*This was written Thursday, 27 October 2007 by Pat Utomi

It is amazing how what you think about can define you and hold you hostage. Take ethnicity. There is so much of it around that unless something thrusts it to the fore of your consciousness; you forget it is the prism through which some people see everything. I became sensitive to my good fortune when a reaction of the ethnic dimension on the N628milion House of Representative Scandal hit a List Serve (e-group) that I subscribe to. I probably would have thought little of it all beyond acknowledging that some held and expressed strong opinion, a democratic privilege, until someone I know whose views I shared, felt very strongly about people who made sweeping remarks regarding his ethnic group, and reacted.

I agreed with him that it was improper to attack his ethnic group because a principal player in the scandal comes from that ethnic stock and some chieftains from that geographic group had said the person in question should be defended on account of that persons place of origin. Even if there were not so many people who are of that ethnic origin, that have spoken critically of the House of Representative Leadership and called for resignation, the slamming of an ethnic group for the sin of one, or a few persons, would still be most inappropriate.

But that is not so much the object of my writing as the desire to share a personal testimony on the futility of ethnic chauvinism and how it can hold us captive. As is the nature personal testimonies it will be in the first person and names of individuals, some of whom are well known will be mentioned. Let me apologize up front to those who may not like that mode of narrative.

Earlier this year, someone surprised me by saying that a major challenge to my candidacy for the office of the President of Nigeria was that I was too Nigerian. I found that quite a paradox. Yes, as a young man I fancied myself an All-Nigerian youngster, in the American manner of usage. For some, open mindedness meant your ethnic group could not trust you enough.

I always took pride in my Pan-Nigerian upbringing. How come being seen as free from the captivity of the ethnic group is a handicap. In reaction, I raised the profile of how I grew up, making the point that no other candidate for the office of the President of Nigeria had as complete a Nigerian background: born in Kaduna of parents from Delta State, raised in Jos, Maiduguri, Kano, Gusau, Onitsha, Ibadan and Lagos before University education at Nsukka. I was not going to be apologetic about the fact that I grew up unable to tell the difference between people beyond the content of their character.

Then I ran into Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. His comment, unsolicited, reinforced my disposition. Said he to me: your remarkable strength is that people never think of where you come from. You belong to all Nigerians. It was a comment that made me feel good because that really was how I saw myself. My puzzle was how to make every one else feel that way. Do they have to have nomadic parents, like me, to be Nigerian. Then I thought of the person who made the comment about my being too Nigerian.

He had lived most of his adult life outside of his state of origin. So, even if moving around helped me, I needed to find more reasons. Surely many have been freed of some terrible prejudices by one year of National Service in the NYSC than some have from living in Lagos, Abuja and Kano for most of their adult lives. It occurred to me that friendship, open minds, set people free of becoming captive of simplistic stereotypes about others that makes it easy to judge without difficult evaluation of the content of each character.

My thinking was validated when shortly after the April elections, I went abroad for a bit of rest. Many friends from both sides of the Atlantic were kind enough to invite me, and in some cases my whole family, to be guests in their homes. At the time I did not think much about the scope of the network of friends in terms of the spread of ethnic backgrounds of those who welcome us into their homes. From Charles Gilbert and Mohammed Hayatudeen, of Ondo and Borno States, in Florida, to Linus Ojukwu of Anambra State, in California, Jimi Akiboh and Chris Obeime of Ogun State and Edo origins, in the American Midwest. There was also occasion of being hosted by a group of doctors and other professionals from Katsina and Nassarawa States in London, and across the Atlantic by Bassey Okon, where I found myself exploring the wealth of Nigeria, its people, without even a thought about where their parents claim as states of origin.

It was on one such visit that the true benefit of belonging to all, struck me. As I discussed the idea of a shadow government focused on helping Nigeria re-discover its compass, that plain-speaking Shehu Othman, who came in from Oxford to chat with me, said a welcome idea like that would usually draw suspicion of motives from the North, but for the fact it was coming from someone like me, whose motives were not distrusted in the North, or any part of Nigeria for that matter.

Beyond finding such, a complement, the lesson for me was that ethnic chauvinism was clearly an obstacle to communication. It got in the way of men, who could ordinarily have done much good, from getting their ideas across and building solidarity Nigeria writ large. That Pan-Nigerian solidarity is a veritable instrument for nation building. To what do I believe, I owe the good fortune of escape from tribal capture? I guess it has to do with making the most of the privilege of experiencing diversity, and allowing that to define my self worth.

Take my wedding nearly a quarter century ago, as example. On that day, Patrick Ityogheh, the NTA impresario, teased about who should break kola nuts, as Otunba Subomi Balogun sat between Ajie Ukpabi Asika, Chief Tayo Akpata and Chief Arthur Mbanefo. It did not take an effort to have the Northwest, North Central, South West, South South and South East at the wedding. It came natural to my network. The same feeling rises up in me as I engage the young, the old, the traditional and the modern with faith that the ultimate value is the dignity of the human person, the equal dignity of all persons.

It plays through as I reflect on the many young upwardly mobile professionals that I mentor, the Reno Omokris, Gbenga Sesans, Niyi Adesanyas Linus Okories and Kabiru Mohammeds etc and with the traditional rulers I have known most of my adult life. When Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto calls me on occasion, to pull my legs on some issues, he is counting on a relationship that dates back to when he was a young officer and friend to my brother-in-law two decades ago. And when I deal with the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Achebe, I go back 30 years to my visits to the Victoria Island apartment of the bachelor rising manager at Shell. In like manner, when I show up at the Palace in Iloko, I am visiting an Oba Olashore who has been like a family member for decades. But the real lesson from my experience is that being truly Nigerian does not constitute negation of the good of a more primary or parochial base. So the fact that I arrive Kaduna and head straight to the home of a long time friend, Ibrahim Usman, go off to Good Friday service as he goes to the mosque and we return to lunch in his home does not make me any less a Deltan, or Christian.

As Nigerian as I am, I still feel good about my Ibusa progeny, the Igbo heritage it brings me and pride enough at my South South origins to have been the one to give intellectual context to the idea of Resource Control when I delivered the first anniversary lecture at the Delta State Government sponsored celebration of the return to democracy on that sunny morning in Warri seven years ago.

Yet I relish when a Patricia Otuedon marvels at the fact that much older compatriots from across regional divides, like Alhaji Ahmed Joda, are requested to name three people to provide attestations to their life-time efforts for the TV series profiling Great Nation-builders, my name so frequently shows up. This privilege for me is at once a gift and the benefit of socialization. It should be the right of all and civil society will do well to devote resources to helping young people overcome the trap of the tribe.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU.