I still remembered the first time I travelled by air in my entire life. It was March 2006. I was not anymore fresh out of Secondary School (it was almost 2 years already). However, the admission into the university just seemed not to be coming forth. A door seemed to be opening at the University of Ibadan but I was required to appear at the university in less than 24 hours. The only alternative then was to take the first flight out of Kano the next day.
One feature I still remember from that flight and successive ones is the phobia (call it xeno-phobia if you like) I exhibit towards people of Asian extraction with whom I board the same flights. Owing to events of September 11, 2001 (coincidentally 11 years today), I always viewed all Asians via a lens of suspicious fear. My heart beats increased the moment I see two of them having a conversation or the moment one attempts to make a phone call. I had never really had direct contact with foreigners so much, unlike my younger brother who attended a mixed race secondary school with a sizeable Asian population. Anyway, I am eternally grateful to God that my phobia of these lovely ‘foreigners’ never went beyond mere suspicions. I didn’t really do anything really scary.
Fast forward to Sunday evening on my flight to Kano which was routed through Jos. The time spent on the plane was about 3 hours so I had ample time for some idle thoughts and slight dozing. Seated right in front of me was an Asian, more probably of Chinese extraction but I was past caring at that point, not with the tiredness I felt compounded more by the fact that I had attended three different services that day before leaving Lagos.
Suddenly, I felt it again – that familiar phobia for suspected terrorists. This time however, it wasn’t caused by the Chinese man seated so close to me but by the familiar chatter and imposing baritone voices of my own brothers – children from another mother of Northern extraction. My fears were made worse by the Abdumuttalab affair and the recent Boko Haram attacks all around Northern Nigeria.
Then, it struck me, when did Nigeria descend to these depths where children of the same Father would be living with suspicion towards each other? The last time I travelled by air was January 7 this year and in just a spate of eight months, a lot had changed that is redefining the very fabric of existence of our national life.
Whither goest thou Nigeria?
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