Utsetsemi’Oya (The Nonentity)

Utsetsemi’Oya (The Nonentity)

 

By: Jeremiah Enaholo Kadiri

auchiblog@gmail.com

jeremiahkadiri@gmail.com

+234 806 905 5018

 

“The instruments for the quest of truth are as simple as they are difficult.

They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person,

and quite possible to an innocent child.”

_M.K. Gandhi

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has been quoted to have said, “if there is nothing good to say about someone, one should rather say nothing.” The import of this paraphrased quote cannot be downplayed if today we genuinely seek to make the world a better place for prosperity.

Alas! Even though the Qur’an emphatically says, “woe unto backbiters and slanderers,” we take pride in the duo like gulping coffee and milk in a warm solution of tea. That we do this without recourse to the fate we profess is not my grouse (because of how hypocritical we’ve grown). My pain and the reason for this piece is what slandering has done to kinship.

‘Utsetsem’oya’ is one of the most common expressions from the registry of insults there are in Auchi. It comes handy when hitherto close relatives or friends become 69 instead of 56. At the slightest provocation even after a mild disagreement, either participants use the expression expressly amidst other vitriolic vilification to paint the most grotesque pictures of one another in the full glare of all and sundry. Today, it is not uncommon to hear anyone say, “utsetsem’oya lhor kilha!” with a scorn and a devilish grin to go with.

The term nonentity depicts absolute uselessness. It suggests that a person or thing is of no use and lacks nuisance value. The first search result that pops up when the word is typed into Google’s search engine presents a nonentity as a person or thing with no special or interesting qualities; an unimportant person or thing. Just beneath this definition comes a compound word, Non-existence.

However, this is not about getting to know what the word is nor am I going to be overtly religious about the term being expressed here. It is more about how it has affected, is affecting and may continue to adversely affect life and living in our communities. In all, I will try as much as possible to be economical with words but ‘if my portor-portor stain you’, don’t be angry, simply wash it off.

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Certain issues pose as strains to coexistence. Whether as friends or family, just like our Buka-cavity, our tongues and teeth sometimes get tangled in a hurting experience. When this happens, faces that once evoked smiles begin to put nerves on edge as tempers are flared and tension rages like flamed embers do grasslands at the peak of harmattan.

“Person wey una good before done make you vex. Because say you dey vex, you begin tell your friends say the person na nonentity (he no good for anything).”

Most times the person you are busy slandering is your brother. So, over bottles of beer and within puffs of smokes (from Cigar or shisha), you recount how ungrateful your brother has been to you after you must have tried to position him (in your own way). You explicitly outline your goodness over his rudeness to buttress how impossible it would be for anyone to help that brother you’ve so successfully called “the worst thing to have happened to you.”

The implication of this act is a far-reaching adverse effect on not just the brother who is having his image dented and named slandered, but on you the slanderer and sadly, the overall image of the family from which you all have come from.

The resultant multiplier effect of a one-time ‘Utsetsem’oya’ is enough to alter the destiny of the person being slandered. You may not agree with this assertion but then, it’s the truth _bitter but not unhealthy. When you constantly allow yourself to say unpleasant things about a brother, the world listens and when they do, doors are shut against that brother when he tries to seek favor from those who have been told all the gory stories about him. Since man’s only perfection is his imperfection and since his proclivity to judge is swift/quick, it is most likely that many brothers in the family will fall under the offended slanderer’s black book and worse still is that the world is listening. The implication of this on the person who feels aggrieved and thus finds a justification for slandering his offenders’ names is that whether he was wronged or not, slandering takes you off the folds of your fate. A deliberate attempt at berating the image of a brother is tantamount to witchcraft and when you try to recruit people to hate someone on your behalf, you have assumed the unenviable position of a devil. What this portends for the family of the duo in this fracas is a precarious identity.

Soon, all those who have been told the gory stories of individuals from the family in view, will form an untrue generalization about the family of those said to be ‘Itsetsem’eya’.

It will get to a point that when the name of that family is mentioned in a congregation of those you slandered family members to, your cronies will begin to snigger with contempt and simply say, “`oya oyalha” (person no dey there.) At this point, how will you feel? Happy that your slandering is paying off or sadly angry that your family’s name has been smeared in the mud?

Imagine telling a bank manager that your brother who is an accounting graduate cannot be trusted with money. Imagine telling a government contractor that your brother who is an engineering graduate is a waste of tuition fees. Imagine telling a potential client in need of legal cancel that your brother who is a Barrister is arrogant. Imagine how recalcitrant you must have been to the success of their chosen careers simply because you have a grouse with what they once did or didn’t do?

Aside say country hard, corona don fall hands and economy no nice, the major reason why so many youths are gallivanting the streets of Auchi Sacred Kingdom even though they have the finest graduating results is largely due to the fact that we have failed in recommending our brothers while excelling in tarnishing their images for trivial reasons. No wonder they take to political sycophancy, praise-singing and thuggery to make ends meet.

 

No one plantain stands alone.

Each grows and grow with a shoot or sucker

beneath.

When the matured plantain is harvested,

The shoot or sucker takes its place

While accommodating yet another sucker or shoot.

…A King’s brother or friend is a King.

A Thief’s brother or friend is a Thief.

Is your brother a Thief or a King?

Despite his flaws, how do you treat him?

Are you flawless and thus expect him to be?

Do you treat him like a King or a Thief?

Your Brother is how you treat and what call him.

Cheer or Jeer him,

How you treat him, what you call him is what/who you are.

_Enaholo J.K.

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