Frankly Speaking...

Let’s try to be Frank,

A couple of weeks, abi na months ago, City People once again gave us a treat and showed why they are the true representatives of Us; the people of the City. It was this year’s night of awards and believe you me if you missed it then you missed the show of your life. As if I was there!

I used to have this friend of mine, a real talkative (I will refer to him as Frank, which happens to be his real name). Can we agree that I use the name Frank for our great grammarian friend? No harm intended and I swear on my next monthly wages that I do not refer to anyone else except this friend of ours; the grammarian. Pardon me for this aside but I thought it necessary to clear anyone who might be inclined to assume that I referred to them. I refer to nobody o!

Frank had ways of expressing himself. When I say ways, I mean ways. He could use words, anyone that came to his mind in a middle of a conversation to express himself. He was quite good with it and made the wrong words (grammatically and semantically) appear correct and perfectly understood the way he wanted them to be. This expertise was mostly in his exclamation. At times he even used sounds and words that you would never find in any dictionary. I remember clearly on one occasion when we were all out hanging out and having a couple of beers. We all had to drink 33 Lager as there was no Star. One of our mates who claimed to have tasted proper brewed lager in Copenhagen said there was no way you could compare what we drink in Lagos to the brew that come from Danish distilleries.

Frank got highly excited. To think of a beer that was even better than star; he exclaimed “Fudusa! This is absolutely unthinkaboutable”. He wanted to know the cost of a bottle of such lager. What about the colour? And the alcoholic content? He went on and on about why can we do not have breweries like this in Nigeria. According to him the beer revelation was “simply and absolutely loquacious”, thereupon he promised to relinquish his wristwatch (a D & G, his latest present from his girlfriend studying abroad) in exchange for a can of this Danish beer. And he made our other friend promise to bring him a can whenever next he returned from Denmark. I tried to remember the name of someone in the bible who had given up his birthright for a plate of porridge. The biblical figure’s name was not forthcoming.

As I pondered over the City People’s event of last week I could not but think about the kind of words Frank would have used to describe some of the dressing of some City People invitees. I watched some bits of the ceremony on the telly and my first impression was “where do all these dresses come from? I mean the dresses worn by female invitees. I must confess they all looked gorgeous. It was indeed a display of the skills and talents of our Nigerian designers. And you need to see the people that were in attendance. Nollywood stars, artists from the music industry, comedians and even our own dearest former governor. Yes Bola Ahmed Tinubu was there. Name them, and they were there. Sadly I did not see Clint the Drunk. He most likely would have come up with a sensational designer outfit which most likely would have been his own designer.

One thing however mad me sad. It was one of those acts that smack of xenocentricism and from my point of view an evil approach that has bedevilled our sonse of morality as Nigerians. Sadly this sort of conceptualization holds sway amongst many of us. I refer to this mode of thought that shuns things Nigerian and African while exalting foreign products and ways of life. I will give a typical example of what I mean.

At the award night interviews most of our Nigerian designers wore Nigerian designer clothes, and like I stated earlier on, the all looked lovely. I was not too pleased with the attitude of one of the lady designers who was interviewed at the venue of the awards. She was gorgeously dressed in African attire (which I hope she designed herself) but she was quick to talk more about her D & G designer wristwatch than her African attire. The interviewer had commended her dressing and asked her to tell us, the dear viewers at home who were admiring her attire, about herself and her outfit. She started by letting us know she “...is a designer of course”. Not a problem, as a matter of fact she made us proud; one of our illustrious daughters! She did not tell us who designed the outfit she was putting on. She spent a few seconds in this part of her interview but then spent minutes telling us about her D & G designer wristwatch. She spoke a lot about her designer necklace. And gave a general impression she might be most willing to display the foreign pieces of adornment and jewellery she was wearing. The million dollar question I asked myself was this; why would a Nigerian designer decide to talk more about her D & G wristwatch and necklaces than the rest of her African attire in such a setting as the City people’s award?

I once had a little misunderstanding with a former employer in London. He got cross with me one morning because according to him I have never been able to pronounce his surname with the right accent. Meanwhile the same person was always finding it difficult pronouncing my surname correctly! He often called me something that sounded more like Mr Yuba instead of Mr Uba. I didn’t have a problem with this until the day he asked me why African names were difficult to pronounce. My reply was that African names might be difficult for the likes of him to pronounce but that did not mean they were difficult to pronounce, and I made him realise people in the part of the world I come from had no qualms pronouncing my name correctly. I at least could say his surname right save for the fact that I did not have the English, not that I cared to anyway. He got angry and decided to end the conversation with so be it.

You often hear Nigerians castigate their fellow country man/woman because s/he speaks English with an Hausa or Ibo or Yoruba accent. Why should this be so? A Hausa man should have and be proud of their Hausa accent and same should go for an Ibo or Yoruba. Why must we try to fake accent and try to sound like the white man when we are actually black? Excuse me if you think I am wrong but this sort of “fakeness” has become the in-thing amongst some of our Nigerian female actresses. It is very often you hear them twist their voices and say “finh” when they actually want you to hear “thing”. It is also quite often you see some of our young and upcoming music artistes try so hard to look and appear western especially intended rap artistes. Check them out in their thick winter jackets and long chains dancing and sweating it out in the scorching Nigerian weather that is more often that not above thirty degrees centigrade. I often wonder when winter started in Nigeria and also if they have friends they talk to about what they want to do in their music videos. Their music producers nko, are they blind to this sort of “fakeness”. I will not mention names but it is clear to see that the successful Nigerian musicians know the difference between winter and harmattan. It is this sort of difference that defines and separates the successful and the dreamers.

I am only trying hard to be Frank, and “frankly” speaking it doesn’t pay us to try to be what we are not and can never be. We would be happier people and more likely to develop better if we understand who we are and try to work on and with what God has naturally given us. It doesn’t make sense when we try to be otherwise. It is not only the musicians or Nollywood actresses that are quick to exchange their birthright for plates of porridge, a lot of us do same in different fashions and I think all of us who are guilty should bow their heads in shame (our fashionable D&G designer ought to bow her head in shame if she reads this piece). It was the same sort of shameful acts that some of our traditional leaders did during the military era (not that they have stopped in these days) when they went to every military dictator and proclaimed such dictators as messiahs and pledge their unwavering support and loyalty. Na you we know! Come next dictator after a coup and they remarch and make the same proclamation. Chei, bow your heads in shame. God bless the artiste who rightly sang that Nigeria “jaga jaga”