Your Grandfather’s Village Isn’t Paying Your Bills—Why Should It Define Your Future?

Let’s play a game. Take a Nigerian—any Nigerian—born in Lagos to parents from Anambra, schooled in Kano, married to someone from Rivers, and employed in Abuja. Now ask: where is this person from? The answer, of course, depends on who’s asking and what they want. Need a vote? He’s Igbo. Need to deny him a job? He’s not indigenous here. Need to stir violence? He’s a settler. This is Nigeria’s great ancestral scam, where your worth is determined not by what you contribute but by which village your grandparents were born in—a system so archaic it makes the 19th century look progressive.

The ghosts of colonialism are having a good laugh. They handed us a poisoned chalice—divide people by origin, watch them fight over crumbs—and we’ve spent decades gulping it down like palm wine. Hans Kohn called this “Eastern nationalism,” where myths of blood and soil trump common sense. But Nigeria has perfected it into an art form. We’ve turned indigeneity into a national sport, complete with hurdles: showing your lineage papers, proving your ancestors’ graves are local, and swearing allegiance to a chief you’ve never met. Fail any step, and you’re forever a stranger in your own country.

Meanwhile, the big men feast. They’ve built empires on this chaos—politicians who scream “our people first” while stashing loot in Dubai, governors who weaponize indigeneship certificates to distract from empty treasuries, elites who’d rather see the masses fighting over scraps than united against theft. It’s no coincidence that the states with the loudest “sons of the soil” rhetoric are also the ones with the worst development indices. When you’re busy chasing out “non-indigenes,” who has time to notice the missing billions?

But here’s the joke: Nigeria’s ethnic nationalism isn’t even authentic. As Rogers Brubaker showed in Ethnicity Without Groups, these categories are fluid, often invented. Your “ancestral homeland” might be a colonial cartographer’s mistake. The Yoruba man in Ibadan and the Igbo man in Onitsha likely share more DNA than either would admit, but we’ve been conditioned to see difference where none exists. Even our beloved “tribes” are colonial constructs—lump together disparate clans, give them a label, watch them turn it into an identity. And oh, how we’ve performed!

The solution is simpler than we pretend. Scrap state of origin. Replace it with state of residence. You live here? You pay taxes here? Then you vote and can be voted for here, work here, belong here. No more “indigene” vs “settler”—just Nigerians. This isn’t radical; it’s how functioning societies operate. Imagine a Lagos where your competence matters more than your surname, a Plateau where no one dies over “indigene rights,” a Nigeria where your potential isn’t capped by your grandparents’ postal code.

The usual suspects will wail. “Our traditions!” they’ll cry—as if tradition means stagnation. “Resource control!” they’ll shout—ignoring that diversity drives economies. But peel back their panic, and you’ll find the real fear: a united populace is harder to cheat. When people are defined by presence rather than pedigree, politicians can’t hide behind ethnic tents. Accountability becomes inevitable.

Nigeria’s choice is clear: cling to the fiction of origin and keep circling the drain, or embrace the principle of residence and finally start building. The first option preserves the chaos that feeds the elite. The second terrifies them—because it works.

So the next time someone asks where you’re from, try this answer: “I’m from Nigeria. And so are you.” Watch how quickly the scam unravels.

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