been struck with self-pity immediately my call up letter was handed to me. Tony, my loyal friend later told me Mr. Olaiya, the official issuing the letter was shell shock with my fierce lamentation...  ‘’What the hell sir, how could I be posted here? What happened to your usual pledge after you collected inducement from me’’. Invariably, the bad ones abound everywhere.

I had been posted to Niger state at a time when BokoHaram is raging in the North with a tact that seems more coordinated than that of the government. Although Niger is not under frequent fire of BokoHaram but for it is a northern state, the many stories have heard, flash through my mind. The stories of how north is backward, unrepentantly violent and uncivilized. The stories that stereotype entire north as Muslims yet fundamentalist. The one sided stories that seldom point-note something positive about the north – the kind of story that prolific writer, Chimamanda Adichie tagged ‘’THE SINGLE STORY’’ –stories with potentiality of robbing us of our humanity.

However, in the midst of depressed emotions, I swung into preparation for Niger State. Obviously, the family wasn’t happy and that was for glaring reason –they are equally slave to the abundant misinformation about the north. And for them they wouldn’t allow me go should they own the discretion.

Not later that I left home that my mind began to change and my adrenaline gravitate towards the north. In the bus, sitting next to me to the right was bilikisu – I thought her to be beauty personified as she looks gorgeously overwhelming in a smooth as silk white hijab that reaches her to the chest. She was so resplendent and greatly in-dismissive. So, I watched her attentively as she discuss issues on international relation with Jane (another member of the bus). Surprisingly, bilikisu exhibits a unique intelligence that made me concluded she can never be a northerner, until issues joined us together and she declared she is from Kano. I would later be self-agitated trying to question what I have allowed myself to believe.

To me, education may breed ignorance just as non-education could do. Succinctly, education that swallows every information hook, line and sinker equates to nothing but ignorance. So, bilikisu example open my mind to exploring better ‘what is’ about the north that is not universal.

Few kilometers beyond jebba, one Hausa man that dressed a little tattered bought a plantain chips and handed it over to a crying little girl that was being backed by her mother – the sudden silence of the baby drew the mother’s attention to the gift and she muttered ‘thank you’. Again I was astonished, not by the gift but by the geniality of mind: the aboki didn’t mind being thanked –his humanity led him to gift the crying baby. And again I felt steer from within: something in me says: so, Hausa person can also have humane feelings. How come they are considered as bunch of hardened Islamic Fundamentalist? The answer evades me but the configuration of my mind vis-à-vis north has become shifty.

But at minna my shock was unquantifiable- I could see cars- exotic and ordinary, accelerating towards different destinations, I could see young and old, boys and girls, some admirably dressed and some in tattered clothe hawking goods back and forte the road- everyone is in a bid of making ends meet. I could also see posters and billboards accentuating their politics and businesses. I could see a lot but above all I saw the sky being blue with touches of white as it is where I was coming from. This was profoundly incredible to me because owing to what have heard, I have conjured up a mental picture of what the north will be: a desert town filled with few goro-teeth population who seldom know even their names. Some people by the level of misinformation Infact has a mental picture of the north as having a different sky colouration and people of disenchanting body physiology. However, I will be proved wrong at Bida when at a lodge I reside temporarily I met the man by name Santali. From his distant look, he has a swag of a typical lagosian and I watched him as he limp-swag towards my standing point. He turned out to be Nupe, we greeted and he happened to be a man of content and conscience, because such a combination is scarce, I was really enchanted by his person and we till date maintain a mutually profiting relationship.

Alhaji Halidu is another man who make me understand how humanity is never an ethnic peculiarity. He happened to be the vice-principal of Government College, Bida, where I am having my national service. There are a number of bodily things, disenchanting about him but his absolute straight-forwardness stood out among people have ever met. Here is a man that valued sincerity of minds and would not say one thing when the otherwise is his intention. In his world, humanity will thrive! Malam Gana is also spectacular in quality of reception. He seems to have a special chord for people of other tribes as he always gravitate lovingly towards them comparably more than his even tribes-mate- he always want to connect with me in my mother tongue, of which he understood little, he will say whenever and wherever he sees me ‘’Ibrahim, so ti jeun? That is: Ibrahim, have you eaten’’. Myself always struck by his seamless naivety of my Yoruba language find his person really interesting.

No bad tribe, only bad people. That truism is ultimately true: just has Fati, a Nupe lady I met during election is extremely beautiful and humane, Ramotu also a Nupe lady is ugly and egregiously proud. Be that as it may, it follows that stereotyping an entire region, race or ethnicity as good or bad is grossly inaccurate, people’s character are influenced by their ethnicity but ones conscience belongs to one and it is the prime part of human that dictates a person livelihood. So I hurry to submit that conscience is universal, therefore it abound in the North, south and what have you.

However, if there is one thing in the north of which is universality is contestable, that will be nay, the less value northerners attach to education. Education in the north is palpably disgusting. The north place a great premium on religion academics (Quranic Education) than anything else. This is evident in that almost 98% of northerners both male and female have studied up to atleast point of Quranic graduation but only approximately 40% have beyond senior secondary school certificate. The above analysis used Bida, Niger State as a microcosm. That trend is not universal! This is era of scientific education in the world. Another is the fact that they marry not according to their financial capability- that is when someone that earn less than 2 dollars a day is having 4 wives with about 20 child. There is something not universal about that entrenched northern tradition. This is the era of moderated family!

To sum up, the north is as cordial and natural as the west or south, if her religion will not be ridiculed or her sensibility be pinched. In all of these and because the day to day drive and aspiration of most northerners have seen and met is to live a satiable live, I conclude that live indeed is everywhere!!!