My NYSC experience in Igboland -By Shuaibi Ahmed Abba

IN November last year, I, alongside thousands of other youths across the nation answered the clarion call to serve our father land through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme which sought to expose Nigerian youths to the nation’s diversity so as to promote understanding and thus, peace and unity.

I have always admired the industriousness, free spirit and boldness of the Ndi-Igbo and yearned for means to mingle with them to learn their ways. My wish was granted. The followings are my experiences during my service year in the Eastern heartland: Imo State.

Ndi-Igbo are peaceful, beautiful and welcoming. They hold their culture and language in highest esteem one can imagine. Religion is evident in every aspect of their lives from the names they answer to the ones they give their businesses. Ndi-Igbo invoke and implore God before and after every deed, including the ones prohibited by the same God.

My stay in a Christian-dominated region made me understand the differences among certain doctrines within the same religion based on the interpretation of the Holy Bible and conviction of individual members. These denominations sharply polarised the Christian faithful to the point that one church questions the Christianity of another. It was here, for the first time, I met Christians who do not celebrate Christmas, who do not believe in the existence of hell fire nor in the second coming of Jesus Christ and those who judged themselves unworthy of inheriting the Kingdom of God.

I had the opportunity to counter the popular sentiments on Northerners, Muslims and Islam in general. To begin with, I find the sentiment that everyone from the north is Hausa and Muslim to be ludicrous. In my response to that, I use Adamawa, my home State as an example. We have more than twenty indigenous ethnic groups none of which is Hausa. The Christian population is so massive that a Muslim-Muslim governor/deputy ticket was never and can never be contemplated. However, Hausa is used in public places as a common tongue spoken and understood by one and all like Pidgin English is in the south.

On Islam, I explained it means peace and preaches mutual coexistence, tolerance and justice among other things. In all, I said, what struck them most was the position of Prophet Isa (Jesus, PBUH) in Islam. His miraculous birth and deeds, the story of his life and that of his mother Maryam (A.S) seem to correspond with the versions they read in the Bible.

Anber, cited in Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country asserts that “the Igbo have no compelling traditional loyalty beyond town or village”. This is true. Each autonomous community has its own constitution reflecting its peculiarities. In my host community (Umuokwa) an outsider who lived peacefully in the community for two years is rewarded with a plot of land to build a house and another to farm. Such individual is now regarded as an indigene and enjoys full constitutional rights as everyone else. Giving the intensity of a crime, punishment can range from fine, excommunication to banishment.

Living in the east opened my eyes to the mutual distrust; if not disgust we harbour towards one another owing to the limited knowledge or complete lack of it about one another. We don’t know ourselves because we don’t travel, we don’t travel because we fear and we fear because of the terrible tales told by people who had been to the other side which more often than not are lies concocted to promote the us versus them divide.

It also unfolds to me the limits of President Buhari’s charisma, popularity and acceptance. Vehemently supporting or defending the president in the South-east could deny one some of his constitutionally guaranteed rights. PMB is so unpopular that his name became synonymous with wickedness, suffering and other forms of hardship. Any misfortune is blamed on him and is easily dismissed “na Buhari cause am”. The only commendation the president enjoys is on the fight against corruption and recovery of looted loot.

Ndi-Igbo are blessed with some of the best vegetables in the country. Their women’s ability to mix ingredients which seem unmixable to produce a superbly delicious taste made them unique. Take for example the famous Ofe Owerri. It is a concoction of beef, smoked fish, stock fish. It contains vegetables like ugu, okazi and oha leaves mixed with cocoyam paste and other conventional soup ingredients. To be honest, I was forewarned, on a lighter note by a friend that after eating Ofe Owerri I will not entertain the thoughts of going back home. I defied the friendly admonition, went into a restaurant, ordered for it and savoured the delicious taste. Very soon, hopefully, I will be on my way home.

I also enjoyed Abacha, roasted yam and plantain with stew that is usually peppered. It was fun pairing corn with ube (pear) and Ukwa with coconut. Roasted groundnut goes rather well with banana, bread, or cucumber. However, I disliked ukpa and akpu. I mistook both for moi-moi and pounded yam respectively.

Ndi-Igbo hustler nature made them stand out in the Nigerian crowd. Disappointingly, the youth, like their counterparts elsewhere in the country have lost sense of proportion and waste time and energy on trivial things. I observed their nonchalance towards the Igbo culture and language. A youth here prefers speaking Pidgin English to Igbo, exams malpractice to studying and easy means to wealth like sports gambling to hard work.

I met a guy who squandered two hundred thousand Naira meant for school-related expenses on gambling. This made the father livid, and wasted no time in disowning the son. Few months later, the mother died of blood pressure rise. The father blamed the son for the loss of his better half and so their seemingly interminable wrangling continued. To date, the guy remains a drop-out with no hand work. Such is the buffoonery to which obsession with gambling could mislead one into.

My greatest disappointment is that I was unable to witness Igbo traditional wedding or any other significant Igbo festival. None took place in the course of my service year. Despite that, I had a memorable service year full of interesting experiences. I made friends and associates and learned the Igbo language.

We, the youth, have a chance to truly unite and lift our nation high by eschewing religious bigotry and ethnocentrism which can be achieved through productive conversation with one another which will enable us understand our differences. Let’s take that chance and make Nigeria a better place.

Abba is on his NYSC at  Relief International Secondary School, Umuokwa, Amala.  Ngor-Okpala L.G.A. Imo State.