Alhaji Umaru Arzikar of Ilese-Ijebu

You must have heard of the American story, or more popularly, the American Dream — at least, pre-Donald Trump.

But have you ever heard of the Nigerian story, of a “no-person”, come from nowhere, but become “somebody” still, in spite of great odds?

Read this short bio, of Alhaji Umaru Arzikar, one of the community honourees, at this year’s Ilese Day, the 13th yearly convocation of the Ilese-Ijebu people in Ogun State, which ran from August 6-12, as reproduced verbatim from the commemorative brochure.

“Alhaji Umaru Arzika was born on the 24th of May 1951 to Pa Usman Arzikar, from Tangazar, Local Government, in Sokoto State.

“From the age of 7, he enrolled at an Arabic school in Tangazar LG, Sokoto, and he spent 10 years there.

“He relocated to Ilese 48 years ago and worked as a labourer with a block-making industry.  He later became a successful trader in furniture and gold.

“About 20 years ago, he became the Seriki Hausawa of Ilese and environs.

“The awardee is gentle, hardworking and a bridge-builder, especially between the Hausa community and Ilese people.

“He is happily married to Mariam Arzika and Fatimah Arzika and they are blessed with 10 children.”

Alhaji Arzika was not the only honouree.  Indeed, he shared the sunshine of community recognition and adoration, with two other indigenes: Pastor Samuel Abayomi Ayanga, JP, a retired Unilever Nigeria staff, businessman and community leader; and Mrs Florence Adenike Adebanjo (née Kalejaye), a retired teacher, famed to have taught four out of every five of a generation of Ilese-Ijebu pupils, that schooled (primary and secondary) in the town.

Though Alhaji Arzika’s bio-brief (courtesy of the commemorative brochure) is as short as the two other “original” natives on the honoured podium are long, both the Alhaji and Ilese are mutual metaphors for what Nigeria is, despite the organized hate now scalding the landscape.

Thomas Hardy wrote of the Return of the Native, the comeback of the Englishman made good in Paris, France, to a tragedy of a failed marriage, unfulfilled personal dreams and eventual benign shun by a once-doting community.

Alhaji Arzika, on the other hand, “writes” a compelling life story of a non-native, in the most humble and humbling of conditions, come to a new community to make good, eventually forcing communal respect and recognition, by sheer hard work.

It is a triumph of hard work — from the humble block-boy, to putative trader, then a local entrepreneur of note, in gold and furniture.  That earned him trust and respect, both among his fellow Hausas and his Ilese hosts, deep enough for his fellow northerners to enthrone him the Seriki Hausawa; and for his Ilese hosts to applaud the choice.

But more fittingly, it is a triumph of good sense and acute sensitivity to local mores and values, particularly in the context of contemporary Nigeria, with its umpteenth native-settler tension, which has turned a tinder, setting many parts of the country ablaze.

The Arzika epitome, of mutual respect between the host community and Nigerian non-natives, makes Ilese itself a shining metaphor for almost all Nigerian communities that quietly accept and honour, if not fully assimilate, industrious internal immigrants.

Though trouble appears to break out now and then, these are indeed minority cases, where that delicate balance has been ruptured.

That is where those clamouring for the so-called proclamation of citizenship, over indigene-ship, miss the point.  Look at those pushing that argument.  They are most probably people who have breached that delicate balance, but try to press into service crass legalism, in the hope that its thunder and fury would bury quiet common sense.  It wouldn’t.

Besides, it is a mechanistic approach to settling fluid and complex relationships, in an essential country of native communities, like Nigeria; as against an essential country of settlers, like the United States and Australia, where the tiny but more powerful settlers had wiped out the original natives; and remoulded the country in the settlers’ image.

Alhaji Arzika is Hausa from the North.  His name proclaims it.  His mien declares it.  His essence endorses it.  Yet, he is not unhappy among his Yoruba hosts of 48 years, and still counting.

His Nigerian citizenship made the initial migration seamless, as it indeed, of the many Yoruba outside the South West; and indeed, of the millions of others criss-crossing cultures and faith plains, across the vast Nigerian territory.

But common sense has spiced that stay with sheer bliss.  The Arzika brood, all 10 of them, with two mothers and the patriarch, of Ilese-Ijebu may well be ethnic Hausa.   But their Ilese nativity has only enriched their Nigerianness, such that they are likely to be less bigoted, more understanding and more tolerant of other Nigerians.

As you have in Ilese, so do you in Ado-Ekiti, in Agege and Obalende (both in Lagos) and in Sagamu, in Ogun State.  All harbour generations of ethnic northerners who nevertheless not only speak the general Yoruba, but also the immediate local dialect, of Ekiti, Ijebu and even Remo, aside from own native tongues!

So, with the right balance of temper, indigene-ship and citizenship need not be mutually exclusive.  Indeed, you need not lose your ethnic flavour, just to become a plastic citizen.  Both should reinforce each other, in a natural federal state, where the “federating” citizens freely mix, fired by mutual respect.

It is a monumental irony, therefore, that whereas the common folks all over the country appear to have long settled their own “national question” — humans are the same, after all, no matter their ethnic groupings — the elite trumpet in the media that absolutely nothing is settled.

Ironically too, both of them have a point.  The common folks have located their “state of nature” in the philosophy of John Locke, fired by live-and-let-live natural reason: “to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.”

But the elite have located their own state of nature in Thomas Hobbes, and his call for a Leviathan to impose order, on rival groupings jousting for power, influence and domination, naturally leaving, in their battle trail, injustice, bitterness and rancour.

In Hobbes’s state of nature, everyone reserves — indeed, projects — the natural right to do anything to preserve his own life and privileges, thus condemning life generally as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Therefore, a Leviathan must come to impose some order.

Such is the dual reality of Nigeria today.  As the Alhaji Arzikas among the ordinary folks live and let live, using common sense as their compass for neighbourly conduct, the elite, across the same territory, keep on chirping on the imperative for correcting institutionalized injustices, logged over the years, as a result of unfair and unearned privileges.  As both sides move toward a common centre, Nigeria’s crisis nationhood would start lifting.

The only group the network of Alhaji Arzikas, all over the country, offer a bad piece of news are the secessionist ensemble, playing the explosive mines of irredentism, ultra-nationalism and ethnic supremacy.

When the chips are down, they would likely have his nationwide network of common people to contend with.