THE chatters of playful children filled a large house. There were two toddlers of two years and four, the children of Moro. And they filled the whole place like they were an army.
It was a quiet morning that Saturday. Many years had passed; and Moro and Wura hadn’t only married, but they were raising children, too.
It was their large house in the town of Ede. It stood with the houses of Oji and Daleka to form a ‘compound’ or ‘family house’.
In those days, they built mud houses and used aluminum sheets as roof. It was the style of township homesteads.
Moro had grown to be forty-five, as he started late to raise children. And now that he’d gotten them, he wanted to spend more time at home.
So, he sat in a resting chair in his veranda, fanning himself with some knitted hand fan and staring at nothing in particular.
Some inaudible talk went on around him while the man paid no attention. The chatters built up some more and it seemed more people were joining the talk.
The children’s noise had been competing with the voice of the newsman downstreet. And just when Moro realised it was him, the fellow was already leaving the folk gathered.
So Moro hastened down the street, as he often liked to hear from him.
He called to him. ‘Alukoro! Alukoro! Please wait; I missed your news!’
The gentleman turned round and stopped.
‘You were saying something about a river,’ panted Moro. ‘I couldn’t hear you clearly. Please tell me; what is it about?’
The newspeddler smiled. ‘It is not a river, it is a big land—they call it Motherland.
‘And that Motherland is where we are, and beyond it. Still it is all ours!’
Moro didn’t quite follow the tip. ‘What is that, my friend? What are you saying?’
The younger man went clearer.
‘I am saying that all of us—peoples and kingdoms here and beyond Ọya (‘the Niger’), have now being called one people...
‘All of the land of Yoruba people, Bini people, Itskeri, Igbomina, and Igboland in fact—just every land south of ‘the Niger’...
‘Then all the land of Hausa people, with several peoples north of the River...
‘Today, we’ve all become a bigger people. Or one big land called Orilẹ (or “Motherland”).’
Moro repeated the name. ‘Orilẹ—’
‘Yes,’ answered the news fellow, ‘that’s just the word for this new state we’re in – how our own people describe it. Still that is not the very name we bear.’
Moro squinted. ‘Is there another name?’
‘There is one, sir,’ smiled the younger one. ‘And it is you our fathers who say one looks in the household to name a newborn...
‘And since we are a new land of diverse cultures, I heard it was the wife of the White Man who named the land.
‘They say she named it by the River which reaches its centre.
‘They say it is a famous river beyond our shores. It is the same Ọya, now widely known as the Niger.
‘So they named us Ni-ge-ria!’
Moro stuttered to repeat the name. ‘Ni... Ni-ge—! Wait, what is that word?’
‘It is a newly coined name. They say it means the land around Niger.’
‘Oh, is that so? What did you call the name again?’
‘It is Nigeria sir—Ni-ge-ria.’
‘Well, it sounds beautiful... Nigeria! I will really keep this one in mind.’
He dropped a shilling in the younger man’s pouch. ‘Come again next time!’
‘Thank you sir. Now I have to go before another man takes my job!’
‘Go well, friend! And watch your steps!’
‘I surely will!’ answered the newsman. Then he sped off the street, his big pouch jingling with coins.
Moro turned and strode back home. And as he walked he repeated the name, ‘Nigeria... Nigeria....’
He loved this name and liked the new country. He loved the fact that he belonged in this land.
Oh, if I had known there’d be something worthier than this land of Ede, maybe I wouldn’t have toiled so much to claim it.
Now I am a native of Nigeria without toiling. And if anyone ask who I am, I will say I am a person of Nigeria!
Ah, this must be the Almighty One! To grant me roots where I am a stranger!
This must be the Almighty! Yet I don’t know what to say!
He spoke out his thoughts now.
‘So I will tell this to my children. That they live in Nigeria. That they are Nigeria—or how do I call them?
‘Again, I’ll tell them these things... how the Almighty planted me here!’
Right then the middle-aged man started saying the new name several times.
He told himself that he’d chew it like a sheep would its cord. So he wouldn’t forget it even if others did.
So he mused the name—Nigeria... Nigeria.
It was mid-1914. And Moro was forty-five years old.
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