I LOVE NIGERIANS

I LOVE NIGERIANS Nigerians are the colonial patchwork of the British , much like we Americans. Hausa, Fulani, Ibo, and a host of others, Christian and Muslim make up Nigeria, where the “Biafra War” was fought in the 1960s & 1970s. When I was at Howard I had some very good friends who were from Nigeria. One of them, Toxi Yomi Takosi, flew to St. Louis from Lagos in 1974, in order to attend my first wedding. I have lost touch with him. While practicing law in Kansas City, Missouri, I was blessed to have several clients from Nigeria and one Nigerian friend among the ranks of lawyers. They were good to me. I viewed them as black not by nation. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the founder of free Nigeria obtained a Master’s degree, at Howard University. Like me, we are linked by place of our beloved pedagogy. We are kindred alumni. I landed in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1983, while beginning a 3-week tour of East and Southern Africa . We had made earlier plane stops in Dakar , Senegal and Abidjan, Ivory Coast, before reaching Lagos without drama or incident. All was quietly sedate. But Lord! in Lagos, when that plane began to fill up with Nigerians, a party broke out! Not true, literally, but atmospherically, as seasoned black Americans had said it would. Nigerians are energy ! My seat -mate on our 12-hour flight across Africa was going on a Hajj to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. I learned this by gestures and my Michelin map. He spoke no English . I spoke no Arabic . But we communicated to the point that I was able to trade with this northern Nigerian Muslim: he traded his airplane meat for my butter! I named him El-Hajj Hussein. He loved my naming him honorably.