Thought Picnic: Identity Formed by Timing

Returning After War

Way back in my late teens, I had a friend, or someone I thought was a friend. We were agemates, and something interesting and significant caught my attention. It seemed that those who returned from the UK at the end of the Nigerian Civil War integrated better, taking up the growing opportunities in a recovering country, than those who did so almost a decade later.

Between those who returned well under the age of ten and those in their early teens, there was a generational difference in adaptation, a sense of being caught adrift. Staying in the UK for longer proved less beneficial to their sense of belonging or identity; though they had better English accents, they were unsettled, and sometimes having a less prosperous time of it.

A Shared Beginning

For some context, the people I write about and I were all born in the UK in the 1960s. I returned to Nigeria well under the age of ten, having barely been exposed to inner city mechanics and situations; they returned in their teens, late in the 1970s. What separated us, then, was not origin but timing. We were cut from the same cloth, yet a few years of divergence would shape us differently.

My observations are, of course, anecdotal rather than academic. Even so, I think the age-of-return hypothesis is significant, and I have alluded to it in other blogs. It is the quiet variable running beneath everything I am about to describe.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

What They Brought

What they brought into the fray was a sense of fun. They were the best chess players and had figured out how to solve the Rubik's cube, though they were not better Scrabble players. The Nigerian educational system was a challenge, amongst the other things that left them yearning to return to the UK, if only they had the opportunity.

They were a restless lot, and of the many, there were two who, on reflection, had been exposed to the race and deprivation politics and the discrimination of the 1970s into the 1980s. They carried the scars of inner-city influences, influences that would not have engendered the most positive sense of self and status, even in Nigeria.

They were suspicious before they were trusting, questioning more than listening, ready to respond with violence on a dare without first putting things in perspective. That people envied their exposure, without understanding how they were the personification of a social construct beyond their control, one that amounted to a material deficit, could make for an interesting study.

An Identity Formed at Home

Here is where the timing mattered most. My blackness was always simply part of me, and that was settled in Nigeria, quietly and without apology, long before it was ever questioned. I grew up where blackness needed no explanation and carried no burden; it was simply the ground I stood on. There was nothing to defend, because nothing had been challenged.

So, when I returned to the UK, and the racist abuse came, as it did, it met an identity that was already whole. The abuse did not shape how I saw myself; it had arrived too late for that. I could regard it as a reflection of the abuser rather than a depiction of myself, precisely because the depiction had been drawn elsewhere, at home, on my own terms.

The teenage returnees, I suspect, had that sequence reversed. Their sense of racial self was worked out amid the hostility, not before it, and so the hostility got inside, where mine never could.

A Sudden Slap

This friend of mine gave me a stinging slap after a dare, a playful situation that suddenly turned strange. It taught me a few things. I would not rise to a dare that I had no intention of acting on in the first place. I do not care if I am called a chicken; they are the hardiest and most abused of animals, and they probably possess the greatest survival instinct and resilience in the animal kingdom.

As a consequence, I have no fear of missing out. I am usually told that I do not know what I am missing, to which I would respond that I cannot miss what I do not know. A slap is a momentary event with no follow-on; the embarrassment quickly fades into irrelevance. My temperament is not conditioned for violence. I am comfortable letting things slide, because what defines me is character, not machismo. Class is always understated, never dramatic.

On Character and Circumstance

I think environments and societal settings can influence character as much as mould it, though to varying extents. I cannot speak to the sociological truth of that. Yet I am left wondering whether my own equanimity was truly character, or simply the good fortune of a gentler formative environment, a self settled before it was ever tested.

Perhaps that is the paradox worth sitting with. The returnees had the richer exposure by one measure, the metropolitan UK, the accents, the chess and the Rubik's cube, yet the more unsettled outcome by another. I had the lesser exposure, yet the steadier sense of who I was. Sometimes, it seems, less can be more.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Heritage Without Nostalgia

Observing Heritage from a Distance

Two events this month should have created a kind of nostalgia in me, but I seriously failed to be excited about either. I had become an observer of sorts of elements that have formed part of my identity.

Whilst in Cape Town, there was the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey on the 9^th of March, and then yesterday came the conclusion of the first UK state visit in 37 years by a West African head of state, the Nigerian one. [The Royal Family: State Visit by The President and First Lady of Nigeria]

The first event gained significance through someone I follow on Twitter/X who had been invited to a reception at St James's Palace, though he could not attend because he was indisposed. As an activist for Nigerian immigrant causes, he had become prominent enough to be noticed and recognised as an important Nigerian diaspora figure.

For the state banquet at Windsor Castle, several people of Nigerian heritage were invited to represent the Nigerian community, many of whom have stronger roots in the United Kingdom than in Nigeria.

An English Identity

My living parents are Nigerian, but I was born in England, and though I have strong influences of Nigeria in my identity framework, I do not identify as such. To any question about where I am from, I respond that I am an Englishman, and I am originally from England.

This is reinforced by the fact that two-thirds of my life has been spent in Europe. Even for ethnic purposes, I would describe myself as Black English rather than the typical Black British or Black African.

This distinction matters to me because Black British functions as an umbrella term that groups together vastly different backgrounds and experiences, often implying a hyphenated identity or connection to a diaspora narrative.

Black English, by contrast, centres my English identity as primary. It asserts that I am English who happens to be Black, rather than suggesting divided loyalties or perpetual newcomer status.

The choice is deliberate: it reflects where I was born, where I belong, and how I understand myself. It challenges the assumption that Blackness and Englishness are somehow contradictory, and it refuses to accept that “English” is synonymous with “white.” For someone like me, whose connection to Nigeria exists more in memory than in meaningful attachment, this specificity matters.

The Outsider's Accent

I can reminisce about aspects of childhood and development that have served me well from having lived in Nigeria, yet for the simple reason that I had an accent, I was always an outsider.

That accent was no affectation; it was the sound of my formative years, the linguistic imprint of the England where I first learned to speak, to think, to understand the world. By the time we moved to Nigeria, my identity architecture was already established.

The English pronunciation I arrived with immediately identified me as different. In the playground, in the classroom, even within extended family gatherings, the way I spoke became a constant reminder that I did not belong in the same way others did.

Children would mimic my speech, adults would comment on how I sounded “British” or call me “Òyìnbó,” and I became known as “Ọmọ ìlú Òyìnbó,” the boy born abroad, or more literally, the child born in white-man’s land.

The accent was an audible barrier that no amount of time or adaptation could fully erase, a daily declaration of otherness that shaped my understanding of where I truly belonged.

The irony, of course, is that this very accent that made me perpetually foreign in Nigeria was simply part of the spectrum of English voices from the West Midlands. In Nigeria, I was told daily through reactions to my speech that I was foreign; in England, I simply was.

My parents, who moved from Nigeria to England and back, could navigate both worlds with the fluency of belonging. They spoke the languages without pronounced accents, understood the unspoken rules, carried the cultural memory in their bones. I had none of these inheritances.

Where they were returning home, I was simply living abroad. This distinction, between inherited belonging and biographical accident, crystallised my understanding that identity is not a matter of bloodline but of lived experience and genuine connection.

The experience taught me something fundamental: identity is not about where others place you, but where you place yourself, and where you are recognised as belonging without constant explanation.

Detachment and Memory

In terms of identity, whilst I am interested in what goes on in Nigeria, I am more detached than ever. The closest association nowadays depends on whether my flight between France or the Netherlands and Cape Town flies over the Nigerian landmass, where place names trigger some memory or recognition from more than 50 years ago.

In general, I have determined there is no reason to visit Nigeria since I left over 35 years ago. I have the name, I have the influences, I have the memories, but the nostalgia has fully settled into obsolescence and insignificance.

Gratitude Without Nostalgia

Yet I love that Nigeria was part of my upbringing because it strengthened elements of self-identity, self-esteem, and self-respect. For that alone, I am grateful for the Nigerian experience, as it reinforces the context and sense of who I am.

God bless Nigeria, for when things are going well in Nigeria, there is less anxiety for all of us associated, even in the remotest sense, with Nigeria.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Committing The Treason of Solitude

Misunderstood Perceptions

How I am viewed by others leaves me baffled, if not surprised. If I am not generally considered a curmudgeon, it is assumed I have a temperament easily disposed to petty angst and fits of pique, with a tendency to take offence without cause.

How this figment of imagination takes hold and plays out, as if an alter ego of mine has supplanted my reality and taken my place interacting with others, escapes me. It would be unkind to suggest others are getting ahead of themselves.

My True Nature

In my mind, I would think those with whom I have issues would be in no doubt that I have issues with them, despite every desire for them to think they have done nothing wrong.

Much as I tend to be a loner, keeping to myself and enjoying my own company in the confines of my bedroom, oblivious of the world, I do not pick a grudge for the sake of being contrarian.

The Demands of Others

Indeed, there are times I want to be left well alone. It is a prerogative I seem to have no unilateral licence to exercise without question; there are people who simply need my engagement regardless of my situation.

Tribute, attention, communication and calls must be made or answered, or an inquiry is instituted bordering on an inquisition. My guilt is decided without the option for innocence, all in a day, or even shorter, between dawn and dusk.

No Hiding Place

In this, I have no hiding place. My solitude is a room with too many keys, distributed freely to others who enter at will, demanding tribute in the form of my time, my attention and my immediate response. No excuse is ever good enough for breaking formation; I must meet expectations or face sanction.

If I had the temerity to consider changing the locks, just imagine how the charge of treason would stick, because I belong to something beyond myself. My boundaries and borders are without demarcation, access taken rather than given.

Why does a moment cloud and crowd out the significance of the enduring, from which the narrative and story bear their existence? I suppose I would never understand where, for some, the spectrum of security is transient, whilst for others it is a bond of endurance that cannot be nicked by ephemeral conniptions.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

The Boy Born Abroad

An Unexpected Journey

When I was asked if I wanted to go to Nigeria about 55 years ago, no one intimated to me that it was a permanent move. I thought we were going on holiday. I suppose I was not that perceptive, even with my known precocity, to notice the excitement in my parents' urgings, nor the significance of that final night in England when all their friends gathered for a send-off.

The place to which my parents belonged, and which they called home, eager to return, having watched the Nigerian Civil War for years until it ended, was foreign, different, and strange. But I had no choice in the matter. They were my guardians; I was their ward. The common idea was that, as a child, I would adapt, adjust, and adhere.

A Different Reality

No sooner had we landed than the first thing I noticed was that there were more of us and fewer of them. Nigeria hits you with a kind of alternative reality. I could only wonder whether having other siblings in England might have altered the idea of taking us back before my parents had settled down. Things would most definitely have been easier than being an only child.

In the approximately two decades that I lived in Nigeria, I had assimilated to an extent, yet I was very much an alien. Even though my accent had been affected, it had not radically changed to the extent that I could not be differentiated as having some foreign influence.

Besides, something daily reminded me of being other than among. From address to observation, a middle-class bubble placed me in a kind of elite and a place of privilege. Those of us born abroad seemed to have a built-in ET beacon calling home: abroad.

Then again, we all seemed to have endured Nigeria for as long as parental or guardian influence could keep us, before we mostly took flight as soon as we completed tertiary education. Something could be written about the exodus of kids born abroad in the 1960s, once they could.

A Turning Point

I even had a kind of fantasy. I was involved in some interesting projects where I, unusually, dictated my own terms, a daring born out of earlier precociousness that had matured into a fearless tendency to assert when, typically, others might deflect and genuflect.

I walked into a visa office with enough documentation that the conversation left the idea of granting the visa for exchanging anecdotes about other applicants who might have given the consular officer a second career full of material to be a successful stand-up comedian.

He was even urging me to apply for a British passport, but the lead time from lodging an application to getting an interview was 18 months. I just did not have the time when I was travelling the next week to get kit for a company in which I owned 30% equity.

However, after a fortnight in England, during which Maggie Thatcher was turfed out of Downing Street, it took me just four weeks to decide I had had enough of Nigeria. This was exacerbated by my partner in the firm. My original idea of visiting England at will had given way to leaving Nigeria for new opportunities, and that was executed with precision.

Roots and Reflections

As I write this blog post, I would have been flying into London Heathrow on a delayed flight from Lagos 35 years ago today. I have never returned, even as I cherished the quality of heritage and stories Nigeria gave me. I was always that boy born abroad in a white man's land.

That anyone still holds the prospect of a jaunt to the fatherland or motherland is interesting to the point of amusement.

I never had the emotional, nostalgic luxury of a dreamy reconnection with my roots, as my roots were never there, even as my ancestry is grounded there. The funny thing is, I still have my last boarding card from my departure from Nigeria. It was a different time.

My boarding pass from 1990

Thought Picnic: Escaping bubbles to create experiences

The beauty of having bubbles

I remember a conversation with a friend, a father of mixed-race children being raised in a progressive northern European country. He said he would bring them up in the bubble they have for as long as possible, so when they meet the world outside, they would do so with the assurance and confidence of knowing where they come from, without any fear of what they might face.

There is a rawness in humanity that growing up in a bubble shields us from. It provides protections that allow us to grow and develop the mental strength to handle both ourselves and situations, before we are exposed to what might shock, traumatise, disgust, or simply irritate us. This is a sometimes poorly understood aspect of a good upbringing.

I was raised in a bubble of sorts, in middle-class privilege with some trappings of wealth but never excess. Having what we needed, we exuded confidence without the need to keep up with the Joneses. Though my parents had risen from diminished circumstances and established their position in society through education and achievement, we were and are different from our parents.

A different kind of bubble

I was born in England, cocooned from the forms of racism and challenges faced by many foreigners in the 1960s, which greatly coloured their view of living in England. The primary schools I attended in Nigeria had most foreign pupils. It is amusing to think that most of our white schoolmates were Nigerian-born, with typical mixed Nigerian accents, while most of us black children were born abroad, speaking with foreign and usually English accents.

We lived in bubbles of privilege and access, but as we grew older, we were exposed to a different world, sometimes to the more privileged and sometimes to those less fortunate. Not to look down on others or feel superior, but to appreciate our good fortune along with respecting others, and where opportunity does allow, we lift them up.

Bubbles as anchors aweigh

For a bubble to exist, it needs an atmosphere. It moves within that atmosphere for a while, then bursts to merge with the surroundings. Yet every sight of a bubble in the air excites, especially children. There’s colour, there’s floating, and a longing for it to last before it bursts. Then, new bubbles are formed.

I recognise the bubble of society I come from; it has given me a sense of adventure and curiosity that has served me well in many places. I am comfortable in my own skin, speak and express myself with confidence, and I rarely feel out of place wherever I find myself. In terms of dress, I might not be as inconspicuous as I would like, but I have no issue with that.

My bubble to the world

How it has helped me navigate systems and structures is interesting. How to communicate and set the terms by which I expect to be treated with respect, courtesy, and dignity, without being aloof. I aim to be approachable, just as I am not wary of approach. I respect people without any sense of obsequiousness towards wealth or status; you need two heads to really scare me.

It’s those qualities my childhood bubble gave me: a combination of fieriness and finesse that taught me to seek rather than sequester, to experience rather than shield, to wonder and understand difference instead of settling into indolence and ignorance of others. I venture where others draw back; there is much to learn from escaping the bubble rather than seeking to be hermetically sealed in an echo chamber.

My fear is not of others, but of not being better. Life’s experiences leave me grateful and thankful for everything. There is much to do and many things to see beyond ourselves; only a few seize those opportunities for growth and renewal. You can have your bubble, but you must also exist in the world around it.

Nigeria, some hail thee

Nigeria, off my mind

On the first of October, Nigeria celebrated its 65th year of independence; however, in my mind, I let the day slip away with a sense of the uneventful.

As the thought crossed my mind, I realised that, despite the heritage, childhood experiences, memories, and influences, these are all vital parts of my being, though my affinity for Nigeria has diminished to the phrase, ‘my parents are Nigerian’.

Thirty-five years after I left Nigeria for the final time, I have no desire to visit or revisit any part of the seemingly privileged, idyllic childhood I once experienced there.

Even so, I am as estranged as anyone can be from any of the relations and relationships that once contributed to what might be called a sense of identity. It was a place; it was never home.

Relating to Nigeria

The independence days of yore, when Nigeria was still a young nation, were celebrated under a series of murderous military juntas, whose many names and roles I still recall. How we endured the sweltering heat on parade grounds, ready to march before military governors taking the salute on a dais.

One cannot forget how the Nigerian anthem of that era, written in 1959 but replaced by socialist-themed lyrics in 1978, remained etched in the mind as more representative of Nigeria’s story, until it was readopted in 2024. Although I have not personally sung it again, it felt like a Nigeria I could relate to.

Belonging elsewhere

My sense of belonging today is to the land of my birth and a land of my dreams, along with a land of desire from where I found a love beyond compare, England, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Nigeria is a place I view from 10,000 metres when travelling at a land speed of 960 kilometres per hour. The moving map on the aeroplane shows cities as we traverse from the middle of the north through to the southeast into Cameroon.

As I get less encumbered by detachment, I appreciate Nigeria’s contribution without acceding to any concept of being possessed by it. It was a place I was taken to, a place where I never truly belonged.

Thought Picnic: As Words Shape Our Understanding

The Language of Identity

There is something profoundly fascinating about the power of language and how a simple misspelling can open doors to philosophical musings.

Recently, I encountered a thought-provoking juxtaposition—"child" misspelt as "chide"—and it sparked a reflection on the delicate dance between correction and nurturing that defines our relationships.

The twin burdens of correction and care

"There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." This phrase has lingered in my consciousness, revealing layers of meaning about how we navigate our connections with others.

To "chide" represents the corrective aspect of relationships—the moments when we feel compelled to guide, correct, or redirect. These instances of criticism shape the dynamics between parent and child, teacher and student, mentor and mentee. The way we deliver these corrections speaks volumes about our values and communication skills.

Yet, the "child" symbolises investment and responsibility. We "pay" not merely in financial terms but through emotional commitment, sleepless nights, and the constant balancing of protection versus independence. This metaphorical payment represents the sacrifice inherent in nurturing another's development.

Finding one's voice in linguistic exploration

What fascinates me about this wordplay is how it illuminates the delicate balance required in meaningful relationships. Too much criticism without demonstrated care creates resentment; excessive indulgence without guidance leads to underdeveloped potential.

I'm reminded of other linguistic explorations, like discovering the Yoruba word "àwọ̀dọ̀" for "wrist" alongside variations like "Ìgbànkáwọ́" (literally "joint of the hand"). Language offers multiple pathways to understand and describe our reality, just as relationships offer multiple approaches to correction and nurturing.

The perspective of experience

Having navigated my own complex journey—including health challenges that have shaped my perspective—I've come to appreciate how words and relationships intertwine. When I faced cancer treatment, the words others chose either strengthened or diminished me. Similarly, how we "chide" and how we "pay" in our relationships determines whether those connections flourish or wither.

The juxtaposition of these concepts reminds me of what I've observed in Manchester—the countless human interactions that reveal our deep need for both guidance and support. Whether it's the passionate polemicist on the bus expressing unresolved grievances or the young men seeking viral fame through destructive acts, we see the consequences of imbalance between criticism and care.

A consideration of others

At its core, this reflection on "chide" and "child" speaks to consideration—recognising others and treating them with the respect we ourselves desire. The unwritten code of conduct that guides civil society rests on this simple principle.

Perhaps the African proverb puts it best: "A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." In our words and actions, we either offer the warmth of belonging or risk driving others to destructive means of being noticed.

As I continue to contemplate this linguistic interplay, I'm reminded that in both words and relationships, balance is everything. There is much to say about how we correct, and much to pay in how we nurture—and finding harmony between these aspects may be the most important work we do.

Postscript: This conversation started with thoughts on a WhatsApp chat where I surmised, "There is much to say about the chide and much to pay about the child." The rest results from interactions with a number of AI bots writing in my style.

Is Kemi Badenoch suffering a midlife identity crisis?

Kemi’s Nigerian baggage

Once again, Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, is in the news, not for policy ideas on how she intends to lead His Majesty’s government, if she becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but by defining herself against her Nigerian ancestry.

Her new tirade is about how she no longer sees herself as Nigerian, while how you identify is quite left to the individual. One can only wonder if our principal is suffering an identity crisis in trying to situate herself comfortably in the minds of the electorate she desperately needs to appeal to. [The Guardian: Kemi Badenoch says she no longer sees herself as Nigerian despite upbringing]

Gosh! A baby girl

The difference between her and me? I did have a childhood I vividly remember in the UK, born of parents who were students and residents rather than of a mother gaming the system for pecuniary advantage, the likes of whom forced the government of Margaret Thatcher to change the rules of birthright citizenship.

Kemi might protest until she is blue in the face that her mother was not engaged in birth tourism and consequently she herself was not an accidental anchor baby, but let us speculate on how having a medical doctor father in Nigeria, it was expedient for her mother to travel to the UK for medical treatment, and then she pops out in a maternity hospital, how convenient.

On the other hand, my mother was heavily pregnant with my sister, as anyone would have noticed in the last picture we took before boarding the plane on our departure from the UK. How things might have been different if someone had counselled my mother about the need to anticipate the opportunities Kemi now has for her then-unborn daughter.

Embracing all influences

I identify with Nigeria by heritage and influence through some of my formative years, but now, I have spent about 40 years living in Europe, and I do not define myself through the denigration of Nigeria as she does. When I was in primary school, most of us Black kids had foreign accents, and our schoolmate children of immigrants or expatriates in Nigeria mostly had Nigerian accents.

I am broadly European, even though I have a mastery of Yoruba and an understanding of Hausa. I do not pretend to know Nigeria that well, and I spent more time than Kemi in Nigeria, but left 35 years ago.

I'm affected daily by Nigeria because I have family and relations there, and a thriving and prosperous Nigeria is a comfort for all of us of Nigerian heritage in the diaspora. Yes, there are bad memories as there are fond memories, but it is in the UK that I have experienced muggings, racism, prejudice, and all sorts of attacks on the person.

I didn't live in the Netherlands for 13 years, trying to please the Dutch by putting down England or Nigeria, I embraced all influences that make up my third culture kid identity.

She needs a better narrative

In Kemi’s case, it is both political and personal, the need to constantly redefine herself in the context of Nigeria. If we set aside the circumstances of her birth through her mother for some unforeseen benefit as the story gets told, her pronouncements framed in a negative mindset about Nigeria are becoming unfortunate.

Eventually, someone is going to ask her what she intends to do in government and whether she can drop the Nigerian baggage she lugs around as a chip on her shoulder and see herself as just a black English girl who happens to have Nigerian parents.

I have no problems saying I am an Englishman with a Nigerian heritage and European influences, accent and all. More importantly, I am comfortable in my own skin; I dare say, she exhibits a form of self-loathing with an eagerness to belong and please.

Nigerians getting agitated by each outburst by Kemi are missing the point. The issue is not Nigeria; Kemi is still struggling with who she thinks she is, and well into midlife, she has not found a clearly positive narrative to embrace all the influences that make up her multifaceted identity.

Iya Banji

From whence we came

The kind of life my parents served me created a radically different history and story from the one they had experienced. More fundamentally, what defined their childhood from the little village where they made their first friends to the unforgettable memories that they have rarely shared separates us even further.

Though I have some fond memories of visiting our hometown and meeting with cousins, grandparents, and distant relations, I find none of the affinity for the place as one parent does, and another so thoroughly reviles. I have no such identity with the place except in the compulsion and diktat of my forebears; I was last there about forty years ago.

Significantly, these people who once came out of that town and travelled the world as it was their oyster and, in the process, became successful professionals of every sort, have returned to this place to retire enjoying the good fortune of old age and the misery of watching peers and juniors pass away around them.

Balls on the road

One memory best told in our dialect of Ìjẹ̀bú, in which I have the most laughable proficiency, if any at all, finds its best delivery in my faulting but unmistakable recollection.

My mother was driving from Lagos to Ijesha-Ijebu with my aunt, who was my dad’s immediate younger sibling. She was known to us through the name of her first son, and it was evidently disrespectful of us all, because he is the first and eldest of all our maternal and paternal cousins.

As we passed from Ikenne towards Ilishan, on the home straight to Ijesha-Ijebu, the spare tyre in the undercarriage at the back of the Peugeot 504 she was driving detached and fell onto the road. Someone called in Ìjẹ̀bú that the testicles had fallen. “Wóró ẹ̀ ti jábọ́ o.”

We stopped and I went to pick up the tyre, rolled it up to the car and fixed it back to the undercarriage, securing it properly with the clip. My mum and aunt were out of the car, watching that everything was done properly. As I finished, my aunt quipped in Ìjẹ̀bú, “Well, the person of whom it has been said their testicles have fallen, now has them tied back up in the sack.” “Ọni rán fọ wóró ẹ̀ jábọ́, nà tí so padà yẹ̀n.”

In tribute and sympathy

This remains one of the lasting memories of my aunt, her great sense of humour delivered dead pan with such seriousness, yet you could not fail to get the joke, which by happenstance was also the spelling of her name, meaning who we care for together, she was no joke, by any stretch of the imagination.

A hardworking, strong, purposeful woman and a purveyor of wholesale foodstuffs, she was kind-hearted, lovely, approachable, and ever so considerate. Definitely, one of the best of my father’s siblings. She was the female leader of the Muslims of our hometown.

I learnt Monday afternoon that she had passed on, and she was interred according to Islamic rites on Sunday. Better to rewrite the feelings expressed here, unfortunate as it seems, each person has their individual issues and perspective of things, that might never be that well understood.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. (Al-Quran 2:156) “Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return.”

Every pretension to Africa for Africa Day

Africa Day in Manchester

I had planned nothing for the past Bank Holiday weekend except to catch up on some much-needed rest and sleep when I was offered a ticket to attend the Echoes of Africa event at Aviva Studios/Factory International on Saturday the 24^th.

This was in commemoration of Africa Day, previously known as African Freedom Day or African Liberation Day, initiated by the Organisation of African Unity on the 25^th of May 1963.

Looking at the agenda of events running from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM, I was unsure if I had the stamina for 7 hours of potential revelry and entertainment, but I was determined to show up, if only out of gratitude for the invitation.

Please, I’m not fooled.

The Live Painting Workshop, which had begun in the early afternoon, was already underway when I arrived. I took a seat on one of the long sofas at the back, and I tempered my cynicism regarding the artistry of the participants, who were pretending to represent some essence of Africa. It easily resembled a messy children’s paint class, yet people of all generations were engaged in it.

We have been led to believe that a certain combination of vibrant colours and abstract shapes is representative of Africa in context or origin; it reflected everything Toto’s Africa was, but not the reality of what Africa is. The inspiration for the song originated from a late-night documentary about Africa and likely the recollections of missionaries to Africa who became teachers for American schoolchildren.

An unrelatable discussion

The next item on the agenda, beyond the over-representation of Nigerians on the discussion panel, focused on a topic likely more suited for those seeking a career in Afrobeats or some contemporary genre of African music. Having first met a lady of Portuguese and Guinea-Bissau descent who knew the lyrics to everything the female disc jockey played; I spent more time with a grandmother of Caribbean heritage tending to her noticeably Caucasian grandson.

Indeed, what is now deemed the music of Africa is quite pervasive; it has a global audience, and collaborations are extending its reach into places one would never have expected such music to resonate.

Yet, in my conversation with the grandmother, I thought a more relevant topic would be how we preserve the significance of our African heritage in the diaspora and provide younger generations a sense of belonging in the various spheres that influence education, experience, and identity.

Music and fashion to the world

Perhaps this was not the forum for such a cerebral debate, and thus far, it had only intensified my scepticism regarding the purpose of this gathering. Each time we were urged to make more noise like Africans, there was a feeling that English reserve had crept upon us unawares.

The live music performances were interesting, but I knew none of the artists or their music, and I was barely connecting until one performer took the stage like the Bobby Caldwell of Afrobeats.

If there were no visuals, one would imagine the performer hailed from a large city in Africa; he had mastered everything and could pass for being as good as the popular Afrobeats artists.

Then came the fashion show; the mispronounced words by the compere regarding atelier to Aso oke were quickly forgiven when it became clear that the distinction between African designer and African fashion meant the latter garnered less attention compared to the former. Some of the items showcased on the catwalk were comical at best, but I am not the target audience for this kind of attire.

Before I knew it, it was almost 6:00 PM—a delightful day out and a reminder that the Echoes of Africa were just that; an echo is a reflection of the original sound and should not be mistaken for the real thing.

Childhood: And we were sent away

Parental Angst Versus Child Welfare

I observed two news stories from afar until I found myself commenting on a Facebook post, to which the author suggested my comment should be an essay.

Previously, I had written about my parents’ decision to send me to secondary boarding school after the cloistered bubble of an international primary school education. I will not dwell on that matter, but there are many facets to not being born and raised within the traditions, culture, and lands of one’s parents’ birth.

Blog - Childhood: When Parents Think They Know Best

For that, there was a term coined: Third-Culture Kids. This comes with many connotations, including the conflicts of environments, the anxiety and angst of our parents, the issues of not finding belonging in any place, and all the attendant psychological challenges that are somewhat ignored because our parents assume time will eventually resolve things and make everything work.

Send Them Home to Learn 

What bothers ethnic minority parents today is what might happen to their kids in the UK, where I am somewhat more familiar with the situation, and in the Americas. The tendency among parents who have the means is to extricate their kids from abroad and place them in the sometimes-harsh environments of their home countries, usually in West Africa, where they hope to address the lapses in discipline, educational attainment, purpose, and character that they have observed in or around their children.

Recently, a child took his parents to court to compel them to return him to the UK after he was apparently deceived into going to Ghana to see a sick relative. We all have variations of the same plot. He lost his case, the judge empathising but ultimately siding with the parents. [BBC News: Son Loses Case Against Parents Over Move to Africa]

Continuing with the narrative, some men have come forward to share their own stories about being sent home and how, in hindsight, it saved them. It probably did save all of us, one way or the other. However, it is never comfortable during that absence from what the kids call home. [BBC News: I Was Duped Into Leaving London for School in Ghana - But It Saved Me]

Before I share my comment, many kids have been brought up in the UK and the US and have thrived; this is great credit to their parents and communities that nurtured them. All these stories need to be told.

My Facebook Comment 

I suppose this is another aspect of split upbringing that is rarely discussed.

We returned to Nigeria when I was hardly six years old; however, because I was with my parents, I had the pleasure of attending primary schools filled with foreign-looking but Nigerian-born schoolmates, while many of us black kids were foreign-born.

It was the secondary boarding experience that was brutal, but I survived, despite the lasting scars of that environment.

You eventually become streetwise without losing the kind of daring that some people regularly said we Ajebotas [Kids who eat bread and butter rather than local fare; a pejorative term for lacking experience in local customs.] have.

The longstanding benefit of my early education and experiences in Nigeria meant building resilience, grit, and, mostly, self-esteem, while retaining the precocity I always had.

Upon my return to the UK, my blackness was always a part of me; no one could racially abuse me and get the upper hand, as I had a better retort, coupled with wit.

Escaping the race and deprivation politics of the inner cities and suburbs, which would have found me in Walsall and Birmingham in the 1970s and well into the 1980s, meant I never had the sometimes-invisible baggage or chip-on-the-shoulder that affected ethnic minority kids who never left.

I left Nigeria with just an OND and built an IT career that was earning top rates by the mid-1990s, before the extraordinary fortune of being invited to pursue a master’s degree after providing a character reference for a friend.

Moreover, unlike the scolding in Nigeria that implied one wouldn’t amount to anything and spurred you on, in England at that time, it was a limit on your horizons, pushing you towards low achievement and menial roles.

My parents left after qualifying in their respective professions; even though my dad placed third overall in his accountancy finals, his colleagues suggested that they never thought he was that bright, instead of congratulating him on his success.

I assume they both decided that the England of Enoch Powell, whom my father once challenged in a pub, was not a suitable place for them or for their boy—and the children that came after me.

Now, each experience is different; I cannot suggest that any of these actions are in the best interests of any child, but having the agency to intervene when you see things going awry is a privilege of opportunity that many do not have.

I even had my own personal intervention; after a relationship breakup in 1999 left me lost and listless, I packed my bags and started anew in the Netherlands, where I remained for almost 13 years.

Our parents mean well; whether they were right is another conversation altogether.

I cannot argue against being immersed in a totally different culture; it presents opportunities that we often fail to fully appreciate until later in life, as the men have suggested in the article.

Nickel Blogs - 21 years of articulating the identity spectrum

Finding a place to be known

Negotiating the identity spectrum has been a feature of my blog, though when I consider the situation, it has always been a feature of my life. However, having a blog has helped articulate the issues around how identity is more defined by influences than by progeny.

I can think of the many experiences and realisations, the earliest being when I first arrived in Nigeria, barely a 5-year-old and I noticed there were more people like me than where we had left. How was a little black English boy to know that Nigeria would be different?

English, people have issues with that, I am supposed to be Black British, yet on those atrocious forms, I would write in Black English. That aspect of being English became ascendant when I had to tackle the question of where I was from when I lived in the Netherlands.

The many questions of where

“Where are you from?”, they would ask. I answer, “I am from England”. The next question usually was, “Where are you originally from?”, The answer, “England”. Confusion or frustration clouds their faces with a further inquiry, “Where are your parents from?”, The answer, “Nigeria”. Enlightenment, “So, you’re Nigerian”, “No, I am not, I was born in England.”

The best question in that vein was, “What is your birth country?”, I answered, “England”, and my interlocutor asked no further questions. This brings me to the other matter of my accent, it started as a typical Brummie accent influenced by associations in Nigeria especially in schools that had a large international pupillage.

Strange juxtapositions of identification

It's funny that most of the Caucasian kids were Nigerian-born, and many of the black kids were foreign-born, with foreign accents, too. However, reading an article by a friend of mixed-race parentage revealed another interesting thing about identity. Those of mixed-race parentage were othered from afar. We looked like everyone else until we began to speak, and then we were put aside, too.

It was like we never really belonged where we thought we belonged; we had to work out how we wanted to be identified. For instance, how do you tackle a statement like, “You’ve always thought like a Westerner?” I was 42 years old, which was what my father said in a conversation.

The privilege and the opportunity

In my case, I have found both privilege and opportunity by the accident of birth that is not of my making, how it has helped me navigate situations in life and at work cannot be covered in a blog. Too many examples come to mind.

Maybe, I am more fortunate that working with my sense of identity and the quality of my education has taken me to interesting places.

I have little time for identity politics, but woe betide anyone who attempts to pigeonhole me in dockets where I neither identify nor wish to place in. Such is the life of a Third Culture Kid.

Some additional context

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who spends a significant part of their childhood living in a country or countries that are different from at least one of their parents' passport countries:

The child's parents' culture is the first culture.

The host country's culture is the second culture.

The child's own cultural identity is the third culture, which is a fusion of the first two.

The child adopts some traits from each culture. [If I may add, some kids even live in bubbles different from the nominal culture too.]

Childhood: How fostering or adoption shaped us

Children assuaging parenting yearning

It is the dichotomy of perception between privilege and deprivation that at this end of viewing things almost allows for the manifest evil of the past to be excused as a function of those times.

What is rarely considered is how singularly or even more certain experiences have shaped character, shifted identity, and quite possibly left one fortunate, there are positives and negatives, both of which need to be explored.

At the onset, after reading about adoptions instigated from the Netherlands for presumed orphans from Bangladesh against whom paperwork suggested tragedy or adversity, the apparently falsified documentation has been exposed as such.

The adoptees are now finding out they have or had parents, siblings, and relationships from which they were extricated for the market satisfaction (it had to have money involved, a kind of transaction that everyone deigns to forget) of the craving for parenting in the West. [The Guardian: The stranger across from me was my sister: how one adoptee uncovered a tragic past]

Every kind of living away from kin

It is in a spectrum, some situations not as bad as others in adoptions, fostering with the extreme case of farming, childminding, care homes, or orphanages, if I were to limit the scope of the options available for caring for children over a generation ago. [The Guardian: ‘Farmed’: why were so many Black children fostered by white families in the UK?]

The enthusiasm with which I started to write soon was overwhelmed by the gravity of the matter, it cannot be captured in a single story, rather, it is the bringing together of many experiences that can begin to create a picture of what really went on. I decided to press on if only to start a conversation.

The privilege over deprivation construct

I remember a friend on a walk around the shores of the lagoon bordering the University of Lagos saying to me that those of us born abroad just seem to have a daring and boldness that others do not naturally exhibit.

In myself, when I was in Nigeria, I suppose there were exhibitions of precociousness, questioning, challenge, and fearlessness that might have set me apart, at times advantageous, especially in expressing oneself but could be disadvantageous in not understanding norms, values, traditions, or the culture.

“As an adoptee you often hear, ‘You’re lucky, now you have a good life.’ But you cannot really compare the two,” says Kana. “In one sense I feel lucky that I have the best of both worlds. But nothing makes up for the loss you had to endure. Because I lost my family and my real identity.” Kana Verheul in the article.

My father would say, “You have always thought like a westerner.”, my brother did say in passing, “You are not one of us.” The fact is I belonged without actually belonging. The sanguineous ties are pulled asunder by other influences that in the experience of life can make us such radically different people.

The boy was starved

My parents as students in England had me quite early in many ways, I arrived 10 weeks prematurely, which meant for survival I was in incubation in another city for over 2 months.

Then primarily, my father was here for his accountancy qualifications and my mother had to work and, in the process, get an education too, not necessarily encouraged by him, at least, that is the story I am told.

My mother travelled around England into Wales seeking the appropriate kind of family to care for me whilst they were busy trying to better themselves. I cannot remember any of the people I supposedly stayed with, we called them nannies, but all the times I had with my parents in that childhood along with their friends and the siblings of their friends who were babysitters, I seem to recall.

One narrative I heard from my mum was on a visit back home from my foster parents, I was sneaking out to the refrigerator to steal food. She caught me a few times and could not understand why I would be stealing food until she found out that my wonderful foster parents were starving me. And these were people paid for the service, it was not a charity mission.

Radical consequences of childhood experiences

The consequences of the fear of hunger registered and were impactful long after we returned to Nigeria, and I was living with my parents along with having house helps to manage things when they were away. I do remember snatching food out of lunch boxes of fellow students, in fact, there were a few of us that did that.

Indeed, on balance, my whole life has been a wonderful experience marked by interesting events and circumstances. There are very many character traits and inflexions I could almost definitely trace to something that happened in my childhood, some of which I have written about in my blogs. I do need to get a move on with my story.

However, what is evident from many of the stories people are sharing is the illegality and criminality that thrived in the trading of children for different levels of convenience in the view that the children were being given a better life to the exclusion of an environment that would give them an identity or present them with a serious identity crisis.

Finding our way regardless

We almost always faced some sort of discrimination because of differences, however, minute and I recall the time a slow development of my motor skills left me not as agile as one would expect someone of my age it annoyed my dad and he coined a phrase for it that suggested a kind of impairment, someone at school somewhat deduced I was prematurely born and decided to make fun of me, he never did again, after I was finished.

Concerning the topic in discussion, it was my accent that set me apart as probably those of a mixed-race provenance would have been, then talk of brown babies or children in largely white neighbourhoods and schools. At home or abroad and there was no clear definition of either, you tried to fit in, you could not account for the cards you were dealt, you played the game you were in.

Closure for many would simply be coming to terms with who they are, and possibly finding out about relationships they never knew they had. It is unlikely that any of the people who were involved in the abuse of the children would ever see justice, even if they are still alive.

References

British Council: Farming (film)

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