By Tahir Ibrahim Tahir
We were from the same university, the university of Abuja; now we reflect and understand what it meant to have us all in one school, from different walks of life, tribes, religion, ethnic backgrounds and what have you. It was as if the whole school was a football academy and we were totally united and committed to a common objective; one trophy. We were very few in number, in my computer class we were always barely twenty and the most populated courses like political science and sociology were never up to or more than a hundred.
I was the best of friends with Victor Elias and I never knew that he was from Benue until now; 15 years after. I had a soft spot guarded with lots of respect for Julie and recently, I discovered she is from the Niger Delta; Bayelsa precisely. My political ‘enemy’ (of course no enmity really) was Ardo Jorgundado who was a ‘herdsman’ like me and yet we never agreed on practically everything! But now; we are always on the same page on each and every matter.
Onyinye Omeruo was one of the finest girls in school and I was her boyfriend. I knew she was Igbo and because of our different extractions; we simply could not face our folks and tell them that we wanted to marry because our parents were never going to consent to it; would they? Joe Gana was my pal at all times; he had a charming broad smile and all the chicks liked him. Agi Jerome, Peter Tobrise… These were the folks that I knew while I was in my first year in the University. We partied, we were sportsmen, and we competed in class and in the school’s social circles. Never did religion or tribesmanship come between us.
Funny enough, we are still a closely knit society of friends and brothers who never allow sentiments to get in the way of our friendships that have been built over so many years. Today; Nigeria is unwinding and unknotting any relationships or brotherhoods that years and years of nationhood and brotherhood had brought together. We are rearing towards a fragmentation of our society without any clear direction or focus.
The world has come to witness that our country is being shredded by selfish motives hammered through religious and cultural differences, at the expense of the nation’s survival. Even when its clear enough for us to recognise the detractors along with the actors; we feign ignorance and claim that we are yet to grab the story line. Meanwhile; the whole world has summed us up and might not even take us seriously. The International community has all of a sudden turned enemy and are villified for poking into our oblivion. We lament and yell to be left alone; misguided and lost. Soon, our wreckage might get to the point of beyond repair and we will have nothing to fight each other for.
Alheri was exactly the coolest girl in town, back in our university days and she wore her face cap like no other. She was a sister to me and thirteen years after she still is. An article of mine posed the concern that more Muslims had died from the insurgency. My intention was to buttress the point that the boko or no boko insurgency was hardly Islamic since it claimed so many Muslim lives. My sister just wouldn’t have it. She stopped reading my article right at the beginning because of the argument over who lost more lives.
This is what they are doing to us. This is what we must overcome and fight doggedly. If the many more years to come shall continue spreading doom for our generation, then I m sure NY generation would want to simply call it a day because we were never raised like this, neither did we bargain for it!
Pretence and egotism are guilty pleasures we cannot afford now can we?
Not this generation, we simply do not have such time for pleasures let alone guilty ones. We must embrace our differences and learn to live the school days again for in its content, you find the whole world too! What kept us together in our glorified secondary school as the school was called has continued to keep us together, rocketing us forward, almost ahead of all others in the league of everyday lives of a newer generation of Nigerians with a common love for peace and unity; real unity.