To Be Nigerian No 10

No. 10: Bad language!

To be Nigerian, you have to stop bad language. Absolutely not the S, F, N and other capital lettered words, I mean your native language. You see, it is absolutely wrong for a three year-old to go around saying things like “Dalu, Ejor, Sanu and so on.” Absolute rubbish. What happened to speaking proper English? That child has to speak proper English which is why he started school since he was just one year old, a very expensive school at that.

We are at a supermarket shopping one day when our we get hit from behind by a woman that wasn’t watching where she was going. She quickly apologizes, we assure her that it’s no problem. As she walks little further, her son, who looks about four years old and had been speaking Queen’s English the whole time says to her ‘ebi n pami.” (I’m hungry). She starts scolding the boy immediately. Why didn’t he speak proper English?! What nonsense. Who was teaching him his native language? Why is he speaking like the riffraff on the streets? The boy says grandma speaks the language to him, she says he would stop going to grandma’s on holidays. The boy burst in tears and runs from her. She waves at her maid to go after him. She seemed pleased as she continued shopping. We think the boy running behavior is what pleased her, oyinbo behavior is always better after all.

We are making a phone call as we walk to a neighborhood store. As we get in the store, there are people purchasing things, so we wait our turn while still on the phone call. When it’s our turn, we do not fail to notice the look of irritation on the sales Rep’s face. We didn’t understand at first, while we were placing our order, another customer that had left but forgotten something came back and asked for it. We saw her countenance change into a respectful smile when she was speaking with the other customer. You see, that other customer had spoken English, while we spoke ‘local’. Good riddance! We intensified our ‘local’ language and made sure we didn’t speak English at all. At the end of the purchase she didn’t have change, normally we would have even left the change, but as local persons, we didn’t. We sat there with her till she got it.

To be Nigerian, it is cool to name your child in your native language, mostly because these names carry power and strong meaning, also because you don’t want trouble from your parents, however, make sure these are names that sound cool and can easily be shortened into something English sounding. It is however not cool that your children speak the native dialect. No, no No! Absolute No. they are ‘butti’ children. They also have to have accents so if you cannot afford them schooling abroad  or taking them to the abroad every summer, make sure they go to outrageously expensive schools here in Nigeria so they don’t mix with the local breed. Then, when its time for higher institutions, make sure they go abroad. Abroad could include Ghana or Benin Republic as last options. Don’t worry, you have raised them so well that they know better than to come back home without Australian-Chinese accents.