ACHEBE’S DREAM, a fascinating short story by Ngozi Clara Opara

ACHEBE’S DREAM

It was morning. And I was already in my blue skirt and white shirt Holy Rosary Secondary School’s uniform, ready to go to school. But I still needed to conclude my every morning before-you-go-to-school tasks. I went straight to the window louvers and took out of the many sacks there, the one whose size I thought could contain all the spices I would be taking to the market.

Every day we came back from the market with wraps of large quantities of spices which we subsequently rewrapped into very tiny quantities and made available at very little costs of Five Naira and Ten Naira. We tied them at night and took them back to the market, to our shed, the next morning.

I lived with my aunt and her family in Port Harcourt. When I was eight, she had brought me to Port Harcourt where I continued my education. She had two daughters and a son: Chika, Udoka and Chibuike. We would always gather around our one room home, in different corners, wrapping different species–curry, thyme, rosemary, garlic, ginger, etc.–as their smell fumed as if competing with each other to know the one that will finally dominate the little ventilated room.

Every morning, it was my duty, as the youngest in the house, to take the spices to the market. But when the spices were much, they were divided between me and Chika, the youngest of my aunt’s children.

Then we became more grown. I began to prepare for West African Examination Council’s (WAEC) exams. Chika and Chibuike were in the university, Udoka helped her mother in the market. That morning I did not hurry to school as I always did once I put the spices in the appropriate place in the shed. I had a need. I had not done my WAEC registration. And that I reminded my aunt of. “Market is bad these days,” she complained. “But I hope today will be better so that tomorrow you can get the money.” On that, I also reminded her that she had said that the previous day and almost all through the previous week. But she repeated the last sentence consolingly to allay my disappointment.

“Okay, Nma,” I said and left. She was my mother’s elder sister, and her children were all older than I was, so it was required that I called her “Nma” or “Mummy” as her children did, and which were both titles for a mother or someone in the range of being one’s mother.

I got to school late that day, not unusual though. I always had a lot to do at home every morning before I went to school. The assembly was almost over when I arrived. But I was on time to hear the principal’s announcement. She began: “The government of Rivers State has decided to pay 50% of the WAEC’s exams’ registration fee for all Rivers State indigenes that are ready for this year’s West African Examination Council’s (WAEC) examinations. The government has also generously made 100% payment for the National Examination Council’s (NECO) examinations.” In truth, the announcement was just enough to make us, the non-indigenes, cry. It was enough to make us feel wretched for not being Rivers indigenes even though we were all Nigerians, and more so that most of us, the non-indigenes, had lived in the state for over a decade.

But for the principal to have added: “And remember that those privileges are only for Rivers indigenes. If you are a non-indigene and as much as wish for these privileges, you better begin to prepare to return to your state of origin, because you will not get it in our state.” I felt a choke rising in me. I was suffocating even though we were on an open ground.

Years later, I thought about that when an Anambra State born student of the University of Port Harcourt (a federal university!) would not be allowed to be the Students’ Union Government’s (SUG) president after he won the election, because he was not from the state! As appealing as it was, I decided that after my undergraduate studies. I was going to return to Imo State, my state of origin, where I would be entitled to the full rights of being a citizen. And considering that I had started nursing some political ambitions, it was most appropriate to leave their state.

But when I think of Chinua Achebe’s second chapter, “Tribalism,” in his book, The Trouble with Nigeria, where he expressed his desire to see a “…dream-Nigeria in which a citizen could live and work in a place of his choice anywhere, and pursue any legitimate goal open to his fellows; a Nigeria in which an Easterner might aspire to be premier in the West and a Northerner become Mayor of Enugu…” (5), I see an unrealistic dream.

But maybe I am wrong. May be I am not  looking at the issue wholly, generalizing what I have seen in Port Harcourt, having spent most part of my life only there. May be people are experiencing different things in other parts of Nigeria. May be things are changing in other places. And just may be, that Achebe’s dream will still come true at the best of times.