Nigerians in foreign countries and self-inflicted violence
Nigerians recently have collectively and individually suffered attacks in their host countries for offences committed by their nationals who have been accused of setting up authorities they pay allegiance to
Nigerians recently have collectively and individually suffered attacks in their host countries for offences committed by their nationals who have been accused of setting up authorities they pay allegiance to in their host countries. They accuse our people of setting up traditional rulers and even converting such rulers’ residences into “traditional palaces” where they sometimes meet to settle quarrels among themselves and also to celebrate one festival or the other as well as naming ceremonies or burial obsequies.
When I first read about these things, my mind went to the practice among our Igbo compatriots who select and crown “Igwe Ndi Igbo” or “ Eze Ndigbo” wherever they migrate to for economic reasons here at home in Nigeria and now they have carried the practice abroad. I do not know when the practice started in Nigeria but it has become so widespread that it is causing some irritation among non- Igbo among whom Igbos settle. The reason why Igbos go outside their homelands to look for means of sustenance is because their land is not big enough to provide for the traditional shifting agriculture characteristic of most African societies. Secondly, the traditional Igbo culture celebrates women who have many children and in polygamous societies, a man may face the situation of having to cater for many mouths and migration in a situation like that may be the most attractive thing to do. Traditional Igbo society is very democratic and the Igbos have a saying that every Igbo man is a king of his family and that the Igbos do not have kings therefore. But then in modern times, these people who pride themselves of not having kings suddenly began to coronate “ igwe” or “ Eze” in foreign lands . Of course nowadays, these people who don’t have kings before are now crowning kings at home and abroad not as hereditary title holders but as acknowledgement of wealth or some superlative performance in trade.
This has led some commentators to describe this phenomenon as “traders in the afternoon and kings at night”. Is it not ironical that the people who traditionally do not have kings at home are now setting up kingdoms abroad. Because of absence of hierarchical institutions among the Igbos, the British in the colonial days who wanted to set up indirect rule system which had worked in the northern and the western parts of our country using traditional rulers as agents of the colonial administration began to give warrants to people like messengers that they found useful as traditional rulers. This did not have any iota of traditional legitimacy among the people.
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Of course, this did not go well because the Igbos would not accept any other Igbo ruling over them. This sociological fact accounts for why there are no traditional kingdoms in Igboland apart from those in the Western periphery of Igboland in places like Onitsha, Agbor etc. apparently influenced by Benin kingdom. I am making all these points not to say that kingdoms are inherently superior to the village democracies of the Igbo, but to probe the transition from rural democracies to the new craze of establishing kingdoms and crowning people where kingdoms and princes do not belong naturally.
This practice of having kings outside domains of the Igbos began in earnest apparently in the period before independence when as a result of forming of political parties, and the tendency for these parties to campaign countrywide thus drawing attention to the sharp differences among our people and the need for cohort protection outside the original traditional areas. Thus began this phenomenon in the North among southerners beginning with “Eze Ndigbo “of Kano in the 1950s apparently for self-protection of the Igbos who were usually attacked for religious reasons. The Yoruba, certainly in Kano, also copied the Igbos by having “Oba Yoruba of Kano”. These titles raised political issues. Did their establishment mean southerners in Kano were not subjects of the emir and therefore not loyal to him? The danger of this phenomenon could arise if the Hausa of Kano suddenly crowned a man as “Sarki Hausawa of Kano”. Will this not be a challenge to the traditional institutions in the Fulani emirates in Kano and the North in general?
Copying what the Igbos did in Lagos in recent times of establishing of Eze Ndigbo of Lagos and other “Igwe” of districts, the Hausa and Fulani now have Sarkin Hausawa and Sarkin Fulani of Lagos State and sub districts of Lagos. This seems to be getting out of hands and the state government has had to intervene. The case of Ibadan where the Sarkin Shasha, a Hausa settlement by northerners in Ibadan refused to remain loyal to the Olubadan during the last military rule because of relationship with the military overlord in Abuja nearly led to civil disobedience and disturbances.
Even in recent times, there was some disturbance when a certain man was crowned “Eze of Akure land” and the Yoruba king, the Deji said he would not tolerate another ruler in his kingdom. There is well known Yoruba proverb that “two rams cannot drink from the same container” or two kings cannot be found in the same kingdom. To the Yoruba and Hausa people, kings are territorial titles usually given to someone who has control over land and people and not the way Igbo people used to feel that the Igwe had authority over fellow Igbos, if this is so, he would not carry a territorial title. The governor had to intervene that the so called “Eze indigbo” cannot be Eze by simple translation meaning king and that he should be referred to as chairman or some title that would not cause offence to the local people.
In the light of the problems caused by this local installation of kingdoms where there were existing traditional kingdoms, crowning of new parvenu kings will cause offence because of local sensitivity. This is why our people seem to run into difficulties abroad. Perhaps this phenomenon can be tolerated abroad where the white men seem to dismiss it as some cultural idiosyncrasies but in Africa where the idea of the national state is relatively new and where ethnic differences still strongly exist, the idea of immigrants parading themselves as chiefs is totally unacceptable.
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Our governments must therefore find solutions to the problems. A law can be passed nationally that it is illegal to purport to install or crown any individual outside his native area as chiefs or king. This would put an end to all the emergency “Igwe”, “Eze”, “Oba” “Sarki”, “Obi” and “Shehu”. This should be an act of parliament passed in Abuja and enforced nationwide. Now if this is wrong at home here in Nigeria, it certainly will be wrong outside Nigeria and in Nigerian communities wherever they may be. Contravention will lead to the repatriation of such an immigrant before causing violence in the country of his or her residence.
Of course this law will not apply to any Nigerian who had become a national of another country which may decide the fate of such a person using laws applicable to promotion of violence in their own jurisdiction. By this measure, the embarrassment suffered by our people in such countries as the Gambia, Ghana, Benin, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia recently would hopefully come to an end. We would also remove the irritation this phenomenon causes here in Nigeria where local sensitivity is high. It will also end the embarrassment to all Nigerians who may want to live quietly wherever they find themselves to eke a living and to make as much money as immigrants tend to make because of hard work immigrants are prone to make. Our people should also know that because of the success immigrants tend to make of their lives, they become subjects of envy of the local people who may be looking for a reason to attack them even without cause in some countries in in Africa with weak institutions. So our people are more less pouring petroleum on themselves which their penchant for ostentations such as crowning themselves as kings would ignite.
