S(H)IBBOLETH: oku Di Over
There
are “languages” of struggle and survival that flourish and characterise
life in the conflictive spaces of postcolonial Nigeria. These languages
may appear unattractive, unsophisticated, and too informal to engage
any attention, yet those simple and sometimes humorous expressions
signify interesting attempts by their users to wrestle with their
destinies in a cultural world that seems uninterested in accommodating
their dreams.
In the popular
discourse of some Onitsha, Aba, and Oshodi street traders, this trying
experience, this wrestling with one’s destiny, is expressed in a
code-switched slang: “oku di over!” (literally, “The fire is
excessive!”). The street traders have to race after vehicles in a
traffic jam. They have to chase after their money in the rain and in
the hot sun. They have to run from “Town Council” officials and from
the police, even after paying some fees secretly to be allowed to
operate.
Caught in the
in-between of civilization and barbarity, modernity and crude
existence, burning wealth and depressing poverty, they have to fight
and devour one another sometimes. Any of them operating at the
“battlefield” has to learn to muscle his or her way out. And the
“battlefield” is considered attractive, although tragic, for that is
where the sales talk faster in Naira.
Indeed, before
Governor Fashola sacked the Oshodi within Oshodi and around Oshodi,
there was an area on the Agege Motor Road which the street traders
designated “Warfront.” Not everyone dared go there to sell. Only those
who could show the redness in their eyes could, for indeed, at the
Oshodi “Warfront,” “oku di over .” If the shops have become too
expensive, or if one’s shop has been sacked times over by thieves,
demolition squads, or arsonists, one’s business inevitably ends up in
the streets. One becomes a “soldier” too if one’s business is war, or
if one’s life depends on wars of survival. Life has become a fire and
to survive one is expected to walk through it. oku di over.
Doing business that
is characterised as war, means that one’s idea of dealing with people
in other areas of life might be informed by the warrior psyche. Having
a theory of war in business life is not entirely negative, as we have
learned from modern applications of Sun Tzu’s ideas on the art of war
to entrepreneurship and business management. But where it operates on
the principles of ruthlessness, one gets really frightened.
Meet our
protagonists later – perhaps at the monthly town union meeting – and
ask them, “Nna, how now? A ma m na I gbuola ozu” (How are you, pal? I
trust that you have become extremely rich), and they respond, “For
where! Isi aputaghi at all!” (Not at all! The head was not even
redeemed). The ambiguity in the use of “isi” (head) in the response is
telling.
“Isi” could be the
clipped form of “isiego” (seed money or capital invested in the
business) or the investor’s head/life itself. And the capital is
actually one’s head which goes to war so as to be redeemed from shame
in a society where one has to have in order to have a say.
But after all the
skirmishes, at the “Warfront,” it is the same old story: Isi aputaghi
because oku di over! As one trader said jokingly, “Every year, na di
same ‘Obi Is a Boy’. Abi na which time Obi go grow become man?” Obi Is
a Boy, was an elementary school English reader that was popular in the
Igbo-speaking parts of Nigeria in the 70s. Beyond mere amplification of
one’s challenges in “warfront” trading “isi aputaghi ” itself signifies
a frightening engagement with risk and uncertainty in a context where
survival is defined as a struggle, where one has to fight to advance
from reading Obi Is a Boy, or continue to play “boy” every year.
Interestingly, too,
becoming extremely rich is metaphorically represented in the discourse
as “igbu ozu,” which literally refers to killing in the process of
looking for this wealth. As shown in many Nollywood films, some
business persons may get involved in moneymaking rituals or some
criminal activities to become rich. Already filled with negative
connotations, “igbu ozu” resonates with the idea that behind every “big
man” there is a big crime. The underlying logic to the desire for “igbu
ozu” in its negative sense is that one cannot continue to say “isi
aputaghi” forever, and so like Andy in “Living in Bondage”, one has to
try what the big boys in town have done, and then one’s language would
change to “ife adigo mma” (Things have become alright).
For some people,
surviving in the face of life’s many challenges requires faith, faith
that helps one to walk on the sea without sinking. But in the war
context of the small business that exist on Nigerian streets, the trial
of one’s faith is by fire, not by water. One learns from Robinson
Crusoe’s Man Friday to walk on hot coals without twitching in pain,
even if one’s nerves are telling one something different. That the fire
is excessively hot ironically means that one must walk through it to
reach manhood as recognized by Crusoe’s Man Friday. That’s the test of
one’s faith and courage to live in a land that devours its inhabitants,
a land where the fire and its heat are excessive.
oku di seriously over.
