I once read the story of a man called Jacob. For about 21 years, he sojourned in a nation called Padan Aram, a foreign land far away from home. From the trenches of hard work and sacrifice, he rose from penury to affluence. He had wives and many children. And then, one day, he went to his host and business partner. “When shall I prepare for my own home”? Jacob desired to go back home. When I read this story, I paused to ask myself: with all the riches, wealth, and exploits in a distant land, why is Jacob yearning to go back home?
He did not have to explain to anyone why he had to go back home because nobody felt what Jacob felt. Some feelings stir up the human spirit day and night, urging certain moves. These feelings are unexplainable. Attempting to explain the depth of your burning desire to anyone may drive them to call you names, including ‘lunatic’. Obviously for Jacob, going back home had nothing to do with lack and inability to get ahead in a strange land. He had it all. He was just tired of the life of routine in Padan Aram. That is why Jacob is coming back home.
Financially comfortable people doing business outside of their home countries do go back home for good. When you have explored it all abroad; lived well overseas, and played by the rules in ‘Padan Aram’, and God has blessed the works of your hands, you will hanker to return home to share your story and success. Home is always home, and you can never be too tired of thinking about home. Even men who fled their country aided by the enwrapping japa syndrome still miss home. Although many of them envision a return someday; they never know when the day will come.
There is always something about home that you can never find outside of home. There is a gnaw, a pull, a push about home that triggers an indescribable sweet sensation. It is only at home that you find familiar faces that bring back sweet memories into your bones. It is only at home that stories and events are brought into remembrance, bringing laughter and joy to a weary soul. Home is the best place to be after all is said and done. But at home, there must be hope for a better tomorrow.
Why did the Prime Minister of Isreal, Benjamin Netanyahu go back home after many years in the United States? Why did many of his cabinet ministers follow suit after exploits abroad? Why did the Jordanian King Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein, whose mother was British, decide to go back home after many years in the United Kingdom and the United States? Why did Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala decide to go back home? Why did President Bola Tinubu; former Governor of Lagos State, General Buba Marwa (rtd. ), and many more choose to return home? The reason is simple: there is something about home that you can never find outside of the home. There is a gnaw, a pull, a push about home that triggers an indescribable sweet sensation.
Going back home may never be about money, houses, cars, shares and stocks you need from home. It is just about home. It is about familiar faces you grew up with; about those who bring back sweet memories into your bones, and those crazy events and stories that make you crack up in laughter and joy. Yes, home may be tough; but you have to put on different kinds of boots to walk the home terrain, and you should be alright. Just take off your American snow boots, there is no snow at home. Take off your British stiletto and grab some slippers in Oshodi and you will be very fine. You are home; and home is the best place to be, after all.
At home, men in the control tower of power keep asking for loyalty and commitment from everybody. A lofty idea it is. But they should be careful what they ask for. Loyalty does not come because government bigwigs seek it. And it does not come because they have the munitions to coerce it. Loyalty begets loyalty, and commitment begets commitment. Those who seek loyalty from others must first be loyal to those from whom they seek it.
I crave your indulgence as I conclude with this submission. I was in Lagos last month for a few weeks. The month of December is now branded ‘Detty December’; and I heard that the informal nonstandard vocabulary is peculiar to Nigeria and Ghana as the two nations effusively celebrate the festive period around Christmas and New Year. Aside from the increased revenue flow into the coffers of the Lagos State Government and other private tourism businesses, many a great number of foreigners who refused to be left behind in the seasonal bash showed up big in Nigeria. Something must have spurred those thousands of people from the diaspora to go to Nigeria. Nigerians who left home eons ago and who are thirsty for a return also came visiting. Nigerian children born and raised in America and around the world whose soles have never trodden the soil of their motherland came visiting for the first time. There were also Americans, British, White and Black from across the globe who could not wait to show up again next year. Who wants to miss out on the unfolding rangy pulchritude of Lagos this season?
Did you hear the children of Nigerians living abroad give big testaments of how the West has blindfolded them from seeing the beauty of the land their parents ran away from? I did. A friend told me the story of an old classmate who has been in the UK for almost 40 years. The two sons of the classmate were in Nigeria Detty December. They kept calling their dad every day that their experience in Nigeria was completely different from how their dad painted the country. Excited, the dad told his children to wait one more week longer than scheduled. He promised to join them in Lagos for one week. He did. I learnt the pace of growth and development in Lagos shocked him. He is returning to Nigeria in the summer. Jacob is getting tired of Padan Aram; is he coming home? It looks like it.
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First published in The PUNCH 17 January 2025
