Of Anambraians and AnambraRians
M. O. Ené
New Jersey, USA
Friday, March 18, 2005-AFO
ANAMBRA ANARCHY
With all the problems in Anambra State, the last thing anyone wants to worry about is the nouveau Anglais term for a person from Anambra. All Africans are concerned about the political jiggery-pokery in the continent, and so they should. But great literary works have been known to emerge even from atrocious wars. I don’t know where this piece of work is headed; I just think it is something worth writing, an idea that deserves a vent… if only for the release from political world-weariness.
On Anambra
politics proper, I have chipped in my two pence. In “Gospel of the Godfather,” I
highlighted and recommend a simple statement of enviable equity between “father”
and “ son.” Apparently, the PDP panel headed by Oyo State Governor
Olagunsoye Oyinlola was
reading: On
March 10, 2004, both Anambra Governor Chris Ngige and his estranged political
Godfather Chris Uba were expelled from the ruling party. Anyone who expects
Chris Uba to complain needs to re-read this gospel: He wants equal treatment.
And he got it. Let the music play on!
By the way, note also that the emerging peaks in Anambra brouhaha appear on the 10th. Starting with the July 10, 2003 attempted abduction and coup d’état through the November 10, 2004 anarchy that lasted 3 days. Then on January 10, 2005, PDP chairman Audu Innocent Ogbe fell on his own sword for speaking up belatedly on Anambra anarchy. On March 10, 2005, the fence (ngige) on which Ngige had been perching entered into a complex motion that will eventually make or mar his political career, and Anambra would never be the same again. As the Igbo would say: Ngige no n’egwu; nwaokuku no na ngige nokwa n’egwu; i.e. as the fence rocks, so does the little bird perching on it. In other words, as Governor Ngige rocks on the fence, not knowing whether to jump (into AD or APGA) or stay rocking (in PDP until some forces rescue him… again), the fence (the good people of Anambra State) also rocks.
Okay, I know what you are thinking: Jump, Ngige, jump… we can’t take it anymore! Oh no, it is not that easy. There is another dimension: Okija. In Igbo religious ethos, the man is basically a gift of the gods. Depending of how the initial ritual negotiation was reached and the actual terms, 2007 could see this case still simmering. And many more shall be consumed on the trail. I know we don’t want that but, when you enter into a binding agreement with visible forces (Eselu) and invisible forces (Ogwugwu), the devil is etched in the details. But let’s not go there here. I have no deep sympathy for the principal actors in this political theatre of the absurd; my sincerest sympathy goes to the fleeced folks of Africa, especially the concerned citizens of Anambra State who deserve a whole lot better. However, between Ngige and Uba, if it is true that Chris Ngige grew up in Coal City, I am rooting for the Coal Camp boy against the Uwani boy. Never in the history of Enugu has a pupil of Christ Church Uwani come across the Agangwu Stream and the famous Tinker to tough up a pupil of St. Patrick’s Coal Camp. It is not about to start with Chris Ngige losing out to Chris Uba, even though Ngige has shifted base to the Government House, Awka, while Uba moved up town to his own secluded street in the GRAs of Enugu.
PAGE TWO
In his broadcast to the people of Anambra State on Friday, March 11, Governor Ngige greeted: “My Fellow Anambrarians.” I stopped. Curiosity crawled up. The term looked odd all of a sudden. I read it again, and it hit me: Why the second “r”? Is it not bad enough that the term Anambra (from “ana mbara” = expansive land) is losing the “a” -- thereby fouling the Igbo linguistic rule forbidding the use of two consecutive consonants? As I see it, injecting another “r” could easily lead to another spelling variant “Anambrar”!
So I said to myself: “The “r” needs to be investigated.”
I did a simple search. Lo and behold, almost all write-ups that popped up have “Anambrarian.” There was only ONE exception: In an interview on July 23, 2003, Sam Onwuteka, a retired colonel and leader of the Anambra State indigenes resident in Kaduna State, spoke on the security implications of the attempted coup in Anambra, July 10 2003:
Let me state that Dr. Chris Ngige who is the executive governor of Anambra State and Dr. Okey Ude who is the deputy governor of the state are both my friends, we do parley. What I should advise the deputy governor is to think twice and allow peace to reign, that is what we need now. So that every Anambraian can look up to the executive governor, elected governor of the state, support him because Chris Ngige I know has something good for the state.
Knowing Nigerian media and their sloppy spelling habits, I dug deeper, refining the search. Mr. Handel Okoli, speaking on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 for the need for the people to rally round Governor Chris Ngige, said:
I feel very sad about what is going on in the state. Since the creation of the State, we have not really had a stable government. We've never really had a government we can be proud of. It makes one sad that Anambra has become the issue in the whole world, not only in Nigeria, where democracy is being threatened. And I think it is the same with every Anambrarian. There is no Anambra indigene that is happy with what is going on.
Then, surprise surprise, I found myself in the midst: In “Gospel of the Godfather,” I wrote:
Enter Uba. He looked likeable, and I must admit not hating him. My first impression: Here is a young man, an approachable and affable Anambrarian, who will make someone a good uncle but, for now, needs a whole lot of avuncular guidance!
And I was not done. In a 1997 piece on kolanut which, unbeknownst to me, had found its way to Icandfw.org (website of the Igbo community of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas), I read: ... An Imo person who relays kolanut to someone from Enugu may incur the wrath of an Anambrarian who insists that Enugu is an offshoot of Anambra. ...”
Others kept up the tempo. Ekene El-Godage Awuzie titled his piece of Sunday, January 11, 2004 thus: “Between Gov. Chris Ngige and Chris Uba: What Anambrarians Must Do.” In a message board piece posted on 11/05/03, we read the letter of love-struck Steve Osita to Nigerian Sharon Stone, Genevieve Nnaji (“I will like to be connected to Genev. Nnaji):
Dear Genev, I am always on top of the world when I see you on the movie. You impress me so much. My name is Osita Steve, Anambrarian, 22yrs of age. I would like us to be pen pal. :::: I love people like you.
Writing from Onitsha, on Thursday, February 19, 2004, Chinedu Maduabum wrote in The undemolished tollgates:
So, which tollgate am I talking of? Well by now, every true-meaning Anambrarian should have caught the joke. :::: We all know that police checkpoints are good at least to minimize crime but Anambrarians are yet to benefit from the structure.
It goes on. Professor “Ben Nwabueze (SAN), reviewed the political conflicts in Anambra State and declared that ‘for every Anambrarian, it is painful and hurtful to be subjected to ....” Maduabuchi Dukor weighs in on Sunday, November 09, 2003 (Vanguard):
This writer is a full-blooded Anambrarian who decidedly has turned his eagle eye on his people but while perching safely in an iroko tree overlooking the Igbo nation from a hilltop, he sees it all but now with a binocular focus on Anambra State.
NAMING NATIONS: THE PLACE OF PREFIX & SUFFIX
(a) (a) The prefixes “Onye” and “Ndi”
We must always keep in mind the serious and sorry situation in Anambra State. However, my main interest here is the correct use of the Anglicized term for Anambra person (s). I would prefer that the term is not Anglicized, that we find an appropriate Igbo equivalent, especially using the now standard markers: “onye” (person of…) and “ndi” (people of…). Thus, an Anambra person is “Onyeanambara” and the people are “Ndianambara.” As in “Onyeigbo” and “Ndiigbo,” some may not like the de-capitalization of “A” and or the re-admittance of the missing "a"; hence, we may see “OnyeAnambra” or “NdiAnambra.” Others may prefer not to concatenate the markers as in “Ndi Igbo” or "Onye Anambara"
(b) The suffixes “ese,” “ian,” and “ite”
I tried to figure out the correct use of the suffix “ian” in English to designate citizenship of a certain community. I am not an expert in word formation nor in the roots of English lexical items; however, I think the term “Anambrarian” is flat-out wrong. I see the strong attraction from such a familiar pronunciation as “librarian,” but the root wood (“library”) has the extra “r”! “Liberia” does not get an extra “r”; so, we have “Liberian.” It looks even better to use “Anambran” than “Anambrarian.”
To reassure myself that I was not walking into a big bush with eyes wide shut, I consulted foremost Igbo linguist Dr. Ejike Eze of Uwandiigbo.com for a quick reality-check. The Omenka agreed with me that the spelling of the word to which we are applying the suffix “ian” should not generally be altered; “the suffix should just be appended…. However, there are instances where a people conventionally choose to deviate from this practice.” In essence, there should be no hard-and-fast rule about what a people want to call themselves.
And that set me thinking: What do people the world over call themselves and how are the names related to their country or community? I traveled from Alaska to Zimbabwe … mentally, that is, and from Alabama to Zagreb. There is indeed no etched rule, but no coinage supports the introduction of an extra “r”; not one. Check these out:
Afghan (Afghanistan) Angolan (Angola); Bangladeshi (Bangladesh); Belgian (Belgium); Beninese (Benin); Bostonian (Boston); Briton/ British (Britain); Burkinabe (Burkina Faso); Cameroonian (Cameroon); Chadian (Chad); Chinese (China); Congolese (Congo); Cypriot (Cyprus); Czech (formerly Czechoslovakia, now simply Czech)) English (England); Ephesians (Ephesus); French (France); Gabonese (Gabon); German (Germany); Ghanaian (Ghana); Greek (Greece); Haitian (Haiti); Hungarian (Hungary); Iranian (Iran); Iraqi (Iraq); Irish (Ireland); Israeli (Israel); Japanese/Nippon (Japan); Lagosian (Lagos); Londoner (London); Maltese (Malta); Mozambican (Mozambique); Muscovite (Moscow); New Yorker (New York); Pakistani (Pakistan); Parisian (Paris); Pole (Poland) Portuguese (Portugal); Scot (Scotland); Sierra Leonean (Sierra Leone); Slovak (Slovakia); Somali (Somalia); Spaniard/Spanish (Spain); Sudanese (Sudan); Swazi (Swaziland); Swiss (Switzerland); Tanzanian (Tanzania) Thessalonians (Thessalonica); Tibetan (Tibet); Togolese (Togo); Washingtonian (Washington); Welsh (Wales); Yugoslav (Yugoslavia); Zambian (Zambia); etc.
Obviously, there are no sure-banker standards in English for naming a people of any nation; “ihe onye kporo nkita ya ka o na-aza.” After all, a name is merely a nomenclatural tag that distinguishes one thing from another. However, I must insist that “Anambrarian” is fundamentally flawed. I don’t know how the error seeped in; it could be something in Igbo linguistic group that longs for a consonant whenever vowels overwhelm the tongue. Take Ghanaian: Many Nigerians still find it ever so hard to use the correct term. You still read and hear “Ghananian” from all over. A simple search will google-out a fantasy world of “Ghananians.” Who are these Ghanan people.
And who are the future Anambrar people? That’s what I am talking about.
CONCLUSION:
We must be careful how we leave words around. It is generally unsafe to form plurals and to apply suffixes using the English model. However, when we must go that route, let’s do it in such a way that the root word is not altered. [See Igbo: The correct representation] The Afenifere were quick to stamp out “Yorubas”—and many media practitioners complied. On the contrary, many Igbo writers still argue when told to drop “Igbos” or to stop thinking of the Igbo nation as a tribe or to stop using “warlord” to describe the leader of independent Biafra. One day, someone would ask an Igbo (man or woman):
“Are you of the Igbos tribe where the Biafra warlord is the overall king?”
I guess the reason why Côte d’Ivoire stopped everyone from translating the name (Ivory Coast in English) into their languages is obvious. This lesson is not just for Anambraians (yes, that’s the correct term) it also applies to Abians, Aniomans, Ebonyians, Enuguites, Imoans, and Riverians. Are these accepted and understood in such a way that no one will some day think that “Abians” are people from “Ab” or that Ebonyians are “Ebony” people!? Ah ha, now you get the drift. Everything else is embellishment.
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Dr. M. O. Ené’s latest book “Blighted Blues,” will be published this April by Adonis Abbey,
London, www.adonis-abbey.com)