YORUBA!

I dialed the number that topped my missed call list. Chike’s name remained on the screen while the phone icon tipped back and forth indicating that there was an outgoing call. The dull beeping sound crackled and was immediately replaced by a deep male voice.

“Bisola, how are you?”

My mouth started to open and close like a fish struggling out of water. Legs that had formerly been rooted to the ground started to wobble. I began to fidget and tremble, even without his eyes on me. Back and forth, back and forth, I walked restlessly, with the phone still cradled close to my ear. I had called to greet him but the words which my ears heard from my suddenly parched lips were

“Did you vote?”

The reply was swift and confident, tinted with a smidge of contempt in the tone of his voice.


“Of course I did!”


“I heard Buhari’s leading in the count already…..”


“And why won’t he!? You these yorubas, you like cheap things! Shey you want cheap things eh, you will see them.”


The malice and violent tone of the voice frightened me. Perhaps because this was a man I had known for many years. Back at the University of Jos, ‘bouncing’ around in his trendy tops and jeans, Chike had never appeared to be a person who separated one set of humans from another with that contempt I had imagined in his voice some seconds ago. Imagined, it was not real. Not the same man known around campus, jovial with all the girls, an enthusiast with a strong interest in school politics. Always contesting and mostly winning. Always active, always hustling honestly for a bit of cash. Always known for lewd sex jokes. But never one for tribalism.


“Bisola?”


“I had my pvc. I wasn’t able to vote. I was assigned to somewhere that was different from where I requested. "


“Meaning you are part of the problem.”


“A aah…………. No o”


“But you are. If some of you had voted, maybe it wouldn’t be like this.”


Silence.


“So, are we still seeing?”


Stuttering and stammering from me. Despite the distrust now leaking from somewhere deep inside me now, he still had that ability to just make me feel nervous, naturally.


The story I had heard once of a hausa man killing his igbo wife during a tribal crisis suddenly haunted my thoughts and then faded away.


“I …..i am not sure. I will let you know soon...”


There was a confident chuckle with a scary knowingness attached to it.


“Ok.”


BEEP! The sound of a concluded call.


It was time to call another one of my friends. This time it was business. The business of paying back owed money. Nervously, I dialed Chijioke’s number. Nervous for what, I had no idea. I had his money with me and I was not going to wait a single day after our agreed date to pay up. His caller tune played in gay sounds through my phone.


“Hello?”


“Hi it’s Bisola.”


“Oh hey Bisola, what’s up?”


“Actually, I wanted to get your account number so I could pay up.”


“Oh they’ve paid you right?”


“Yeah”


“Or you guys are celebrating because Buhari has won?”



Who exactly did he mean by ‘you guys’? He knew me to be a Yoruba girl. And what was all this about the Yorubas? Was this supposed to mean that all Yoruba people had voted for Buhari? Was it possible? To be grouped up and given blame and shame based on where you were born, which was not even your fault, to be given characteristics simply because of a name you answered was just, unbelievable. I thought there had been a small portion of unfriendliness in his tone but I simply brushed it off. As a good friend that had been there for me in times past, I put it all down as something I dubbed the ‘election mood ‘



“What Buhari?” I burst out with it. “I didn’t even vote, somebody I did not even support …”


Surprised silence this time.


The angry shouts I heard apart from his, in his background, quieted down.

“Okay, I will send the account number.”


Another beep.


I sat down wearily, back into the chair I had so hastily sprung out of earlier to make my calls. And I thought. I thought about how I’d lolled, disappointed, the week before, in that same chair. Depressed because I couldn’t vote after all the ‘wahala’ I had gone through to be able to vote, a minor matter of my placement in the voting areas.


I also thought about my calls. I thought about the way my friends had simultaneously decided, that since I was Yoruba, I had voted for Buhari. I thought about how unsafe the streets might be for certain tribes, lives lost because of certain assumptions. The streets are hard. Of course the Hausas would be a target now. I just read the other day about how a man made a video of himself refusing to give a hausa beggar money, saying he should go to Buhari.


I killed the protests rising in my mind, but I did not forget. My friends had decided, based on my tribe, who i had voted, without even knowing that my finger had never touched the ink.

This short write up is part fiction, but mostly reality. Anyway, I don't like tribalism of any sort, I don't like people being grouped up and accused of a common crime. I don't like when some tribes look with disdain on others as if they are not human. Because one's tribe should not decide how human he/ she is.


And no matter who people are voting, no one should be accused or seen in any certain way or harassed. We are all humans first.

This is a peaceful write up. It's meant to encourage deeper thoughts on the issue of the peace we need in Nigeria and the mentality that needs to change.


Peace.

This is wonderful.

bimberry1307:
This is wonderful.

Thanks dear

quite pretty i must say

mariopepper:
quite pretty i must say

Thanks

Wow nice one.
.i love it

I will love to know u much better beyond this platform this is my number you can chat me up on whatsapp 08174434120

Gud job

Nice stuff. It should be nobody's business in who ever the hell anyone vote for

Nice one

AryEmber:
Nice stuff. It should be nobody's business in who ever the hell anyone vote for

Exactly o, you got it

LightQueen:
Nice one

Thanks

kenny160:
Gud job

Thanks kenny

fifty5:
Wow nice one.
.i love it

Thanks I'm glad