Today I saw a lovely video on a friend’s WhatsApp status. It is the INEC’s Not for Sale music video (see link below) featuring some of the best musicians Nigeria can boast of like 2face, MI, Teni, Chidinma, Waje, Cobhams and others. The video has a strong message and advises Nigerians not to sell their vote as it’s their card to a better future. We all agree that the message is pertinent and what better way to share it than through something as creative as this video. The music was rhythmic and getting any less from the crop of artistes featured would have been surprising. The dance steps in the video were modern and very Nigerian such as zanku, legwork and the other steps presently trending.
Unfortunately, the video was a stark reminder of one of the major problem Nigeria as a country has and that is the tribal, ethnic, cultural diversity. The video had every artiste wear their native attire and they all looked beautiful in it. I’m pretty sure the idea behind that action wasn’t to highlight our differences but to show us that we can actually come together given those differences to make something as beautiful as that music video but in reality we choose not to. It’s easy to come out online and say you don’t care about tribes yet structure and build your lives around your ‘kinsmen’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying being diverse is wrong, I’m only wondering why we have chosen to use it against ourselves. In fact I think if we were all one tribe in Nigeria, we would have found a way to distinguish ourselves because even in similar tribes and ethnicity we have well established and structured differentiations.
You want to see how tribalistic Nigerian youths are, go to Nairaland. Nairaland is an online forum where Nigerians around the world go to air their views and stay abreast of what happens in their country but it wouldn’t take you long to identify the tribalistic e-niches. The tribal divide is so wide, so much that there is a specialized lingua franca across the divide. It is on Nairaland you learn words like afonja, skull miners, brown roof republic, ipigs and other unprintable slurs used in the unending tribal e-wars. Sometimes when I read the vicious insults thrown across each other I wonder what these people would do if they found themselves in a room together, well I refuse to go through with that thought. I just can’t fathom how people can hate faceless persons just because they identify as a tribe they have decided to detest. Of them all, the one person I find most amusing is the one who goes across threads cursing Lord Lugard for bringing us different tribes to become Nigeria. Poor dead Lord Lugard.
Well we can choose to join that guy and curse a long dead man for our troubles or we can decide to find lasting solutions. Tomorrow Nigerians go to vote and if you cast your vote at that poll because the candidate is your tribe then have it at the back of your mind that you just sold your vote and maybe not your future but someone else’s. It’s time we break this vicious cycle, we are a product of a dark and stale nurturing, to label people by tribes, religion, cultures, status etc. and it is time we end it. Then again I wonder, how come these issues rotate mostly around the three major tribes in Nigeria; Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba? Anyway, tomorrow at the polls, repress your selfishness and do the fair thing. Do not sell your vote, not for money, not for tribe.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErWLRSm9Nc