Note on Being Groomed for Exile

As Africans, our being lost in the diaspora is contingent on the preservation of life for ourselves and for those of our families left behind.

Written by Ibrahim Williams

Jan 12, 2025

Illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC.

There’s a coloured-printed map of Africa sitting on the wall of my home office. I stare at it a lot these days and remain conflicted. For much of my young adult life, I called Nigeria home. Upon saying ‘yes’ to pursuing a doctorate at the University of Mississippi more than two years ago, I crossed continents to settle in this quiet suburb of Oxford. Nothing about my move or all I have moved from saddened me more than the daily realization that I have now become another one of Africa’s newest lost generations.

CONDITIONING

I was born and bred in Lagos, arguably the commercial capital of the continent, but I’d never seen an African map up close. The map, which shows all 54 independent nations of the continent, has Algeria at its top and South Africa at its bottom. There is no inclusion of Somaliland like there is in real life since it is yet to be recognized by many sovereign nations even as it continues to efficiently govern itself since 1991. There are mainly colour-coded territorial nomenclatures that remind one that Europe once called the shots there.

On my first day of gazing at the map, all its shades of alternating brown shapes arose in my mind a vague delight that the creator of the digital map deployed an Afrocentric representation by colour-coding the spatial terrain with its respective type of prevalent brown skin. Before I realized that the only Afrocentric view was of my projection and that the slice of Europe affixed on top of Africa was the same colour combination, I considered what it would have been like had the continent’s knowledge of self survived the destructive exploitation wrecked upon our minds by the Europeans and our post-independent ‘heroes’ past.

The map, for me, is a sad reminder. Honestly, it’s worse than that. It makes me think about all the possibilities that were never brought to life because each of these blocks of African countries remained wrapped up in the finality of its drawn colonial borders. Unlike the maps of other continents I have seen, the map of Africa sitting on my wall has a plane underneath it. The northern region appears big; the western part drifts left; and central and southern subdivisions pull themselves down like a sinking ship. There are three stray islands by the side of Mozambique, and Djibouti looks like it’s trying to kiss Yemen. The map isn’t aesthetic. Depending on the angle I bend my head, some details stare at my squinted gaze as if challenging my performative curiosity.

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About the Author

Ibrahim Williams

is a Lagos-born academic in the diaspora. He researches migration, comedy, and diasporic narratives in black literature and film.

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