Tafawa Balewa remains one of my most admired men of those times not because I knew him, but because I didn’t, and because he was killed for no reason I could easily understand. And because he was one of the brilliant educated northerners who managed to get into the position of authority. And he was a simple man. Yet he was killed. Azikiwe was another one who became the opposition leader in a Western House of assembly in 1952 as a Nigerian and not as an Igbo man. When I think back to how things could have been different if the first coup hasn’t happened, or how things could have been if the coup had been bloodless, or if it had not had an ethnic slant, I sigh and get back to doing something else. Because I wonder if something beautiful and great could have evolved.

On invitation, I have written a post on my reflections on Independent Nigeria at 50 for the Nigerianstalk.org website. There are a few new posts there also by other Nigerian bloggers and I cherish the opportunity to join those distinguished folks in sharing my thoughts with the new generation of Nigerians to whom the future belong. I am not feeling as giddy as the government wants me to feel about these celebrations just yet, not surprisingly. I guess it’s because the country wasn’t born in 1960 anyway, and neither were those who had evolved their different ways of living together even long before any foreign forces stepped foot on the land area we now call our own. If 50 years of independence from the British could still be counted as an achievement, I guess it is a memorable milestone. In any case, check out the Nigeria@50 post series on Nigerianstalk and leave comments when you can.

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You have been there all this while, so I am taking this time to thank you, yes you, because you have been reading this travelogue from the very beginning, and you because you joined in the middle and have stayed committed, and to you because you come in occasionally without leaving comments, but you leave with a smile, a giggle, a laugh or any other pleasant thought. You come in to rate the articles, invisibly, give them thumbs up, and then refer the articles to your friends to read. You, yes you even share my links on Facebook or retweet them on Twitter. Hmmm. What can I say but thanks? I thank you, and I appreciate your sometimes invisible but always reassuring presence. One day, I hope to list all the locations around the world where you have viewed this site from, and maybe also mention you all who have has left a comment at least once, or you who have talked to me behind the scenes, pointing me to a wrongly spelt word in a hurriedly-written post, just as an appreciation to your efforts and time. I am very grateful: friends, family, critics, and acquaintances.

Today in America, everyone of us will gather around dinner tables to devour family meals of the season set aside to thank the Lord for the harvest of the year.  The anniversary began by the very first immigrants on the continent after their first harvest, and it has continued since. President Abraham Lincoln it was who decreed that it would take place on every last Thursday in November.

Back home, we have the Odún Ìkórè, which is a similar thanksgiving get-together of families and friends, but which usually takes place late in the harmattan/winter season, just around Christmas. I have attended a few of them in the Anglican church with my late paternal grandfather, and it was always nice: plenty food, palm wine, and a harvest barzar after the church service. I am also aware that back home today in Nigeria, there is the Moslem holiday to celebrate a different festival. I have a living grandfather for whom that is also day of joy and celebration with his immediate and extended family.

Here for me as a blogger ghoul in a stranger forest of a distant land, my harvest is both that of the success of this blog, the joy of the Fulbright programme and this travel experience, and the happiness it has brought me through the friends, fans and admirers that I have made though the medium. I thank you all, and wish you a very happy, and a very very pleasant celebration. As long as you’re there, I will be here, pleased in the warmth of your reading eyes.

-ktravula

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