The Deets Was In The Language

Before coming to Akwa Ibom for the first time, severally, I imagined myself speaking the native language fluently in a year or so

But…that hasn’t been the case in over 6 years of staying here.

It’s easy to blame me and say I wasn’t deeply interested in learning, and you could be right, or it could be that I’m not so gifted in language learning.

Whatever it is, I have never felt more disappointed in myself for not being able to understand Ibibio –the native Akwa Ibom language, let alone speak it, like I am today.

Why?

Well, I was on a bus today, none of my friends in sight, and as I was approaching my destination, there seemed to be an incident on the road.

I didn’t know what was going on, and thought “Maybe when the driver gets closer, I’ll know what’s up”.

The driver got closer to a crowd of men on the road, surrounding a black Sienna. It would have been easy to conclude that there had been an accident if there was blood on the road or any sign of damage done to the car or another car.

But there was none of that.

I didn’t know what to make of a group of men crowding about a black Sienna on the main road.

I looked even more closely, for any hint at all, and all I noticed that was different from what I had seen the first time was a man wearing an orange vest, probably a road agent. One of the men in the crowd grabbed tightly to his vest.

They all spoke in Ibibio, even my fellow passengers and the driver.

I know what you’re thinking; “why didn’t you ask one of them what was going on?”

Well, that’s because I’ve got a tiny bit of shyness yet to be eliminated from my being, so yeah, I traded info –gossip, for another minute in my shell.

Here’s my hypothesis tho:

I mean, I could be wrong but from the way one of the men was holding tightly to the man in the vest, and seeing that he was the only odd man out, I have a feeling that if the man in the vest was a road agent, then the general frustration in the air about Nigeria got to some law-abiding and probably peaceful citizens, and they wouldn’t allow any more harassment from any federal agent.

Yeah, so in Nigeria, you could be going about your affairs peacefully and one of these agents; LASTMA, FRSC, NPC, and sometimes even the Nigerian soldiers, will ruin your day, and they have several ways of doing that, depending on sex, age, and physical/financial appearance.

One of those things that easily spells corruption in Nigeria, but that story is for another day.

In the meantime, if you can learn a language different from English and your mother tongue, of course, I want you to know you’re one of the most blessed people on earth.