Tribalism

"I'm sorry, I can't date you, you are a Yoruba boy", "I can't marry her, she's an Igbo girl". These and several other scenarios play out across the Nigerian society. Different tribalistic acts are being carried out in every corner, in the streets, schools, social media pages, etc.

When the Europeans divided Africa among themselves, they created different countries, not paying attention to the fact that these countries were made up of different tribes who speak different languages, have different cultures, take diffferent meals, etc.

According to this site, tribalism is the state of being organized in or an advocate for a tribe or tribes. In terms of conformity, tribalism may also refer in popular cultural terms to a way of thinking or behaving in which people are loyal to their own tribe or social group.

It is quite common for a man of a marriageable age to present a girl from a different tribe other than his own to his parents as the person he wishes to marry and have his parents object to the union. There are times when I wonder if these tribalistic individuals consider people people from other tribes not be humans. Does my being either Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Urhobo, Itshekiri, Fulani, Kanuri, Itshekiri, Idoma, Igala, etc and not from your own tribe make me any less human?

There are cases of people trying to gain admission into various tertiary institutions but being denied as a result of their ethnic groups? Why in the name of all that is good will you deny me admission into school because I am not a member of your ethnic group? If I'm smart enough to get good grades, why should I be denied admission based on my tribe?

It is not uncommon to have ethnic cyber wars on social media platforms now. Why? The names "skull miners", "Afonjas", "Descendants of fallen angels", "Flat heads", "yeebos", "Yoruba demons" etc are now commonly used among Nigerian youths on socialmedia. We need to rise above all these hate and embrace the spirit of unity.

We complain of racist acts by people of other races, whereas we are doing the same thing to ourselves. If we don't stop all these tribalistic acts, the country will suffer even more instability than it is currently experiencing. We are all humans and should stop treating each other otherwise. We might speak different languages, have different customs but we are all humans. The fact that we were brought up with certain beliefs does not mean we have to hold these beliefs. We can all do better than this.

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