₦airaland Forum

@UDUNNU,

Do I know you somewhere?

Udunnu, I beg no remove ya foto. Let us continue to admaya da wok of KREATION man!

@Poster,
I feel for you. I know elders like to stick to tradition. Surprisingly, me and my uncle are married to two first cousins! I don't know who married first but we are in diaspora and they are in gidi. We didn't know until recently. In a funeral back in gidi late last year, we joked that we have only just started marrying from that family and going by the way the women are so far, perhaps many more will follow.

Well, I know it could have been different 50 years ago but people are fairly relaxed about these things these days.

You will have to gently persuade your parents. Listen to them attentively, don't dismiss them. But then politely explain that you love each other. Try in particular to persuade your mum first. Parents do understand the strength of love. It may not seem obvious because they didn't grow up
displaying affection openly in those days but they do understand.

If your parents are christians, their pastor may be helpful to you.
God luck.

To Ohmigod,

That message was addressed to you in error. You did not open a thread about who to date or marry, Nayah did.
In real life I stopped advising female friends about dating long time ago as soon as I realised that women generally don't actually need your sincere opinion in that regard. Since you know they will do what they have already decided to do, just offer your support. Painful sometimes when you can see some obvious "signs" that they cannot see. Since they won't listen anyway no need playing killjoy. Like I said in a previous post, experience is the best teacher.

I think it's good for people to independently make their own decisions.  If it works for them, wonderful. If it doesn't, offer them a shoulder to cry on.
I am not a relationship Czar and I did not seek anyone's advice before making my own choice. I would have thought that everybody marries for love.

Not that the opinion of over 30s like me matters these days but we do have some experience that only education and sophistication of modern life cannot provide.
Regarding family values and all that, the rate at which marriages/families (African) are crumbling here in the West and wife killing is happening in America seems to suggest otherwise. You are right other nationalities have family values: Italians, Arabs, other Africans and more certainly do. As a guy who dated women of several races and cultures, I should know. But I also know that  dating people of other culture come with their own peculiar challenges.
Good luck.

@ohmigod,

Well, on the surface Nigerian may appear to live a very long time in Europe/America/Diaspora but some have returned over the past few years. Some due to lucrative employment opportunities in Communications sector and banking. Some in the US just got fed up after losing houses (subprime) and business. They just returned home especially some who invested back home earlier.

For an average immigrant, the dream is to return home some day. Of course many never manage to do so. Despite the prosperity in Diaspora there is always something missing: family values, respect for elders, generosity towards friends and family and people being there for you in difficulty. This may be difficult for some foreigners to appreciate because they think that because an immigrant is relatively economically better off now, why go back home?
Of course there are some immigrants who for personal reasons may not have any plan to return. So yes ohmigod you can marry one of those.

@Nayah, if you are going to marry a Nigerian, I think you may be better off marrying an Ibo chap. Until early 1960s, part of anglophone Cameroon was part of Eastern Nigeria! So if you are looking for cultural proximity, that may be what you need. If you want to marry for love no matter what the future holds, then go ahead and marry anyone you like.

@Ujujoan, I don't know about Ibo men but all the Ibo ladies married to us (members of my extended family and non-Ibo ) have all been a singular blessing. I don't think those family members would have succeeded better in life with intra-tribal marriage.

I feel very touched when I see interracial couples loving up. It kind of reminds me of the days of innocence and I always wish them good luck.

Chere Nayah, there is no TUEV or MOT for a relationship or marriage. Until you get into it you never know how long it will last. Most couples have good intentions when they start but it is a marathon not a 10 seconds sprint.

If you are tolerant, long-suffering, forgiving, generous and accommodating, you have a better chance of making a success out of it.

Bon courage!

My sister,  like many have already mentioned, one cannot generalise. What is sure is that it takes some effort to live with someone from a different culture in addition to the efforts that a relationship/marriage requires irrespective of who you marry.  You have to ask yourself if you want to make such extra effort. If you do, wonderful.

It is a bit like a Nigerian going to study in China. You have to first learn Chinese before you can start the studies proper. I have dated ladies of various nationalities. Prejudice and racism in most of their families was horrendous.  

There was one funny case where I took a caucasion ex-girlfriend on holiday to several European countries. We returned to London and she phoned her mother in "Middle England" telling her how much she enjoyed Europe and how wonderfully I showed her round several European cities. She was very careful not to reveal to her mother that I am black person for fear that she might have a heart attack! All that on the eve of the millenium.  When the relationship ended, that was it. No more foreigners.

Believe me, despite our modern individualism, we still do need the support of our friends and families in marriage, especially when sometimes the couple have difficulties.

When I was younger, I was rather idealistic and naive, preaching that race, culture and skin colour don't matter. In an ideal world, it shouldn't matter. But the world is not ideal.

It becomes more difficult with time when the man wants to go back home for good and become an elder. If he's from an aristocratic family, chances are he will have to return home when his father dies especially if he's the senior son. The foreign lady may decide that she doesn't want to go.

This is not to discourage anyone but just speaking from my own experience. It works for some, it doesn't work for some. My parents were never against marrying a foreigner but I decided against it after my experience. Going by the experience of those around me over the years, the success rate is quite low. Well experience is the teacher. No venture, no success. Bonne Chance!

Today Poster, you like Japanese and German cars, French/Italian  luxury goods. They all had to fight brutal wars before they cleared their heads and focus on development. If looing people in a war is what it will take, then let it be. People are already dying of hunger, armed robbery, road accidents, curable diseases, so just let's suffer the pain once and make a better future for our children.

Although with people like Bidemi12 in US army, i wonder who's going to fight the war.

If war breaks out, there will be many wounded people, I have the skills to be useful there.

To the poster and co-hort, many of us who believe that things cannot go on as it in Nigeria, we got the opportunity to train in foreign countries where Nigeria denied us for not been from major tribes or for not been connected. In the most respected professions for that matter.
Many of us saw the handwriting on the wall decades ago and did not wait to spend 10 years doing a course of 4 years in glorified, dilapidated, cuitist-infested  secondary schools called univesities.
Saying illegal immigrants want the country to sort itself out by any mean, peace or war shows your ignorance.

Continue.

Poster do you know how much nigerians abroad remit home annually? $10 billion! There are many aged parents and grandparents who rely on  remittance fron kids/grandkids abroad to afford medical treatment. Many who don't have die like chickens. Life is not worth much there anyway, hundreds dying in Jos every few months is as normal as taking Kunu.

Oh, I nearly forgot. The parents of those Edo kids doing Nigeria proud here were NOT sent here on scholarship by your "beloved feduro gamet" of Nigeria.
They wanted a better future for themselves and their kids, and God is answering their prayer.

If anything, Nigerians abroad have only help to prevent war (or helped to postpone it) through their remittance to jobless youths in their family, exactly the types that can the lured to replicate MEND in many parts of Nigeria. Imagine MEND and Boko Haram everywhere.

The poster of this thread is either just trying too be controversial or just ignorant. Forget about degree or whatever.

First of all, the vast majority of those who led the fight for Nigerian independence were Nigerians trained abroad. Zik, Awolowo, Enahoro, name them. While they
were abroad, they saw what those folks at home just couldn't see. Now politicians come abrod to squander our commonwealth.

Secondly, Nigerians abroad are not the ones who are paid to rig elections, it is the teeming mass of unemployed youth at home. Many abroad have taken their destiny in their own hands.
Just recently, 2 Edo kids/twins in London became the youngest to be admitted to secondary school. They already passed A' level Maths at the age of 7. They have been all over the papers and national TV here in England. If they were in Nigeria, the bigotry, tribalism and nepotism that pervades the sysyem would have prevented "ethinic minority" children being given due recognition.

Perhaps the poster is an "Aje bota" and has a pathological hatred for the underprivileged who take their destiny in their own hands and travel abroad instead of joining the everincreasing number of cultists, assassins, robbers/rapists, kidnappers, political thugs and 419ers in Nigeria.

Anyways, there is always cause to celebrate birthday. But a relative who died some days ago in his 40s  will obviously never celebrate his 73rd birthday.

Poor healthcare system made sure he didn't stand a chance. Even tribal affiliations should not be a reason to celebrate mediocrity and lootocracy. If we still haven't got beyond praising "our own" irrespective of their poor record in office and politics generally, then we're doomed.

OBJ is very smart. He has clearly achieved what he wanted when he handpicked Yar'Adua (possibly also to compensate Yar'Adua family for the death of Shehu his former fellow junta). Because of OBJ's brutish nature, people tend to unserestimate that he's one calculating, quite often mischievious and unforgiving guy.

He knew that such a person with little political clout, exposure and not particularly savvy would be caught in the middle of the myriads of personal interests, intrigues and agendas of the Nigerian elite (including OBJ himself) and will end up achieving nothing in office. Any savvy leader would not sincerely believe that he could go and spend months abroad incommunicado just because he did same as a governor of a rather inconsequential state (safe for producing several anti-democracy military junta) like Katsina.

On the other hand, he might have been in coma all along. Maybe OBJ got wind that he was comatose and declared that Yar'Adua should take the path of honour. Talk of honour among thieves.

The result: everybody will be hailing OBJ as having done better than other leaders before him. That's just what some NLers are doing now.

Most likely they are lovers. They may even have done the traditional marriage back home, so she may see herself as a bona fide wifey. The girl may not have known the whole truth about his marital status when they started so you might just be an unexpected inconvenience to her. How close are you to his family back home? Do you go and visit them sometimes? In Africa, marriage is not only between 2 people. You may not be African but you're also partly African now through marriage.

I have seen something similar before. A guy was lodging a female "cousin" in the same flat with his European wife and their two kids. He seemed rather proud of it. The cousin of course was his Naija babe, even though he had another long term babe in Nigeria that was still at University.

I was not close to his wife. In fact I had never met her since we live in different countries. But his wife seemed like a rather sweet lady each time we talked on phone. Disgusting but you know, when it comes to our Naija thing, you keep yourself out of other people's business. Going to tell his wife about his game could incur you eternal enmity on his and he's family's part, including invocation of diabolical and church powers. Not superstitious but who needs more enemies when friends are already difficult enough. Am not saying that families back home are always aware of this kind of thing.

Immigration matter may be too late now because after 8 years he would have secured the green thing. In fact he would not be so cockey if he hadn't. Chances are this game started just after he secured his documents. Sorry for the long essay. Nuff said.

Well, I guess you need to talk to an electrical engineer instead of a doctor!! Some computer technicians did wear a kind of band on their wrist to prevent damaging the computer during repair by preventing static flowing through. I said "did" because so it was around 10 years ago. In the UK at least. By the way, more action with your girlfriend/wife might help unload that massive static build up, LOL