Adamawa: The Hometown I Have Never Visited

It’s odd, that when people ask me where I’m from I have to tell them the state my parents come from. I learnt that the hard way, because during my first days in Nigeria I told people that I come from the UK and received blank stares and raised eyebrows, as if I was claiming something I’m not. They wanted to know which Nigerian State I call my own, a place I return to for Christmas, weddings and funerals. But I return to England for Christmas. I have no grandparents or close relations left in any Nigerian state; my family is in England.

Yet it seems that unless you're an obvious foreigner, i.e. white, you have to claim somewhere in Nigeria as yours. So I now I say that I am British, but my parents are from Adamawa. This seems to satisfy the people who always want to place me somewhere. Perhaps it makes it easier for them to compartmentalise you, so that they can reach for the popular stereotypes and received wisdom about your hometown and its natives which then gives them the tools with which to talk to you and deal with you.

Mandara Mountains in Adamawa State

Your hometown, your state, is such a defining factor in Nigerian life that it has to be written prominently on your CV and it can determine your job or school and who you marry. It is also what people will ask about you after your name in order to familiarise themselves with you. "That Warri girl" says a lot about the woman, even more than her education or current situation ever could. "Don't worry, he's from Edo" or "Now I understand, she is from Kaduna. Kaduna people are always..." Your state can speak louder than your words or deeds ever could.

Yet I have friends in the UK whose parents are Nigerian but they don't speak a word of their native language, have never been to Nigeria, to talk less of their hometown and have only a vague understanding of what their hometown is and what coming from there means. They are British, except for their skin colour and their names which harken back to a different origin, one they are estranged from. And they feel no loss at not knowing. England is enough. So would such people still carry the markers of their states in their DNA enough for it to matter? Should they be judged on where their parents came from?

Many ask if I’ve been to Adamawa, and when I tell them I haven’t they are surprised and say “Oh, you must go and visit your hometown!” But it isn’t my hometown. I believe that your hometown is where you most identify with, where you feel most comfortable, where you came of age. It should be where the bulk of your memories about your family and home emerge from.

Adamawa is in North-Eastern Nigeria

In that sense, my hometown is in South London, which is where I lived during my childhood and most of my youth and where I went to school. I know the streets, shops, train stations, friends’ houses, hairdressers, corner shops, local Tesco’s, GP's office, parks and libraries like the back of my hand, and the places still evoke feelings of nostalgia. 

There’s the bus stop where I collapsed on the ground after school one day because of searing period pain, and a lady spoke kind words to me until my bus arrived and then I threw up in the back seat on the top deck. Then there’s the Shopping Centre where my mother slapped me because I'd misplaced a Blender she’d just bought and left in my care. South London and its surroundings is my hometown, the place I cried, laughed, fell in and out of love, partied and consciously evolved. Surrey also has much more of a claim on my heart than Adamawa, because it is where my family moved to in my late teens and where they currently reside. It is where my younger siblings would call their hometown. Even West London where I lived and worked for two years is more of a home to me than Adamawa.

City centre in Adamawa's capital Yola

Adamawa is only my hometown in the sense that it produced the two people that produced me. Yet it is - to many people in Nigeria - where my identity and my humanity lies. But that is wrong. To look at me through the prism of what you know about Adamawa will be to equate my being with something completely unconnected to me as a person.

I am not my hometown.

I have no desire to visit Adamawa, yet for as long as I can remember the state has been a constant companion, right back to when it was called Gongola. In England I used to tell the few (Nigerian) people that asked that I was from Gongola, and when the name of the state changed in the early 90s I had to change too and say I was from Adamawa, but in my mind's eye the place itself remained an abstract collection of dirt-roads and hazy hills, a far-off place I never imagined I would ever go to.

After all, what will I do when I get there? There is no family compound to return to or leaping, grinning young cousins to welcome me back, no aunts or in-laws to pinch my cheeks or cook special delicacies or tell me I’ve lost weight; no tree or clearing or road that holds a special history for my family that I am aware of. If I go I would be just another tourist. Perhaps I might share a resemblance with some of the inhabitants. Maybe some older Adamawains will look upon me with vague recognition. Maybe.

Sometimes I feel that I owe it to my future interrogators to actually visit the place I claim as my own. I have heard that it is quite beautiful, and is known for its mountains and scenic tourist parks. Some family members might still be there, although I don’t know where they are exactly or even who they are. It could happen that I can go to Adamawa and pass my cousin or uncle on the road without knowing.   

But I can live the rest of my life quite happily without visiting a place only connected to me by history. I am one generation removed from closeness to it, a lifetime removed from familiarity with it.

Maybe one day I will go to Adamawa. Who knows, I might feel this strong sense of affinity with the state, as if I’d been there before. Things I didn’t know were missing in my life might suddenly fall into place and I’ll feel more whole for having made the journey. I might love it and want to return again and again and later share it with my own children. But it is difficult to be enthusiastic about your place of origin if your parents were not. The roots have long dried up and fallen away so I would have to plant seeds of my own, seeds that have already sprouted and budded elsewhere. I would be re-planting flowers already in full-bloom. 

But do I really need to tether myself to a particular Nigerian state in order to be fully African, and authentically Fulani?