By Kelechi Deca
When I was a teenager, I confronted my father on why two of our neighbouring communities seem to have far more prominent people than ours. They had more educated people, more people with old money, and in government etc. etc. compared to us. My father looked up, took a deep breath as if someone reminded him of something he would rather forget, and then he called me closer, and said it was because of water scarcity. Water scarcity, are you kidding me, I retorted.
My father started by telling me how so many people of his generation could not go to school because they were always going to the streams to fetch water for their families, and some of these streams are located about 20 to 25 kilometers away. Lack of access to water, he told me kept many young people at home because they could not combine schooling and chores. It took years and further studies for me to appreciate what my father told me about four decades ago. I strongly believe that lack of knowledge of how interconnected these things are is responsible for poor policy formulations and policy failures in many aspects of our social sectors.
Systemic privileges work in ways that those who benefit from them are hardly aware of such advantages. People hardly see their own privileges; rather they focus on those of others thus creating privilege blind spots because most people think that privilege is only when they are children of billionaires. Many people are successful entrepreneurs today because they were able to quit their jobs without fear of losing financial stability. That is a huge privilege people rarely reckon with.
In Things Fall Apart, when Okonkwo referred to Osugo as a woman at the meeting of the Umunna, the Diokpa “said sternly that those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.”
Achebe pointed out that “it was really not true that Okonkwo’s palm-kernels had been cracked for him by a benevolent spirit. He had cracked them himself. Anyone who knew his grim struggle against poverty and misfortune could not say he had been lucky.”
Achebe added that “the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the lgbo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.”
Thinking of Okonkwo and his self-made man status, my mind went to a chapter of the book where Okonkwo visit Nwakibie to take a loan of 800 pieces of yam seedlings. That year, nothing happened when they were supposed to happen. And Okonkwo lost the entire set of yams he planted earlier before the drought. Imagine that the yams he had sown before the drought were inclusive of the 800 from Nwakibie and the 400 from his father’s friend; would he have been able to make a fresh start?
What made Mazi Nwakibie to give Okonkwo 800 pieces of yam seedlings if not privilege? Why did his father’s friend give him 400 pieces of yam? Was it not connection, even though Okonkwo hated his father Unoka, yet the man did it because of his friendship with Unoka.
Warren Buffett always speaks about the concept of the “ovarian lottery,” highlighting the influence of one’s birth, place of birth, and circumstances of birth on their opportunities and overall life trajectory in life. He viewed this as a fundamental “luck” factor that is separate from individual effort and ambition. He emphasized the incredible advantages of being born in a privileged location, such as the United States, acknowledging that it significantly influenced his life’s outcomes.
That you finished primary school and there was no question on whether you would proceed to secondary school is a privilege because not every pupil who left primary school with you, and dreamt of secondary school made it to secondary school.
What of university. Some of your secondary school mates knew while writing their WAEC that that was the last examination they may likely write in their lives. But for you, there was no debate, after WAEC you naturally started preparing for JAMB, just like that, as if it was the natural thing to do. Not to talk of having someone who helped you chose a career path. You take all that for granted because you think life dealt with everyone with same sleight of hand.
I can break this further down the line. If you were observant while growing up, you would know that there were kids who grew up in environments where nobody corrected them, where they go out and return when they liked, without a cane waiting for them. You envied them for that temporary privilege they enjoyed, but as you found out later, most of such kids fell through the cracks, grew out of shape, because the porter’s hands never touched them during their formative years.
Some people grew into adulthood and started their own families when they still had parents they could fall back on for help or advice during this period. Until you hear stories of what others who never had such backbone went through, you would not understand how hard life is to navigate alone.
Granted that nothing trumps hard work in achieving success, but there are underlying factors that projects one individual over another. Some of you enjoy certain privileges which you may not be aware of by virtue of your ethnicity, and even religion. Until you pay attention, and know what someone who works hard as you do, or even harder, but still struggles to get where you are, you may not understand these subtle issues you may call grace.
Privileged individuals may attribute their success to their hard work and merit rather than to the advantages they’ve received. This can lead to a belief that success is solely based on individual effort, ignoring the role of systemic privilege,
Kelechi Deca , a journalist and public affairs analyst writes from Lagos