by Derin Adebayo

These past few days there has been a lot of tribalism on display on Twitter. It was all started by the Tribalist-in-Chief, President Mohammadu Buhari who decided to launch something called operation python dance, which apparently means ordering the armed forces to harass and extort innocent Nigerians travelling home to eastern states for Christmas.

However, the ridiculously named operation is not what this article is about. Just like it’s not really what all the tribalism is about. It was just the right avenue for misguided tribalists to display their ignorance.

This article is about two of the favourite arguments of tribalists.

Nigeria is a mere geographic construct created by colonial masters.

How am I supposed to be a Nigerian first? 'Nigeria is a mere geographical expression'

— IKECHUKWU (@iykimo) December 25, 2016

'One Nigeria' is a colonial enterprise fuelled myth. https://t.co/fR2sO08frM

— lojban (@sageseid) December 24, 2016

Every country is a mere geographic construct. It doesn’t matter if you believe in the creationist theory of the world or in the big bang. The fact is, when God created the earth or the big bang happened, there was nothing like Nigeria, but there was also nothing like the United States, Germany, Canada or South Africa.

United States is a mixed pot of immigrants, adventurers and the native population. Germany was once two separate countries divided by a huge wall. Canada has both a French and an English speaking population. South Africa, on the other hand, has twelve official languages (which are all present in their lovely national anthem).

The difference between these countries and Nigeria is not that Nigeria is a “mere geographic entity” but that the citizens of these countries understand that to progress they need to work together.

I identify as [Insert Tribe Here] first before Nigerian, because [Insert Tribe Here] existed before Nigeria.

But we are actually our tribes first. We were our tribes way before Nigeria came to be. https://t.co/F8ObcWvaDc

— Chi (@JajaPhD) December 25, 2016

This argument is particularly retarded. If someone makes this point to you, tell the person that he should identify as a great ape. After all, before there was [Insert Tribe Here] and before they evolved to human beings, his ancestors were great apes and identified as such. Also, only a great ape would make such a retarded argument.

Our ancestors, the homo sapiens first appeared in Africa. So every human being today is the descendant of Africans. But if a 32 year old Caucasian born and bred in Germany says he identifies as African before German, we would think he is insane. And rightly so.

As a person you first identify as a son or daughter, you grow up, get married and then identify as a wife. This doesn’t erase, invalidate or supercede your identity as a son or daughter. The further back you go the more you see that identity is fluid. The people who walked the same ground you’re stepping on right now 200 years ago did not claim the same identity as the people who walked it 500 years ago.

In Conclusion

Every group, from a newly wed couple to an entire nation, survives, not because it is homogeneous. But because instead of magnifying perceived differences, they chose to work through them intelligently. I’ll close this article with some advice from my favourite modern day philosopher Alain De Botton. It’s advice for married couples, but I’m going to paraphrase here because it also applies to a country struggling with multiculturalism.

The people who are best suited to live together in a country are not those who share every similarity (that doesn’t exist), but the people who can negotiate differences intelligently — the people who are good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect unity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” nation. Unity is an achievement for a country; it must not be its precondition.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

The author tweets @DerinAdebayo