MY EXPERIENCE WITH A TRIBAL INTOLERANT PERSON

I walked into a Primary Health Care Center to get my Yellow Card- an International Certificate of Immunization or Prophylaxis. I am naturally scared of injections and was pretty tensed. It was so visible that everyone present were laughing at me- the children inclusive (a friend called me Agbaya,,,lol). Well, let's just say my fears were unwarranted and it went smoothly.

What I want to talk about is what happened when it was time to collect the Yellow Card. The man was of Yoruba origin- Lagos to be precise. He spent everyone's time talking about how he hates the Igbos, how Igbos are wicked and stupid and selfish and unexposed...especially those from Awka, and how we, as a people, do not have a language. He was emphasizing the superiority of the Yoruba and the inferiority of the Igbo. I politely ignored him cos I simply wanted to collect my card and head back to school. He continued his negative tirade upon the Igbo tribe and it started to get pretty annoying.

At a point, he asked me where I was from. I told him Abia State. That made him take me personal. According to him, his elder brother, a pastor, had a wife who gave him 6 kids. Then an Abia lady came along and his brother left his family, divorced his wife and married the lady. She gave him a daughter but, immediately after the naming ceremony or so, the Abia lady took the child and disappeared into thin air. So, to him, this was proof that Abia people are wicked.

The story was funny o but I simply wanted my card. He said that the lady in question is my sister and that I must know her. I sat there wondering how a grown man like that could think that was possible in any way. I understood it was a joke but the way he told it sounded so serious. Everybody came, paid, collected their card and left but he refused to give me mine. He seized it and said he was going to exchange me for the missing daughter. That he would call his brother and tell him that he has finally caught 'one of them'.

He finally gave me my card and said that I was free to go. But that I have to give him my number first so he can be calling me...that he will disturb the hell out of me. Well, as a person, I don't like disturbance. So I jejely wrote a wrong number and walked out of the door.

It is baffling that someone with such open tribal intolerance would still have the guts to make me his friend/ subtly try to chyke me. I can't be friends with people with any form of intolerance. Hearing them speak, voicing or acting out that seemingly correct view of people and the world at large, and their gross generalization of people is quite sickening. Personally, I can't stand it.

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