THE NIGERIAN RACISM/TRIBALISM

In the society we live in today, people hardly believe an African American man can be racist, let alone an African man. But i beg to disagree, in Africa alone we practice a form of racism that is quite unique. This form of unique racism goes by many names from tribalism to xenophobia. Tribalism/Racism/Xenophobia are all close brothers and sisters, infact sometimes i see no difference between them, no matter how we tend to define and differentiate them.
Tribalism and Racism all have one underlying trait and that is hatred, hatred for your fellow humans, especially here in Nigeria.
Sociologists might say a good number of Nigerians are tribalistic but not racist, but i see no real difference.
Some people are so hypocritical that in public they would outrightly denounce tribalism and everything it stands for, but this same people in the absence of the public eye, would swear that their child/children would never marry anybody from a particular tribe.

                                                   

Tribalism has eaten so deep into the Nigerian society that it is soon becoming a norm. It is now okay to hear things like i'll never marry people from edo state because they are all evil or i'll never associate with igbo people because they are all greedy or in worst cases you hear things like i'll prefer to kill a Esan person than to kill a snake if i were to choose.
Because you had a bad experience with someone from a particular tribe does not give you the right to generalize about a whole tribe or ethnicity.

                             

I used to think that tribalism was common only among our parents or people of the older generation, but i've noticed that even our present generation are also guilty of this. The youths of today are gradually becoming tribalistic.
Tribalism is so bad that its now used as a criteria to get jobs or contracts etc. People lose jobs nowadays because they are from a particular tribe, though the company would never admit that in public. This marginalisation is uncalled for and needs to be tackled.
The Federal Government recognised this problem and so they brought about Federal Character and Zoning. But this policy has only succeeded in dividing us further along tribal and ethnic lines.
No Nigerian or African should complain about racism if he or she is tribalistic, because the is very little difference.

 

We need to learn how to love one another and we need to see ourselfs as Nigerians or Africans first before we look at our tribe.