The Heart of Feud
HEART OF FEUD
Dakiim’s father, Doka[ and his grandfather were adventurous traders right from time but Dakiim tends to believe his grandfather’s story. That was in Ghana of early independence. In the fifties, Ghana was where to be as the stories go. Gold was where Nkrumah wanted Ghana to be a home of all Africans.Busia thought differently. He sent foreigners packing. The Dakiim’s grandfather ,Sanaa, was there when things were happening.Sanaa was a foreigners who made were his bread and butter is his home. Sanaa persona was propped on experience and his trade exploits. He engaged in all kind of trade that will wade off hunger or put food in his mouth.
In a good mood, he starts some of his talks with, “I know”.
Sanaa knows the Hausa’s and the Igbo very well.He tried to educate Dakiim of his native country Naija by ways of anecdote and humorous prejudice. Sanaa was a polyglot from many years of sojourn in Ghana and from Gangan.
Gangan was where Sanaa was born in the south-west Naija.
Dakiim’s grandfather stories form the background of dakiim’s social behavior. Stories that profiling naija people. Dakiim has a lot misgivings and distrust, about his grandfather story .the intertribal relationship in Naija is about one relative advantage over the other. There was a rivalry in all spheres. Naija is a baked cake you have to rack your brain to get your teeth into the juiciest part of the cake. Opportunity is more important than luck.
One day, Sanaa said the Yoruba and Hausa have always been in a cold war predating Russian –American détente. The Yoruba embraced western education to keep them on dry ground.
Sanaa had little education .he mastered figures and of course he can write even though all the letters are out of alignment .when he writes , he could write phonetically his native language.
As for the Hausa’s they have a marriage and family life view of life. This is another study in cloak and dagger game.To this group, life is free to fall on a rollercoaster. And life cannot be more complicated than a polygamous one. Yet its complication can be resolved as swiftly as a hot knife goes through butter.
So also they have keywords to resolve its complications, divorce. Death, inheritance and future life gain or losses are alternative words to divorce.
Dakiim’s grandfather said the Yoruba’s have always been at war. They have so many city-states to contend with.Yoruba think marriage is a three-legged pot.
“money .god and culture” that is what we are Dakiim.
“Don’t let anybody tell you different.No religion like head worship.You cant be somebody else .”
Every family is a promotion of a brand name. Logo and family emblem is carried in name and facial marking. To understand the Yoruba it is either in show or hide mode. The Yoruba are a mix yet they deny this. This a sublime attitude of coping with identity tapestry that is Yoruba. They will not admit Nupe and Bariba and Benins are the fleeting shadows of Yorubas.
The idea of amalgamation was most unattractive yet that was the best thing that ever happened to the Yoruba. Amalgamation was the British creation of the Naija true polygamous family. Goldie saw the possibilities even Bruce felt it was possible to build a nation based on trade interest than on tribal affinity.
Yoruba is a brand name with trade coloring . Tribal wars were unfinished war before amalgamation. The rivalry is embedded in the tug at the concept of national unity that subsumes identity.
kabba ,Akoko,Ikale and Ilaje still nurse this sense of difference. Ado-ekiti and Ijebu still resent Oyo classification.
“The most unifying element among the Yoruba is trade.”
One day Dakiim asked his grandfather.
“Why Trade played a crucial role in the politics of the coast after contact with the European and even now?”
“It’s about money. Yoruba’s have learnt to control money.”
Perhaps the Europeans have an insight into this .you can built a country around a people with trade instinct .people with extreme fear of poverty. Yoruba fear poverty more other Naija tribes. The Yoruba will perceive your level of poverty to abuse you.
“As much as we are wanton to believe Naija was all amalgamation mistakes, mismatch. A blind dating .A marriage not consummated.” Dakiim interjected
Oyo which is central to Odua people it has affinity with Nupe. Sango the fourth Alafin had a nupe mother.while Oro a masquerade, is a Nupe masquerade dyed into Yoruba culture and Sango is a divinity. People of bariba descent once ruled in Oyo.
Cross carpeting or alliance is an old Nigerian game, moving away from the precipice. This is an old Yoruba game nobody wants to admit. Ila,ijesa,Owu,Ketu would assert independence from time to time but they were Oyo allies.
Ilorin as Crimea
One day ilari the kings messenger was sent to a powerful war lord, Afonja a generalissimo, to attack Iwele .the mission was supposed to fail but Afonja knows the consequence of failing so he rebelled. In conspiracy with Olokun esin,the calvary chief and Abobaku, king’s death companion fled to Ilorin were the Oyo mesi and the babakekeres, provincial chiefs ,recognized him has a Bale of Ilorin.
Afonja n average height yourubaman was ambitious and wish to become an Alafin himself.Afonja was used to palace conspiracy for he helped Abiodun get get rid of Basorun Ga who forced three Alafins to commit suicide.
At the death of Abiodun1789 ,Awole allied with Afonja ,who was then Bale of Ilorin , he mobilized Alimi[, a Fulani herdsman and scholar to help him overrun Oyo. Afonja was a nominal Muslim, so to say,under the pretext of fighting animism , unknown to Afonja that Salihu was in alliance with jihadist in the north. jihadist in the north gave Salihu flag of allegiance and cavalry to assist him to prosecute the Jihad unknown to Afonja
One morning Afonja was found with a dagger sticking out of his back. Another version of the story said he committed suicide as was expected of Are onakakanfo. After the death of Afonja, Ilorin tripped into the bear hug of Alimi. Abdulsalam, the son of Alimi took over on his death.
After all these series of events Majotu , Oluewu became the last Alaafin Oyo Ile who tried to retrieve Ilorin from the jihadist unsuccessfully with the help of Bariba. After this events Clapperton visited Oyo Ile in 1836.
This is the reason why you will understand loyalty to city-states of pre-colonial period coloured our patriotism and loyalty to the national cause.
Colonialism arrested the completion of tribal wars and kingdoms.This has resulted in political mistrust among ethnic groups that the fusion is not for the good of all, political competition is seen as another form of dominance of one over the other.
“That was it.Dakiim.it is embedded in us the arrested development.”
“But who told you all this”.
“I believe grandfather .it’s true a Hausa man’s
“What do you believe in?”
“In god, seasons and good fortune “
“What about your country?”
“It is a market space of interest. Its rulers are concerned with their interest as rulers but not to serve.”Dakiim said.
Chapter 2
A MAN OF HONOR
When his father died, he was not around to witness the burial. when mother died he was not
“Take me home” Doka moaned on his deathbed
“This is home.” the Takoradi wife said soothingly. She will not understand his deathbed nostalgia of home for someone who has spent fifty years in Ghana.
Doka was transported to Gangan from Ghana in a chartered bus .they arrived his family compound.After so many descriptions and narrations of his family line to roadside help.all the landmark that was swooning in his memory were gone.
The present has erased the past.Those who die to remind us of the relativity of time, we don't look back again but to the future, they have taken with them.
The present has erased the past.Those who die to remind us of the relativity of time, we don't look back again but to the future, they have taken with them.
Firstborn
It was his right.TJ was the firstborn. He is to be privileged as a firstborn. This was his attitude to all matters. As a firstborn of the family, he is taciturn in speech.
The first born was a timid person so to say.TJ is ambitious in his own ways. He is covert. TJ’s was a rancorous polygamous family. And he has imbibed the creed of, the firstborn.
. The first-born female was Amina. TJ and Amina are from the same cell of their mother dwelling.
Falaa is the female firstborn of the Sanaa family.The mother of falaa, Baakie was the first wife of Sanaa.
When Sanaa took the second wife Meero it was declaration of war of attrition in the family.
Within a very short time of the second marriage, Baakie took ill terminally.
Baakie was taken to Gangan where she died .her death did not leave the remembrance of peace and love behind.her death was like the seed of attrition was interred in the mother earth for the family.
TJ was popular so to say, among family members, he acquiescence is mistaken for agreement.
TJ resents his blood brother Dakiim for many reasons. Dakiim was the fourth born in a family of ten. Meero gave birth to seven children, TJ , Kina,Bakafina, Waina, Dakim, Sharon and Oju.Meero had four sons and three females. Bakie the first wife gave birth to three children and all of them were females .this was another bitter issue in the family relationships. It seems providence did not put balance in the fortune distribution.
What made Dakiim different from other members of the family, he is bold, he treads where angels would not put their legs.when it comes to family discussions, he has brought issues that make all family members uncomfortable. Dakiim asked his uncle his father's farmland.
“which land ?all land belongs to the living” Kojo answered sarcastically .he meant since he had outbreathed Dakiim’s father he owns the land.
Kojo is a sheathed knife on the surface he looks a country dumb but that is his façade for his envy of his more adventurous sibling, Doka.
When Dakiim asked of his father inheritance.
The uncle was disconcerted by such a question .dakiim is adventurous, unlike TJ who would not want to make a mistake.Dakiim is open and seems to get along easily with the family members even though they have reservations about him.
Typically Dakiim he married one of Danbura tribe .this marriage ruffled feathers in the family. A rancorous family still care about who he brought into the family line because the Yoruba brand is worth protecting.
“I married her for love “
‘You married where love is the first causality’
unrequited love
This was the family.Dakiim accepted every member of the family .tj was his immediate senior brother .sharon is his junior but Sharon is divisive and self-righteous and feels her education should afford her privileges which she cannot justify.Amina finds Sharon disgusting in his ways.of course all family failings Sharon believes somebody is failing among her senior siblings.
Meeero had an only male brother, Laziz, who envies her good family fortune of birth. When Meroos marriage failed lazis helped her moved out of the rented house in Sabon Gida.
Sabon Gida is known as the quarters of the non-Hausa in Minna .this was a small town with a train track running across to the east of the town.This was the era when train tract determines prosperous towns.
Mechanic with spanners in the wheel
It was much later dakiim realized why Bakanike was cold in his relationship with Sanaa.Sanaa was a step-brother to bakanike’s father’s mother .she was divorced.sanaa’s father Doka married her and she gave birth Sanaa who was more enterprising than Bakanikes father .it was Bakanike's father who brought Sanaa to Minna, in his fortune search.Bakanike grudge was that his father did not have the foresight to send them to school.Sanaa sent his children to school.this was the influence his location in Minna sabon gari where he met railway clerks and other junior staff of the railway whose positions were alluring to him.
As times flew by it was obvious to the senior brother that sanaa has gained the upper hand .in the sojourn to look for the golden fleece.he became cold toward the brother.
Dakiim’s mother engaged in petty trades.she was selling all odds and even to compliment her husband’s earning as a tailor in the rainy season. The husband,Doka was a cotton merchant in the dry season. Meero’s enterprise was successful compared to other women traders of the same social status.
Meeros family were torn apart by insinuation and gossip as times went by.Doka became difficult.He listened to other relations ribald jokes of his wife's extramarital relations, true or false .There must be secret to her sudden change of fortune as Meeros enterprise grew so much and that of the husband fortune nosedived.
TJ and his father,Doka are two like poles.TJ was bitter he never won his father admiration except constant criticism of his being a sissy.
Falaa was left behind in Gangan under Kojo’s watch as an extended member of the family. When falaa mother died suddenly.It was Kojos scheme to have a hold on the brother who is in the north.
From time to time he pestered the brother to remember they have always being farmers.
“We have land to farm. Send me money so that I can farm for you”.Doka would heed to the brother idea.
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