The meek of them great Greek philosophers; Socrates, was believed to have shifted the eye of the early philosophers from wondering into the cosmic and putting men instead in front of the telescope. His landmark dictum “Man know thy self” could undoubtedly be regarded as one of man’s greatest discovery in its decisive assertions. But the truth of the matter is that that’s where we humans had continued to fall short in the scheme of things happening around us. Getting to know who we really are and finding out our strengths and weaknesses, and discovering the medium of balancing these integral duos is by no means a daunting task. Challenging also is about finding where we belong since we Homo-sapiens were nomadically engineered to adapting to whichever environment best suits our persons.

In today Globalize world where the information technology is continuously breaking down barriers and boarders, and as we progress deeper into the 21 century, the issue of identity and our place of belonging is becoming almost central to everything we do and everywhere we go. Nationality, citizenship, immigration, emigration, expatriation, integration, assimilation, segregation, exclusion, discrimination, alienation, renunciation and home-coming are the orders of the day.


Well to be precise and clear- am not here to talk about these aforementioned assessments nor I am here to talk about the schizophrenia nature of the colonial cloning of African people in the three different mix of personalities-her indigenous reconfiguring, her westernalized modeling, and the christened or Islamiazation of her psyches, thus distorting the values, morals and notion of what is right and wrong. That damage had been done and is look ever more irreparable as we sink deeper into the belly of neo-colonialism. Instead am here to bring to the fold a revelation of a different species living in the midst of our huge ethnic diversity. These folks are not outcast, excluded mutants or castaway herd some cultures might want to call the untouchables; far from it. Odd as it might begin to sound, I happen to belong to this group of people. We might be regarded as minorities, but we are not endangered, we might also be regarded as radically different but we are apparently endearing if you get the time to really study us. If you don’t belong to this group, then you would have one way or the other come across these special ones. Seldom are they obvious for avoidance of been labeled bizarre.

I hope you’re aware that some people way of life or lifestyle gives the impression that there seems to be a daily mixed up in the heaven or perhaps whoever is assigned the teleporting of babies to their intended earthly destinations is always caught napping at his desk. And whether this daily occurrence is deliberate or not, I wouldn’t know. But I do believe that the partitioning of the earthlier on nationality lines is not visible to the heavenly, nor visible on racial lines or so I want to believe. Anyways…children teleported to these supposedly mistaken wombs, while growing up seems to take up traits and experiences quite alien to the norms of their origin but right at place with another culture as close quarter.

This seemingly cross- pollination will leave you wondering if such individuals had previously lived a life in such culture or environment and in their second or many other coming reincarnations, they keep experiencing a sense of dejavu of belonging to that other tribe where it seems they’d once lived and probably procreated. And more also, they easily roam freely in the heart of this adopted land effortlessly like there very own kind. A tour, I mean just a tour to such to a place for such a person might end up as home-coming, a long sojourning and most possibly a final resting place. After all, the road to happiness starts with finding a place of belonging. Not only that, in some cases their physical appearance can attest to this lingering mystery. And for this latter am going to put myself on the spotlight.

Is comforting for me to be looked at as an enigmatic creature, devoid of classification as my appearance and lifestyle suggests. But it can be scary when that oddity throws me, its owner into outright confusion and baffling self-assessments. Is no surprising to me of my surprises to other peoples’ surprises. Have I confused you enough?

What I’m saying is that some people are simply born outside the box of what their culture adjudged as beliefs, thought systems, and norms of acceptable fixed behavioural patterns as I am. So is no surprising for those who know me well enough, when ask to defined me in one word, always come up with ‘different’ or ‘odd.’ If considering my many trivialities like my unyielding support for the less fancied Liverpool Fc, my Iconic love for the American novelist and the king of macabre- Stephen King, and that am yet to tune low the loud rock music I love banging my head to as odd for what is common place, well that just happen to be an abridged version of my whole oddities. Now let me tell you about a signboard ubiquitous to my daily journey down the adult road. Baffling yet, these signboard has a uniformed emblazoned of a peculiar sun that shines on me always-- and what do you know, is a half of a yellow sun.



There’s a mysterious connectivity I seem to share with a distance tribe where I have no discernable ancestral or linage inheritance to…so it seems. But I’m fascinated on just how and why I orbit delightfully into anything and everything Igbo. A linger fascination that always bring me to the perennial arguments wrestles over the factuality of the phenomenon of reincarnation or the transmigrations of the souls--transcending beyond time and space and ultimately over the periphery of our superficial erected barriers and realm of our preconceived confinements. Whichever side of the fence you might choose to sit on the argument, my personal experiences with these Igbos people- (strangers in the melting pot called Lagos) who keep welcoming me with opened arms, love and good wishes-hold enough water for me to believed that maybe I had once lived a life among these wonderful people. And guess what, I am not alone as I’ve and continue to compare notes with others who share in my Igbo sentiments.



While the same breeds like myself flirts with other tribes of our huge ethnic diversity and vice-versa and might as well as mutate their identity through spoken languages and lifestyle adoptions. My own affinity or spiritual romance with more Igbo friends, foods, culture and their beautiful women is amazingly waxing stronger to the point where people are just compel to ask me “you are Igbo…right?” you are not Yoruba abi?” You only need to scroll through the contacts on my phone to wonder if the phone belongs to an Igbo fellow. A cursory poke at my music play-list or a listen in on my ringstone will make you marvel. I’m always grappling with the sense of out of place I felt whenever I find my self in the midst of Yoruba people. Why am automatically at ease around the Igbo people and less gregarious around my Yoruba people, this…I don’t know. Maybe I must have been DNA configured in Aba for a woman to get me chuckling “na who between your papa and mama played away match?” and to which I replied “of course my dad”



Though I grew up mixing with different tribes during the 80s, but the awareness of my love for the Igbos became conscious during the 90’s when I happen to read a journal during my secondary days about an historical account portraying the never-say-die-spirit of the Igbo people struggling in the then old capital of Nigeria. It hurt till today that I never had the grace to recall the article’s title, the author, or which of our national dailies it was published in. It was a full length article running on almost three pages chronicling the lives of the Igbos before and after surviving the civil war. The article also highlighted in great detail the industrial hiatus the then capital of the old Nigeria experienced at the Igbos absence. It’s quite amazing for a people that had experienced such horror of war and starvation in Biafra and came back to start life afresh and few years down the line they’ve resurface to do even better in the same Lagos than previously perceived. Is superhuman to say the least.

But what pivoted my sense of belonging more among the Igbos was when I got slapped with the truth in the fiction of ‘Half of a yellow sun’ by Chimanda Ngozi Adieche. I can’t start telling you the guilt I felt reading that book as a new generation Nigerian. A guilt that must have similar resonates like the likes of a new generation tusk reading the genocide of the Armenias or as a young American reading the systematic eradication of the red Indians.

The Igbos holds a special place in my heart and no matter their imperfections or how hard other tribes try to bust her bubbles I will continue to remain charmed by her zone. A zone bolstering with a never-say-die dynamism, a can do spirit, an accommodating adjustments and most bewildering yet, her resonating influence of the making out extraordinary possibilities out of the ordinary. A thick skin borne out of her rebirth after the war.
I won’t pretend that I haven’t heard my Yoruba people (most especially the elders) who’d hold the Igbos in discreet contempt and long standing phobias that boarder on preconceived misconceptions and bias that Igbo people untiringly lusts and acquire money through scary diabolic means.

They also considered them cunningly overambitious, rounded arrogant set of people, lacking respect, remotely cannibalistic in nature and are troublesome tenants who’d rather pay a lawyer against the landlord instead of paying up their rents. Some Yoruba, for been a business victim to some unscrupulous transactions, (an ordeal not peculiar to just a region and which doesn’t undermine also the presence of angels therein) will discourage in strong term a union of marriage between these two ethnic giants. As a Yoruba dude, whose best friend, Godfather, and women are all Igbos, it saddens me when I see public boards declare inconspicuously “no Igbos’ to house vacancies. I’m not quite sure people who held prejudices of any form towards tribes other than theirs can be helped, nor will I try to sway them over. I’m just highlighting the red-tapes beneath our supposed integrating federalism.


It’s a common believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that one man’s poison is another man’s meat. These popular adages bring me now to the crux of this piece- Falling madly, truly and deeply in love with the Igbo beauty. That kind of beauty that stutters the heart, that moist the palms with sweating, and leaves ‘yours truly’ stomach fill butterflies wouldn’t be complete if such beauty is not carved out of the Igbo ribs.

On personal choice and taste, I like them my women busty, round, light skinned, charming and cultured. But most importantly, I loved them Igbo sealed. With my trusted and reliable natural detecting radar, it wouldn’t be a hectic of a thing fishing out Igbo queens among the motley of Naija beautiful women arranged, that’s in spite of the Igbo language that am yet to fully grasp. I readily connect beginning chemistries and physical intimacies whenever I chat up with Igbo ladies no matter the class or status. And whether their sensual physique is infrared enabled or personality blue-toothed enabled, my connectivity is at most time viable and only suffers few technical hitches during link ups. When I told my mama (though nursing a diminishing Igbo reservations, which boarder on In laws considerations) that my chemistry with Igbo ladies was effortlessly and mutual, she never believe me until at least five different Omalichas pay me visitation in the spate of two weeks, then she starts to take me serious. Whether flamboyantly sophisticated, elegantly simplified or stylishly ordinary they never fail to turn up my dial or get my antenna buzzing. Believed it or not, two of my lovely Igbo honeys buzzed my line while I was composing this piece.


That reminds me of an incident I got caught up in and which nearly ended up in a brawl during my undergraduate days in school. You guess over whom? Over an Igbo gal of course. I happened to have toasted up a beautiful girl already falling to my spells until it turns out that gal belong to a guy who was of the same gene with mine. After coming out of the near brawl as friends we get to know that we (both of Yoruba origin, though he’s part Edo) have a special preference for Igbo girls. And we both remained addicted on continuing our soul searching under the colourful spectrums of her half yellow sun. Men! Talk about meeting your own ‘tasteful’ kind.

I bet the cynic, right about now, will tell me that I can romance all I want and in no way am I going to be an Igbo person like the real Igbos, even If I get to live a thousand years. Well, I can only be truth to myself as the English poet, John Keats put it Ode on a Grecian Urn:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye needs to know”.

The truth that my heart belongs to the Igbos and that the truth of that love is reciprocates; then the cynic can go ahead and say all they want. And for those who wouldn’t endorse my sentiments and might probably labeled me not bravery enough to let out of my shell, Well I can only take a cue from the dinosaur of Manchester united-Ryan Giggs and the most decorated player in the English Premiership league. Smart as Giggs is, he would rather continue to enjoy success where he’d find easy purchase than become a limbo in another big football club. That my Igbo ladies had through their loving molded me into a romantic Lionel Messi, I’ll be crazy to not to stick with that where my swagger dazzles and make the mistake of proceeding to become a bench warmer in a place where my toasting skills is of less efficacy. Tufiakwa!


Besides the altar is getting nearer, so also is my trophy. To my Ohaneaze council of elders “Igbo Kwenu sirs. To my bothers “Igbo Kwenu.

And to my loving Omalichas “Kwenu kisses”

Lanre Malik

understandingpolicy@yahoo.com
My Blog- www.nigerianidiots..com