What Happened To Our National Shame?
By: Yahaya Kana Ismaila
Shame, in the Eloyi language, is a potent weapon of moral control and value promotion. The highest form of disservice to a clan or family is to bring its name to shame/disrepute. It is therefore not surprising that one of the greatest insults you can give an Eloyi person is to tell them they have no shame. Even the simple question like —are you not ashamed? Is a very potent poser often deployed to caution young people from going astray. While we were growing up in Edegye, Mbeki, thieves, rapists, or Casanovas caught with, or attempting to force themselves on other people’s wives marched around the village to shame them. It is believed that a walk of shame has the power of deterrence. So, the thief is strapped with whatever they stole, while the skin criminal is paraded stark naked as chants of the crime they have committed accompany them around the village.
The root of this practice comes from our beautiful culture and tradition. It abhors and cautions against anything that will bring shame to the community. The crimes of shame are nuanced yet different in severity and punishment. For instance, besides the accompanying shame to the family name, the severity of the shame of anyone who committed the taboo of incest and confessed just before dying differs from that of someone who confessed at the onset of the affliction that preceded such crimes and was able to regain full health. The penance for those who confessed early may be both the walk of shame and a multitude of goats and other sacrifices. However, the one who held off confession until the point of death would surely forfeit his corpse to Adaweji (the supreme god), to be dragged on one leg to the forest and most times buried in a shallow grave. But that’s not all; the family of such a person will be forbidden from mourning their demise. Anyone who offers as little as a whimper or a cry in mourning for such a person would land themselves in trouble.
Therefore, the fear of accumulating shame is one of the reasons why Eloyi people will never beg. Begging is not just a taboo; it is seen as a very low point of shame. This is why, instead of attaching young children to People Living with Disability (PWDs) as alms collecting guides, the Eloyi guide instead leads the Eloyi PWD to their farm and positions them in the farm field to till the land like able bodied people. In Eloyi Land, very elderly men and women still go to the farm, even though they may have grown up children that can cater for them. This is to keep shame at bay. Back in the day, the Eloyi aspiring groom would never consider drinking water at his in-laws to be, let alone eating food, no matter how tasty or hungry they may be. Have you no shame? You will be asked.
Before encountering the city in all its glory and goriness, I used to believe every Nigerian clan abhors shame as much as the Eloyi people, and indeed, I detected such attributes in many families, even though the articles of this shame differ. Sadly, all of this self-restraining and coordinating shame appears to have vanished. Today, you are accosted by what ought to have been blatantly shameful but has been conventionalised into what is known as the new normal.
For instance, it was a shame not to know how to speak one’s language when I was growing up. Today, it is even fashionable for illiterate parents to gleefully tell visitors that their kids only understand English. In this boiling caldron are children born of Eloyi parents and raised in places like Nasarawa, Keffi, Loko, and now Mararaba-Udege who seem to have all but denounced their language in preference for debased versions of Hausa and English. Funny enough, their parents still speak flawless Eloyi, but you see them struggling to keep up with the language choices of their kids. My late mother would cringe at the mere thought of her child speaking English to her anywhere. What would her mother say? No! It was a mortal sin to speak English in our house. So, we spoke English, Yoruba, Hausa, or any language the street dashed us outside, but Eloyi is the exclusive language of the home front.
Back in the day, it was definitely unheard of for a dubious person to even be granted an audience by a king, let alone be crowned and/or be turbaned with a title. Today, even in Eloyi land, people with questionable character are the most celebrated by our shame deprived traditional gatekeepers. Recall that a wanted killer and kidnapper, Ado Aleru was turbaned Sarkin-Fulani by the Yandoton Emirate in Zamfara State in the full glare of day and in the presence of both government functionaries and security agents. Only recently, the erstwhile Accountant General of the federation, Ahmed Idris, who helped himself to over 100 billion Naira of our shared patrimony, was turbaned by as Ajiyan Hausa by the emir of Daura, the birthplace of Mai Gaskiya. Alameseigha and Peter Odili, two internationally convicted criminals, were given heroes welcome when they returned in one of the greatest displays of the dearth of shame!
It is no longer shameful for barefaced lying politicians to tell the whole world that this or that projects have been completed and it won’t be surprising to find that the site for the project has never been visited. Gaza Gbefwi, the member representing the good people of Keffi/Karu federal constituency was busted by Premium Times for refurbishing and old building and passing it off as the brand-new building he was supposed to construct. Since that story broke, someone with shame would have attempted an explanation, but not our politicians. We must find a way to remove the excellencies, distinguished, as well as honourable member prefixes from their names. These titles ought to be earned.
In the days of shame, people like Godswill Akpabio, who has repeatedly lied on national TV would have been told to resign his position as Senate president by senators who ought to have been ashamed of his public conduct. Sadly, not even the well detailed investigative report by Premium Times showing how he planned to spend billions providing outrageously expensive solar streetlights for ghost locations has been sufficient to make him shameful or move Nigerians to demand answers. Of course, no sinnator is asking him to vacate his seat because they are all ermmm …. very upright people.
Today, we have traditional rulers or elders who are actively and shamelessly working against their culture and traditions.
When we were growing up, an elder or village/traditional ruler is held to the highest of standards. He reciprocates this trust by being honest, distinguished, and trustworthy. A ready example of such an elder would be my great uncle, the late Alhaji Ibrahim Kwogo Egya of Edegye Chiefdom. He earned a reputation as an honourable and truthful arbiter, and people trooped to his wife from far and wide to find true justice. He was never afraid to speak truth to power and will always tell you he can’t live with the shame of being branded a dishonourable arbiter. His general motto is, “I will rather die from saying the truth than die from promoting lies.” The constant in that statement is that people die either way!
It is disconcerting that all the triggers of our national shame have been washed down the drain, buried deep under the ruins of religious and ethnic jingoism. Yet, it’s not surprising to see Nigerians asking what the problem of our nation is. Tell yourselves the truth. The problem in our country is the paucity of shame and the poverty of values. If you feel comfortable not knowing how to speak your language, or you feel attacked when we criticise the traditional rulers for defacing their palaces with religious inscriptions because of your religion, or you see nothing wrong with governors who contract troublemakers to setup ethnic militias in Nasarawa State yet lied when it backfired, know that you have been had. It may be too late for you, but don’t leave your children in that quagmire.
