Northern Nigeria has experienced a cycle of violence that keeps having a high and low period;
this cycle of violence has been fueled by politics and religious
misunderstanding. Rumor mongering too has become the order of the day year on
year keeping people on edge; and the Boko Haram insurgence with its attendant
fear, destruction and killing in the North East has not spear even other region
of the North.
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Though Northern Nigeria
has generally been a cultural and religious sensitive environment for a long
time now; people have quickly forgotten the good days of its commercial
contribution and peaceful co-existence between people of various ethnic groups
and religious faith. The region has been demonized because of what Chimamanda
Adichie will call the danger of a singer story.
I must agree that there
have been negative stories coming out from Northern Nigeria. And most of all, a
kind of normalized political fear has invaded our lives.
According to Chimamanda
all of these stories make [us] who we [are]. But to insist on only these
negative stories is to flatten [our] experience, and to overlook many other
stories that formed [us]. The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem
with stereotypes noted Chimamanda “is not they are untrue, but that they are
incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” There are many good stories coming out of
Northern Nigeria daily and it is very important to talk about them too.
When one has a single
story it becomes impossible for one to see people or others from another view
apart from that which one has placed them.
This article is a call to all well-meaning dwellers of the north and
south part of Nigeria, the media both local and international and Government
functionaries; please let us stop showing Northern Nigeria as just one thing, a
demonized region. Because if we keep showing us as only one thing, over and
over again, that is what we will become even to the unborn generation.
I end this appeal by
quoting Chimamanda words in the video that inspired this article the
danger of a single story “I’ve
always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with place or person
without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The
consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes
our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasize how we are
different rather than how we are similar”
She continued “Many
stories matter: Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories
can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of
a people. But stories can repair that broken dignity.”
So it is time to repair
our broken dignity lets tell our stories of love, charity, and equality to all people
we meet through our daily actions.
(Reference: The Danger of a Single Story-Transcript
courtesy of TED. I implore you to watch the video on Youtube http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
)
