Aboki means ‘friend’ in Hausa.
A friend is a person with whom you share a bond of mutual affection, trust, and support. But
that’s not the case anymore. Amongst Nigerians, Aboki has become a word that is used to
classify and degrade an entire group of people. It is no longer used in its original warmth. In
many parts of the south and the east, though not all, it is almost used as a synonym for
‘uneducated,’ ‘poor,’ and ‘someone beneath you,’ rather than its intended meaning.
When northern Nigerians moved to the south for trade and labour, the northerners in those
spaces worked as cattle herders, traders and low-wage workers, so southerners and easterners
built their image of the “northerners” they frequently encountered, not the northerners who
were doctors, aristocrats and scholars. Because “aboki” was how these northern migrants
greeted people, southerners and easterners began using it as a term for northern people;
therefore, the word became associated with that image.
This is why Fulani identity is now widely associated with poverty, cattle herding, which is part of
a rich culture, and low social status in many, if not most, southern and eastern imaginations. So
the discrimination isn’t purely ethnic, it’s also about class signalling. Therefore, in many, if not
most, southern and eastern communities, the Fulani people are often assumed to be uneducated
and unsophisticated regardless of their actual background. This creates a space where being
visibly northern, or Fulani, marks you as socially inferior, no matter what your economic
standing is.
But these trades, though looked down upon, are as significantly important as any white-collar
profession. The Fulani own close to 90% of Nigeria’s livestock, meaning the beef on the plates of
southern and eastern Nigerians, in their restaurants, their markets, and their homes, largely
comes from Fulani herders. Northern Nigerian cities, particularly Kano, house one of the oldest
and most significant leather industries in West Africa, producing hides and skins from northern
livestock that have historically been major export commodities. And it should not be forgotten
that the north has historically been called Nigeria’s food basket, producing the majority of the
country’s groundnuts, cotton, sorghum, and millet. So why should these people and their
professions that have given Nigeria so much be seen as inferior?
Why should northerners be informed about this rhetoric? Because the idea of being mocked
without your knowledge is perhaps the cruellest part. You might be smiling at someone who
privately mocks you, someone who thinks you’re inferior to them, someone who knows that you
can’t defend a dignity you don’t know is being attacked. Because being seen as less in someone
else’s eyes is something no community should ever have to endure, being treated and mocked by
a word that is meant to be warm, but is now used to cause harm, is unethical. No community, or
person, whatever tribe, whatever race, whatever nationality, should ever have to go through that.
One might argue that “Northerners have their own prejudices toward southerners, too.” This
may be true to a certain extent, and there are underlying issues connected to tribalism in this
country of ours. But if you truly consider yourself educated, then you already know that two
wrongs don’t make a right. And, if you then say, “It’s just a word, people are too sensitive,” then
you are mistaken, because the use of language shapes how people are treated and perceived, and
also creates harmful rhetoric and stereotypes. And finally, when a word is used as an insult, then
it is no longer a word, is it?
Although not all communities or people hold this ideology, it is a shame that it is spread so
widely and used so casually that it seems normal. It should not be, for it is not normal, nor is it
friendly, nor is it just a playful word anymore; it is factually used as a slur.
Northerners should reject this completely. Stand up, tell them you are not defined by one word,
tell them you are not the stereotype they think you are, and tell them your name is not Aboki. If
you cannot express yourself in any other language, then express yourself in the language you
know and love best.
