This is a thread based on this article in NewYorker on Chimamanda (CNA) and interpersed with some details of my life. No absolute talk here but simply my perception.
newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…
Personally I don't know CNA. I've met her a couple of times but at public events. However when she writes, her characters tell my story and that's the same way millions of others feel especially those born in the 1976-1982 range and belonged to the then "middle class".
I like to see myself as some version of Obinze in Americanah. We Catholics growing up in the 80s and living in Nigeria feel like the kids in The Purple Hibiscus. The stories and experiences our parents told us of Biafra were written so succintly in Half of a Yellow Sun.
CNA correctly identified the pains of Igbos living in Lagos post civil war trying to fit in with 1 Nigeria. My family falls into that demographic. Dad fought as a Biafran soldier and Mum had lost many of her uncles and cousins to the Murtala Mohammed organised pogroms in Asaba.
The children speaking Igbo wasn't a priority. My Dad didn't want us speaking and it was only my Mum who insisted on communicating with us in Igbo. She didn't make a fuss if you replied in English but she just wasn't going to talk in English in the house with her kids or husband.
I wish my Dad were alive today to ask him why. He didn't mind that we understood Nnewi and not his very interesting Ndoki dialect. He was good with languages as he spoke Ibibio, German and various Igbo variants fluently. I like to believe that I inherited polyglotism from him.
The policy of Nigerian languages in our schools is a good one. One big problem is there's no accompanying policy to ensure that teachers for all major languages are available in each school. In 1 primary school I was forced to learn Yoruba and another it was Hausa.
In secondary school and especially for FGCs Nigerian Languages was very compulsory up to WAEC level. This helped me as I was able to understand to read and write central Igbo. Unfortunately the curriculum didn't stress speaking and that should be corrected.
My friend @bikey (Lagos boy) who I did much better than Igbo in school became an expert speaker when he went to IMT Enugu. He was forced to learn as some of his lecturers used Igbo to teach and everyone around just spoke Igbo. Same story for my cousins who went to UNN.
CNA was part of the people like myself who decided to take that option (if available) to leave Nigeria for their university education. The incessant ASUU strikes of the 1990s and cult wars wasn't at all encouraging. America was the #1 option then. UNN was my Naija option.
It wasn't that our universities weren't "okay" then but successive military govts had just not made education a priority. ASUU was at the forefront to fight this. Many of our academics also left as they perceived they were in a losing battle to correct the now failed system.
I got to Canada in June 1997 and by December went to Los Angeles, CA where I was to stay with my uncle. My uncle Uche (namesake) was the one who always brought me clothes when I was in Nigeria.Started doing the whole settle down thing there - get SIN, find school, find a job.
Uncle Uche was a software engineer which was pretty novel then and I was totally impressed with his work and level of comfort. He was also into the pan Africanism/black power stuff and quickly filled me in. He influenced me greatly to be a computer scientist amongst other things.
My other uncle Joe in CA, a medical doctor was supposed to be my primary vocational motivation but his life seemed boring compared to Uncle Uche. The pressure by Nigerian parents in the 90s then for their kids to either become medical doctors or lawyers was overwhelming.
However US wasn't for me then. I had unfortunately or fortunately first arrived Montreal, Canada in June as some form of transit and begun to immediately settle down there. The US was cool but I just wasn't with comfortable with all the blackness and gangsterism.
I told my uncle I was leaving to go back to Canada. The things I had seen in rapper videos were suddenly very real. If I hadn't seen the calm Montreal where the most ghetto black neighbourhood was Little Burgundy (correct place) then I may have stayed. My uncle was disappointed.
So there's me a teenager going back to Canada where I had zero family as against staying with my many relations who had all settled in the L.A. region. In hindsight, I think I just valued my newly discovered freedom as Canada though non-blatantly was very much like the US.
My point is that CNA's experiences mirror many of ours (can speak authoritatively for myself). She is also actively, consciously and deliberately attempting to influence our world by her writing, commentaries and definitive public statements she often makes (with great success).
CNA has assumed star proportions as recently evidenced by her influencing @HillaryClinton to change her Twitter bio. She has a hugely popular TedX talk with excerpts from it used in a Beyonce song and books adopted as reading text for classes in schools at all levels globally.
CNA goes to MMA and you're surprised she is more recognizable than the @NGRPresident! Please tell me who do you find there - upwardly mobile Nigerians who can afford to fly and diaspora folk (people who also go to those restaurants CNA frequents in Lagos).
We need to recognise CNA more than any other person in recent times has been the most influential in spurring the conversations on natural hair, feminism and Igboness. She has also been the biggest influencer of a new wave of authors in Nigeria. She deserves our accolades 😉
It's now a cool thing for fathers to be very involved with their children. There's nothing I can't/don't do with regards my kids - change diapers, bathe them, prepare their food, feed them, take them to school, do homework, play with them. This is a gain for feminism.
I cried inside me when my wife had to perm her natural hair as it became unmanageable for her. I'm involved with taking care of my daughter's hair and as she grows up will make her understand that it's beautiful and very desireable.
I'm totally committed to ensuring my kids Chetachi and Sochikaima speak Igbo, understand their culture, history and in turn pass it on to their children even if they choose not to live in Nigeria. Yes they shall have that choice. I won't force the live in Nigeria thing on them.
The truth is living in Nigeria isn't the best option. Our wahala is plenty - kidnappings, SARS, no electricity, bad roads, bad economy, etc. Many things make me happy here but one of them like CNA pointed out is the ability to have that choice to leave whenever I want to.
