A Morphing Amotekun

By

Obododimmma Oha

Art in violence and the art of violence, as two different things with an interesting intersection, could be quite intriguing in analysis. First, both reveal the use of force to get a way, and that may entail pain or death. But, second, both have representations from which, ironically, we derive pleasure and professionally discuss as encodings of craft. It is possible that those with artistic skills that suggested the name, “Amotekun,” (roughly translated as “leopard”) and its emblem, were interested in reconciling the fear-instilling meaning with the aesthetic touch. As someone keenly interested in the aesthetic, I noticed the large-cat icon and linked it with the encoding or targeting of fear as its silent statement about grace. 

(Particular artist anonymous) 

The Ekun (lion or leopard in Yoruba) is a fearless killer. A hunter that meets Ekun in the bush is certainly playing with the big boys! The large cats are fearless devourers and may be good candidates in the iconization or a countervailing of terror, a paradoxical representation of anti-terrorist terror, you would say. With the emergence of related security outfits in other regions of Nigeria, one also had to look for the aesthetic statement in the designs of the emblems. That was a good candidate for an article for Artitude, one of my blogs dedicated to politics and the artistic.

One cannot miss the recurrence of the large-cat icon in the designs of emblems of other regional security outfits. It is there in the emblem of the Northern security outfit. It is there in the one being proposed for the South-East. Are these other copycats merely copying and pasting without giving due credit, especially since Nigeria officially seems to trivialize plagiarism in artworks? So, it seems to be the same Amotekun traveling – to the North, the South-East.... Who knows where it is headed next? But when it travels to other regions, it behaves like a typical Nigerian politician at campaigns – adorning a bit of the local dress, but still wearing the true dress of self, hoping to deceive local populations that he or she identifies with them.

But it is the same Amotekun traveling as Ekun the tiger or large cat from region to region, mobilizing, campaigning for a localization of security, selling the culture of fear in the artistic and the artistic of fear... a morphing Amotekun.

If I say that it is the same Amotekun, maybe I am concentrating on Ekun the tiger! Perhaps I should also focus on difference. The South-East outfit is called “Operation Ogbunigwe.” 

(Particular artist anonymous  

Ogbunigwe may be typically Biafran and instilling fear as an explosive, but is this local security really about mass killing or a protection? Something does not quite sit very well there. I know that the outfit could kill to protect, but a loud Ogbunigwe gives a misleading impression that the outfit has set out to kill en masse! That is not true, even though it may be looking for a local icon to narrate its no-nonsense posture. Also, is it not very creative when Biafra's popular rising sun becomes a young person's fashionable shaggy hairstyle? If the sight of the rising sun annoys you, then see it in the shaggy hair. Who says ambiguity has no value? 

I know that the proponents for the South-East Security outfit may be at great pains in reconciling the icons in the emblem: there is the ogbunigwe lure and there is icon of the colonial blaster which, I doubt, captures the ogbunigwe idea. Perhaps the mass killer is "unrepresentable", not even by a leopard which kills and drags up its meat in the tree. So, I know the problem in the semiotization. But, why not we see the same anti-terrorist terrorism traveling? The paradox is admirable!

The Northern outfit is linguistically anchored in Hausa as “shege-Ka-Fasa,” which means, “I dare you to attack or surrender," and that is clearly more of a response or counter-statement. So, it is all about attack and counter-attack in Nigeria, in which the tragic conclusion may be an ogbunigwe summary in rivers of blood.

(Artist anonymous) 

This discourse, however, points at violence in the icon travelling. It is traveling now in the bloodstream of Nigeria and may rip its heart open.

Nigerian Expressions, English Blessings.

By

Obododimma Oha

The recent entry of some Nigerian expressions into Oxford dictionary of English is welcome but raises a lot of issues about the formal use of the expressions, the commitment of Nigerian linguists to the development of Nigerian English, and Nigeria’s linguistic independence. The Nigerian expresssions that were given a blessing include: agric, barbing, buka, bukateria, chop-chop, danfo, to eat money, ember months, flag-off, to flag off, gist, guber, Kannywood, k-leg, mama put, next tomorrow, non-indigene, okada, to put to bed, qualitative, rub minds(together), sef, send-forth, tokunbo, zone and zoning. A report on this can be found at: https://t.guardian.ng/new/oxford-dictionary-adds-okada-danfo-mama-put-26-other-nigerian-words-expressions/  . Indeed, a similar process of acceptation was created by Merrriam Webster, but Webster’s goes through a process of reaction to submissions over time and later the expression may be included if reactions are satisfactory and if the expression is much in use. To introduce this welcoming ritual for expressions from the Outer Circle of English use (as Braj Kachru lists Nigeria) is a significant thing. So, Nigeria is finally not sliding in to the Expanding Circle, given its notable and widespread poor use of English? The Nigerian scholar, Farooq Kperogi, who, in Letters from Atlanta, has been relentlessly commenting on English in current Nigerian life, would certainly be interested in this. Kperogi’s reaction is important to the discourse and would suggest an important dimension.

While we await Kperogi’s reaction, the following observations are also noteworthy. First, the endorsement by an Oxford dictionary comes at a time that Nigeria’s political direction and lesson notes are also considered worth reading if they are endorsed at Chatham House. This takes one back to Nigeria’s history and makes one feel that Britain is still the determinant of Nigeria’s future, as its “former” colonial master! Incidentally, English is still highly respected in Nigeria and seen as ensuring a professional future. Nigeria is also tremendously multilingual and English benefits from the unhealthy competition, pretending to be the arbiter and language of neutrality. Promoters English linguistic imperialism may use the acceptance of Nigerian expressions (considered poor English) as the bait and evidence that Nigerian English is being promoted at the international level. It is like winning a visa lottery or gaining entrance into Heaven! But, wait, the derogation reserved for the green passport may be extended to the utterance of Nigerianisms out there!

But, thanks to Oxford. At least, you are complementing genuine efforts. A government that cannot repair roads cannot award research grants that seek to promote a Nigerian provincial dialect of English! So, Oxford is helping in a big way. The colonial master would get a wife for the colonized, buy a mat, ask the colonized to lie down on the mat with his wife, and tell the colonized what to with the wife! Is that a Nigerianism? Is it good enough for inclusion and public consumption?

The words accepted are, indeed, popular and common in use in Nigeria. I hope that they are accptable  out there, and would not make me, the user, appear as a comedian.

But the blessing means a lot for those of us who frown at these expressions in formal writing, especially teachers of English. It means that we have to overhaul our tools ans overhaul our thinking, too. It means we can no longer frown at these expressions in formal writing, just we do not have to frown at cattle taking over the runways of airports or cattle routes being established from Paris to London. Who says that we cannot have a bottle of mama-put, without thinking of enclosing the Nigerian words in italics? Is that not also helpful to my carelessness in indicating foreign words as foreign words?

There is hope, just as there is God, or the former is the latter. There is hope, just as I have a dream that one day the Outer Circle can become the Inner Circle. Is somebody articulating “Thirdworldization”? No, even a linguistic “Thirdworldization” of the First World!

Electronic Messaging and the Decline in Greeting Card Business

By

Obododimma Oha

Greeting, a phatic communion in which the main goal is to service and maintain relationship, could be turned to a commodity. Indeed, celebrations or communal feasts do commodify it often. That also means more money, more gain, for dealers of such. In fact, some clever fellows may discover the prospect of making gain through it and so go temporarily into it. Lovers of homemade or customised cards could also amplify the boom. But with the growth in electronic messaging, each holder of an android phone and who is willing to learn navigational skills, changes the game in the card business, causing a decline and exit of some ad hoc soldiers of fortune.

The soldiers of fortune and seasonal dealers on these cards need to be pitied. They have been pushed out of business. But every business person should be ready to move on, or know where and how to move on. The ups and down will surely come. One has to have the heart and be ready to take risks. Let us say the commodification of "Hello" is a risk in the hands of technology. So, one in that business has to tighten the belt. We know that some in that business but constrained by technology have still found ways of tempting people to buy online cards. The mere fact that one can see one's name on the card is just one of such temptations. And falling to the tempting appears enjoyable!

Happy Christmas and happy Sallah and happy New Year, even if these are not "happy" at all and my android phone does not respect copyright. It is a matter of copying and pasting, with little or no editing. One with an android phone is nowhere and everywhere, with everyone and with no one. So, yours is mine and ours belongs to no one. Happy New Year, even if there nothing "new" in the year in spite of deafening fireworks in conversation and cannons that prevent one from worrying about Boko Haram invasion. Happy New Year to electronic card that has thrown someone out of business.

But, of course, electronic culture and technology have also served many well on seasons and card giving. It is not just that many in distant places can be conveniently greeted, some greetings can be personalised and customized to  suit persons and their statuses. So, one is compelled to greet information tech too. You "do well" for people like me who do not have to spend money buying many cards for many people!

This year, let us visit homemade cards to read their faces. We may find something there! I don't like how this decline has affected them, chasing them into uncomfortable silence. Why are not talking? One used to pay extra to have them, hoping that receivers would be full of appreciation and display the cards visibly in the sitting room. Is the define affecting them, too?

But is greeting declining, too? Do we have to carry sacks and rake together the greetings, if we can no longer open our mouths and share pleasantries and service relationship?

But will information tech go free after causing problems for greeting card business? No at all! In the first place, one has got several greetings in a short while and one's memory space is in trouble! Also, one has to keep deleting messages!

A greeting clashes with an important message; they could embrace and quarrel the next minute on that phone, annoying or confusing the user!  In that respect, you also have seasons of electronic greeting trouble, and greetings could stand on or block the ways of holidaying citizens, the same way that great traffic of people during these festivals make the use of the road a miserable thing!

Sorry, greeting card business. Technology has touched you and you have changed, not for the best. You are neither here nor there!

Star of David, Lead the Way

By

Obododimma Oha

Come, Star of David! Rest on every life
Even the lives that try to end other lives!
Even the lives that detest other lives!
Even the lives that think they own other lives!
Come, shed your light into that darkness!
Come, Star of David!

Come, lead these travellers
To the crib, the beginning of beginnings!
Come, lead the way!
Show the way!
Star of David, lead the way!
Lead the way out of dark times.

Pericomo's Dilemma+

By

Obododimma Oha

Mụ na elu; mụ n’ala!

Mụ na ọsọ; mụ na ije!

Mụ na ndee; mụ na ndee!

Mụ na Aso Rock; mụ na Ojuelegba!

Mụ na AU; mụ na UN!

Mụ na America; mụ na Africa!

Mụ na ndị amị; mụ na ndị ọchịchị nkịtị!

Mụ na ndee; mụ na ndee!

(The heights versus I; the depths versus I!

Running versus I; walking versus I!

This group versus I; that group versus I!

Aso Rock versus I; Ojuelegba versus I!

AU versus I, UN versus I!

America versus I; Africa versus I!

The army versus I; civilian rulers versus I!

This group versus I; that group versus I!

+Poem incorporated into a blog article and forthcoming.

E Leta A Ghara

By

Obododimma Oha

Many highlife musicians in Nigeria are not just entertainers of millions of local people, but also social philosophers on whose thoughts these people try to model their lives. In the Igbo context in those days, was it Chief Osita  Osadebe’s “Ndi Ochonganooko” or Joe Nez’s “Onye ma echi, onye ma ụwa?”Many people in the context listened to these songs and found their ways through life understood as a kind of battle! The late Oliver Akanite (Oliver de Coque) also taught a lot of lessons through his numerous songs. E Leta A Ghara (also written as “Eleta Aghara") was his own theory on tolerance. The song (crafted as call-and-response) went thus:

Oyị na oyi na-aga ọfụma .....E leta a ghara!

Di na nwunye na-ebi n’udo....Kwa eleta a ghara!

(A friend and a friend move on well ... E leta a ghara!

A husband and a wife live in peace .... Indeed, E leta a ghara!

.....

In the theory, we just try to overlook weaknesses in others, not that we like them or that they are not there to make us uncomfortable. In a sense, allowing what we do not like gives us a higher moral advantage. Yes; it makes us better people.

And when we are better, then, we can put others right. But if we return evil for evil, weakness for weakness, is badness not winning? E leta a ghara is our victory already! When we can only teach what we know and give what we have, not what is exactly what we oppose! Unless we approve of what we oppose, which is a great contradiction in terms. So, E leta a ghara.

From family to public life, we wrestle with the objectionable, always. We have to become practitioners of E leta aghara in order to carry on with life at these various levels. We must come face-to-face with something we do not like and must deal with it, everywhere! In dealing with it, we must try to be on the winning side of E leta a ghara. 

Indeed, one is being asked to accept the very difficult in that theory! That is also an irony!

Having pointed these general of ethics in the theory out, let me just pay some homage to my discipline. I will comment on its structure and link that comment to ethical issues already noted. In E leta aghara, the pronominal “E” could be anyone and has no gender. The “o,” “a,” “e,” and “ọ” in Igbo and other local Nigerian languages luckily hide the gender of referents, so that speakers cannot be accused of making a gender more visible than the other. Unlike English, these languages cannot express a given gender as the norm while the other is a mere deviant! So, in Eleta a ghara, both male and female are in focus (in no particular order)! This genderlessness that applies to “E” in E Leta a ghara is also applicable to the pronominal “a” in the sequence.

One also has to say something  about the internal parallel structure of

E leta

A ghara

(X Y

X Y)

that contributes in making the expression memorable and crisp to be ear. There is something that is in parallel structures (whether internal or external) that helps their aesthetic outlook! They are reiterative patterns and are therefore simple and could be handled easily so that one does not bite one’s tongue in the regular craft! Also, they look natural and make the texts friendly to users.

Is that theory or social philosophy not an important counsel? Should it not be helped or embellished structurally  so that it would be accepted easily by its receivers and live long enough in the memory?

This retention in the memory becomes intensified whenever that song is played, especially by lovers of good-oldies and evergreens that are sold in CDs in special videa shops.

Yes; E leta a ghara, if the president locks the citizens up but remains with the ex-colonial master to look after his life! E leta aghara if security agents are running after that fellow carrying a bag of rice and cocking their guns. E leta ghara when security agents round up artisans and accuse them of being Boko Haram terrorists unless they are able to produce any acceptable identities to show  that they are helpless and law-abiding citizens. E leta a ghara if citizens wake up every day to expect the worst, or that new heartless laws would be implemented. E leta a ghara when democracy turns out to be the worst form of military government practised by any human society.

When God Speaks Nigerian Pidgin

By

Obododimma Oha

One interesting evidence to show that human beings want to make God in their own image could be seen in the type of communication given to Him in our discourses. Not only is God, a non-human, given a human language, He could be made to speak a human language (I hope He speaks and understands all!) and favours a particular language! It is the particular language in which He is said to have made a given revelation, which He has symbolically assumed to have chosen as His (just as He chose a particular race!) and which we have to venerate as  a "special language" of worship. That shows you our desperate attempt at linguistically characterizing Him as burdened with the excess luggage of our sentiments!

OK , I am using English in this discourse and therefore referring to the antecedent "God" as "He," even graphologically beginning the animate, non-human, pronoun with capital. Maybe, I am afraid, secretly and my letters betray me! Maybe I think that a small case in a "God-pronoun" is downgrading or denigrating. Maybe I already identify my God as literate in a given language and able to decipher gestures and stylistics of graphetics!

Having inherited a religious tradition in which God has to be linguistically revered, I should consistently assign Him a high variety of language and not a low one. He is mighty and the human language that He speaks should equally be mighty! So, when God descends from His linguistic height to speak a variety of language associated with common folks, a fanatic should begin to get worried! Yes; this is my story: I heard Jesus and His disciples speaking Nigerian Pidgin in a CD on the Passion of Christ playing from a video shop in Ibadan, and I was worried. Oh, dear Jesu, dem don finish you! Fada, try forgive dem, for dem no sabi wetin dem de do!

I heard that one Nigerian Christian singer, Chuks Ofojebe, sometime ago sang that Jesus in Africa has to enter the canteen, relax and get ready to be served eba. And He has to eat it with His naked fingers! Jesus in Africa must be African and must be Africanized in every aspect.

So, when Sam Ezugwu recently released a Christian praise song, "Come Make We Thank Our God," in Nigerian Pidgin, one was excited. Seeam here! 

It seems that Heaven has eventually recognized the language of common people in Nigeria; it seems that God now speaks their variety of language, and may go beyond signification to begin to fight for them.

No mind dem, O Lord!

Talk Pidgin!

Carry go!

Make you fight for us!

You also fit getam for YouTube.