OPINION: DNA, japa and violence on Nigerian families

My last child, for now, will be 23 years old in December. He grew up calling me Daa. He learnt it from his two elder brothers and their mother. It started with my first child who couldn’t or rather refused to call me daddy. By the time he learnt to talk, which was pretty early, he preferred to simply say Daa. His mother, my wife, tried everything in the books including incentives, to make him say daddy but it just didn’t work. He would call me daddy one moment, and the next he would revert to daa. I didn’t mind it, and I prayed for my wife to let him be. So it stuck. Before the other children came my wife had joined her first son in calling me daa. So by the time other children came daa had effectively displaced daddy in reference to yours sincerely. The boys are now tweenagers (children in their 20s), and daddy has still not been able to displace daa. Instead some close family relations have since joined in calling me daa in spoken and written words. So how could anyone or anything undo bonds forged over years and decades? For some people it is as simple as tossing or flipping a flimsy coin. Not so for others.

In 1958, a novel written by a Nigerian was published. It was written by Chinua Achebe. In his A Short History of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Terri Ochiagha said that ‘The publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was heralded as the inaugural moment of modern African fiction, and the book remains the most widely read African novel of all time. It has been translated into more than sixty languages, has sold over twelve million copies, and is a required text at the primary, secondary, and tertiary educational levels the world over’. Ochiagha said that Things Fall Apart was neither the first African novel to be published in the West nor necessarily the most critically valued but that its ‘enduring, larger-than-life iconocity has surpassed even that of its author’.

In that book Okonkwo was the principal character and protagonist. The novel was set at a period of a clash of civilizations- that of the Igbo of Nigeria, and the English represented by Christianity. Okonkwo contrived to be a warrior and a weakling at the same time. He fought battles and won but eventually killed a child who called him father. And he killed him deliberately. The problem was that Okonkwo had a father who was a butt of his Umuofia community, and a son Nwoye, who he saw as not taking after him in masculinity and bravery. He was haunted by fear of being perceived as a weakling. He perpetually feared being defined by how his father was perceived, and how he regarded Nwoye his son as being feminine. And so Okonkwo ended up as a tragic hero.

In chapter seven of the iconic book so much was said about Ikemefuna, the ‘slave child’ who called Okonkwo father. Here Achebe said that Ikemefuna had become like a son to Okonkwo though the child had been traded as part of a blood debt. The protagonist was extremely happy that Ikemefuna had been a good influence on his biological son, Nwoye. Recall that Okonkwo had previously felt that Nwoye was too feminine for his liking. Okonkwo was a warrior and a wrestling champion. Many years after Ikemefuna was traded as reparation to Umuofia by a neighbouring community which killed a young woman from Umuofia, the oldest man in Okonkwo’s community came visiting. He told Okonkwo that the village oracle had instructed that Ikemefuna must be killed for the good of Umuofia. But the old man told Okonkwo that he must not lay his hands on the boy who called him father. Okonkwo must have been shocked because he thought that the elders who gave custody of the child to him had forgotten everything about Ikemefuna.

But he must not show weakness. So Okonkwo and a group of Umuofia men set a date and then set out on a journey with Ikemefuna during which he would be murdered. Along the way and on the strength of a pre-arranged signal, one of the men struck Ikemefuna with his machete. He missed his target. Understandably, Ikemefuna ran towards his ‘father’ ostensibly for rescue, refuge and safety. But no. Okonkwo drew his own machete, probably from its sheath and slew Ikemefuna, the boy who called him father. The men turned and returned to Umuofia. Immediately Nwoye saw them he sensed that Ikemefuna had been killed.

I have gone to this length to draw parallels on family bonding and how easy or not it is to turn our backs on relationships of years and even decades. I used myself to illustrate how it would be virtually impossible to, under any circumstances or findings, turn my back on kids who have known and called me daa all their lives, and Okonkwo who would not flinch in using his hands to kill his child. It could be argued that Ikemefuna was not really his child. In the circumstance Ikemefuna could be regarded and classified as an adopted child. And in my Christian faith we, the adherents, are members of the family of God by adoption. So up until his death at the hands of his father, Ikemefuna was the son of Okonkwo. Could Okonkwo have done otherwise since the oldest man in Umuofia delivered a message purportedly from the community’s deity that the boy must be killed? What about the other part of the old man’s message: do not kill him by yourself? Beyond displaying masculinity, should Okonkwo have been part of the killing party, anyway?

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Back to now. Nigerian families are currently facing excruciating struggles. And they come in various forms – economics, biology, science, bad governance at home, unemployment, abandonment of traditional values, and many more. It is no longer unusual to see families where a son lives or is in school in Canada; a daughter is going to school in the UK; a mother/wife lives in the United States; and, a husband/father, and one or two other children are home in Nigeria. The strain can be enormous and could have long lasting effects. In some cases families are permanently fractured if not outrightly destroyed. Fragments of destroyed Nigerian families litter the global landscape. And to think that families are the bedrock of every society and every country. In addition, many Nigerians are turning on traditional values and relationships. Many of us who dwell in urban areas no longer take our children to our ancestral homes for fear that they could come to harm. The fear could be real but I am minded to believe that it is often exaggerated.

But the clearest of the present war on, and danger to, Nigerian families and especially couples is the fad of DNA testing. Absence of trust is primarily at the root of the increasing resort to the DNA to determine the biological relationship with a child. Yes, there’s also the reason of compulsion for DNA testing for families desirous of relocating to other countries especially in Europe and North America. But the truth is that if Nigeria provides an ‘opportunity economy’ and a measure of hope for its citizens especially the young ones, the quest to relocate may not have turned into a deluge that it has become.

Early this month Smart DNA which described itself as a leading DNA testing centre in Nigeria published its 2024 testings and findings in our country. The review period covered July 2023 to June 2024. It said that its data showed that 27% of paternity tests conducted at its centre came back negative. The test results showed that one in four cases, “the tested man is not the biological father of the child”. Smart DNA went further to reveal what it called “interesting geographic and demographic patterns in DNA testing in Nigeria”. For instance, it found out that 73.1% of all tests were conducted in Lagos, with a “notable split between Mainland (67.5%} and Island (32.5%}”. Figures from some other states showed that 5.5% of people who requested a DNA test were from Oyo state, 5.3% from Ogun, 4.0% from Rivers and 3.5% from Delta state.

Smart DNA then drilled down to the ‘ethnic’ distribution of their clients which it described as an “interesting dimension”. In this category the Yoruba nation accounted for 53% of tests, followed by the Igbo nation with 31.3%, with the Hausa far down at 1.20%. This distribution certainly does not reflect the ethnic dynamics of the country. But it may reflect cultural attitudes “towards paternity testing and genetic science across different” ethnicities in the country. Gender and age -related insights from the data showed that the majority of tested children (54%} were aged 0-5, suggesting preference for early paternity confirmation. There was also gender bias that aligns with the mentality of many Nigerians. More tests were conducted on male children (52.8%} while the data showed 47.2% for female children. About 88.2% of men initiated the first contacts with the testing agency and women 11.8%.

The reasons for DNA testing varied but trust between and among couples was the dominant issue. For instance, almost 86% of tests conducted in this centre during the period under review, June 2023 to July 2024, were conducted for what was called ‘Peace of Mind’. This would suggest that the majority of those who sought DNA testing did so to confirm biological relationships for personal reasons rather than legal cases. Immigration DNA tests (11.5%) and Avuncular (DNA testing methods for biological relatives) tests (1.22%) accounted for the others. Smart DNA said that there has been a significant leap in DNA testing for immigration purposes in recent years. It said the observed increase in emigration reflected broader societal and economic shifts in Nigeria.

As it is the raw data from Smart DNA which probably reflects findings from other DNA testing centres in the country should be concerning. The data could be likened to a bikini which reveals a lot of the female flesh but hides the most tantalising. The data showed increasing trust deficits between couples, partners, and parents, and the rising appetite for japa (the local parlance for fleeing from Nigeria by desperate citizens, both young and old. This desperation leads to family separations and sometimes permanent and irreparable fractures in households.

The more troubling is DNA testing driven by the increasing lack of trust between couples over the biological relationship between father and child. We have to admit that some may not be true, but stories about sudden and acrimonious divorce are becoming rampant online and in real life. At the root of this development has been DNA test results that showed that the child or children who had called you father all their lives are not really from your loins. For the man it is a betrayal and a shame. Stories abound about footballers, athletes, entertainers and sundry personages who had raised and trained children only to find out very late in their lives, and mostly after retirement from the endeavours that brought them fame and wealth that the children that they had invested on were not their biological children. For some, remarrying and raising a new family was no longer viable. And keeping a family and relationship riddled with scandals was not tenable either. They are left between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Anybody who wears the shoes will know where they pinch. No man should pray to find himself in that situation. But such things happen. What then should be our attitude when confronted. Two things readily come to mind. In parts of my Igbo nation (it could be the entire Igbo land), and probably elsewhere in Nigeria and Africa, a child belongs to the husbandman. In traditional Igbo settings, any child born under the roof of a husbandman is the child of the man even if the pregnancy was contracted from outside. It extends to the fact that if a couple divorced, and the woman remarried and bore children in her new home, the children belong to the old husband in so far as the dowry paid on her head had not been refunded. If this be the case no Igbo person who has any sense of tradition will seek DNA testing to ascertain biological relationship with his children. But the man becomes blameless if the revelation came out because of immigration requirements. Sadly, many Igbo men have since been separated from their age-old traditional practices.

Secondly, love does not suddenly vanish on account of the betrayal of trust. No husband should take out the sin of his wife on his children. The children are blameless. Moreover, in my Christian faith, we are schooled to accept that we are all children of God by adoption into His family. So as much as it is humanly possible, the home should not be splintered on account of the betrayal of trust. Healing can take place with confession and repentance. The option of taking the children and driving away the adulterous woman may not suffice because merely seeing the children may remind you of what had happened. Because we are of blood and flesh this preachment would appear easier said than done. The problem is that even if you sack the woman and the children, you will still go to your grave a defeated and miserable man.

For the sake of the cohesion of Nigerian families and the health of the society, this fad of a resort to DNA testing should be given a second thought. The saying may be wrong, but what you do not know will likely not kill you. Just pray and trust God that your partner is really your spouse. After all the Holy Bible says that he who finds a wife has found a good thing and also obtained favour from God.

AUTHOR: UGO ONUOHA

Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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