BlackMan Time

Archive for November, 2005

This is a true story. I am just retelling it the way it went went…

A 10 year old West African boy had eaten too much of the macaroni cheese his mother had made. When she came home from work she was furious with rage. She ordered her sister to boil a pot of groundnut oil.

After the oil was boiled the mother, still angry, called her son and ordered him to put his hand into the scalding frying pan of oil. He refused so she carried the frying pan over to him and poured the oil on his hands, face and chest. He cried out in obvious pain. The woman’s sister witnessed all this.

The boy suffered like this for three days without any hospital treatment. Yet it wasn’t until after a kindly neighbour exposed the incident that help came. Even the mother said she didn’t mean to harm the boy.

Now, tell me, what would you do with a woman like that?

Here’s a little experiment for you to try: type the word ‘niggerland’ (without the quote marks) in a blank Microsoft Word document. Highlight the word and press F7 to do a spell check. You will see the words ‘Nigerians’ or ‘Nigerian’ come up as suggestions. Funny? No! There is a reason for that…

It is time we correct some (or all) of the legacies of colonialism and slavery from our lives. One of the biggest such legacies is the name given to a significant part of our motherland. I am talking about the name Nigeria given to that country.

It is perhaps a little known fact that this piece of land – first called Nok and inhabited by people of the iron age existing from 900 B.C. until about 200 A.D. – was insultingly named ‘Nigeria’ by Flora Louisa Shaw, a white woman, wife of Lord Frederick Lugard, a British-appointed governor of the country during colonial times. To her it seemed appropriate to call the country Nigger Area, since it was situated in a province surrounded by the Nigger river (or Niger), as it is known today.

The final name was tidied up and called Nigeria but it still bears testament to its former name of nigger area or niggerland. Search practically all encyclopaedia (try it on Wikipedia, dictionary or historical records and you will find this to be true.

Make no doubt about this fact: it was not acceptable then and it certainly is not acceptable now that the land of Nok should be called such a disparaging name and for dark skinned people from that area to go calling themselves Nigerians.

Flick up your lighters, let off the gun salutes or holla back at me if you also agree.

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