ADOPTING THE FOREIGNER by Jide Badmus

(Today’s post is brought to you by my very talented old friend and fellow poet Jide. Enjoy!)

I develop headaches every time I sit in the departure lounges of Nigerian airports. You need to bring an extra ear with you if you don’t want to miss your flight. Usually, I just spot two passengers on the same flight with me and watch them every time boarding announcements are made. You cannot even place the accent the voices are trying to imitate. It gets worse when you have to listen to pre-recorded messages from mobile service providers; the electronic voices don’t know the kind of trauma they cause with their twisted voices! It will be unfair if I don’t give a mention to our OAPs (on air personality). Most of them are like lost voices finding definition in a cacophonic haystack of accent and diction.

I had an argument with a couple of people on the Nigerian education system. They felt the emphasis on getting a pass mark in English is hurting our students; why hold back potentials because of an imported language. I have a slightly different opinion. Formal education was alien to us before the colonial times, thus the ideas being taught (especially the sciences) are best illustrated and understood using the source language. The guys believe that we have a skewed belief system that sees anything from the Whiteman as superior. What actually is my argument? Why am I saying all these?

There is an obvious flaw in the way we have imbibed foreign culture and values. We have been importing and replicating ideas from West without actually understanding the intricacies of those systems. When a foreign culture is adopted, it should be adapted to soothe the local socio-cultural climes. An in-depth analysis will lead to personalizing the concepts to fit into our needs. Yet we must understand that some packages cannot be tampered with; you either take it or leave it.

Jide Badmus was born and bred in Ilorin. He hails from Omido, Kwara State, Nigeria. He is a practicing Electrical Engineer.

His debut book, a collection of poems titled: THERE IS A STORM IN MY HEAD was published in February 2017 by Words Rhymes and Rhythm Ltd (WRR).

Jide is married to a beautiful wife, Linda and has an adorable daughter, Nora. He is a Christian and a soccer lover. He lives and writes from Lagos.