We are all Infidels In United Kingdom: Everybody Carries His/Her Own Christian Cross

A Muslim guy once tried to persuade me to become a Muslim. I laughed loudly to the point that he became angry on his presumption that I was ridiculing Islam. To allay his anxiety, I said you are my friend, but there’s something you don’t know about me – I have practised in the past, Islam and so many other religions.

But if you have a British passport, by implication you are a follower of Jesus, which invariably makes you a Christian. He interrupted me – I have a British passport and that does not make a Christian, I am a British Muslim. Fair enough. Now, consider this perspective.

Biafra/IgboLand: A Nation That Shall Surely Come To Be

Couple of weeks ago, I was on a Lufthansa flight to New York to attend a seminar on ‘threats posed by Bitcoin against the traditional system of payment’. Bitcoin, by the way, is a digital payment system that occurs directly between individuals, which effectively eliminates financial intermediaries – such as banks and other financial institutions.

Anyway, seated next to me on the plane was a German whom, through our discussion, I found out was also going to New York for the same purpose as me. We chatted on different topics ranging from financial markets to terrorism to politics and etc. In the midst of our discussion he said; Oh I forgot to introduce myself – my name is… and I am from Germany. While he was waiting to know me, rather a big silence stood between us.

Then I regained my consciousness and noticed the bemusement on his face. I said to him, it is not that I have forgotten my name is…, but I was considering how to explain to you that I am from IgboLand. He asked where IgboLand is. It is a colony of Nigeria. He said then you should be a Nigerian. I said no.

Battered, But Resilient: The Citizens of Nigeria

Lord Byron, a British Poet, once wrote; “though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.” He didn’t love his countrymen because, in his thinking, they didn’t understand him, especially when Lady Caroline Lamb described him as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.

But in my own case, I love my countrymen; I do not love my country. I do not love my country because Nigeria as a country can only be described as “mad, bad and dangerous to [live in]”. Some people may question the difference between a country and countrymen? In this instance, Nigeria is a country controlled by a few people – the oppressors – they are the country. While the oppressed are the countrymen.