IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 69

cultural-tribal diversity affects many
aspects of life. In most places, when a
landlord is about to rent out a property
to a tenant, the first question is usually:
“Where is he/she from?” It’s basically
a check on the person’s tribe and a sort
of quick determination of the person’s
likely mode of conduct and manners. A
lot of employers select their workers
based on tribe because people from
certain ethnic backgrounds are perceived to have some kinds of unwelcome behavior. This often makes us
question the following: “It’s only one
Nigeria”. Intertribal marriages have
only slightly helped to foster unity.
The Muslims from the South West are
not viewed as true Muslims by the
ones from the North. Therefore during
the times of religious riots, a tribe also
constitutes a factor that can determine
safety. The North has often brought
Nigeria into the news on negative
matters. The world is largely aware of
the menace called Boko Haram, a
group that started as a small, hardly
known, restless fanatic gang and grew
to an internationally recognized terrorist group. This growth was largely
facilitated by detrimental sociocultural
factors unique to the Northern region.
The societal structure of the North
suffers from a sharp division in two
levels: the elite few and the
poor/uneducated masses, often used as
tools of religious (and violent) propaganda. It’s alleged that the elite ensures
they stay uneducated and keep them
brainwashed with backward religious
ideas in order to keep all available
resources to itself. The folks at the
lowest level of the socioeconomic
strata are mostly children and teenagers known as “Alma Jiri,” who roam

the streets begging for alms. Usually a
child becomes an Alma Jiri when the
family is so below the striking poverty
line that the essential needs, even
sustenance, are not satisfied. Some
children are forced to simply because
they lose their parents and their relatives or guardians cannot take care of
them. Most of these children become
victims when their parents send them
to Quranic schools outside their
hometowns. A child is usually taken
away from his parents, his relatives,
and his home to some remote areas for
the purpose of learning the recitation
of Holy Qur’an. At the end of the day,
the child will learn less about the
Qur'an recitation than about mischievous acts. Such children are usually
aggressive and violent, as they are
exposed to different forms of pressure,
problems, hunger and jobs that constantly demand their energy and attention. Some of them go to restaurants to
wash dishes and fetch water so that
they can get leftover food. They are all
over the streets, very dirty, hungry and
thirsty, even causing traffic hazards.
These Alma Jirai are often mobilized
to wreck havoc during times of political and or religious conflicts. The
South West is the Yoruba region,
where the co-existence of religious
tolerance and peace thrives most. The
inhabitants are known to be mostly
non-confrontational (and viewed by
certain critics as “cowards” in times of
violent conflicts), but the region has
it’s own past record of violent conflicts, e.g., the repeated communal
bloody clashes between the towns Ife
and Modakeke. However, the foreigners often feel more comfortable staying
in the South West when visiting Nige-

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