In search of my maternal roots in Parakou, Benin Republic (II)
The Dendi are a Songhai people originally from Niger Republic (there are still Dendid in Niger Republic) whose language is mutually intelligible with Zarma (or Zabarma), the politically dominant ethnic group in Niger Republic. They have the distinction of having brought Islam to Borgu in about the 15th century. However, over the years, many traditionally […]
The Dendi are a Songhai people originally from Niger Republic (there are still Dendid in Niger Republic) whose language is mutually intelligible with Zarma (or Zabarma), the politically dominant ethnic group in Niger Republic. They have the distinction of having brought Islam to Borgu in about the 15th century. However, over the years, many traditionally Muslim ethnic groups, particularly Hausas and Kanuris, have melted into Dendi in Benin Republic. My maternal grandmother, for instance, always told us she was part Katsina and part Kanuri (or Baribari, as she often said), although the only language she spoke was Dendi—and heavily Dendi-inflected Batonu.
My mom’s cousin in whose house we stayed told me exactly the same thing. He said the traditions of their origins are handed down to them through a folk song, which he sang for me—in Dendi, which I don’t understand for the life of me. The only words that were intelligible to me in the song were “Katsina” and “Borno.” Interestingly, the immediate past mayor of Parakou is the son of a Katsina man who migrated to Parakou as a young man. The ex-mayor, I was told, can’t speak a word of Hausa. He calls himself Dendi. So, Dendi, then, is no more than a complex, multi-layered ethnic alchemy that only uses the Songhai Dendi identity as a convenient wrap. My mom’s dad, though, appeared to be a direct descendant of the “unmingled” Songhai Dendi.
While I was dissecting the complexity of the Dendi identity with my mother’s first cousin who is a retired Beninese civil servant and older brother to Parakou’s chief Imam, an elderly, heavy-set man walked into the living room. He shook hands with me so very warmly and spoke to me in perfect English. He introduced himself as “the older brother of the man you’re conversing with.” I asked where and how he learned to speak English so well, especially considering his age.
It turned out that he was Benin Republic’s first ambassador to Nigeria between 1960 and 1963. How symbolic! Here was I trying to navigate and make sense of the complex contours of my identity as a Nigerian with a labyrythine network of tortuous maternal roots in Benin Republic and it turns out that my mother’s first cousin was actually Benin Republic’s first ambassador to Nigeria. (My mother hadn’t told me about this because, not being literate, she didn’t know).
The symbolism was not lost on the man himself. He insisted that next time I visit he would help me get Benin Republic’s citizenship if only to avoid the little annoyances of the gendarmes each time I visit. His first son is the country’s current minister of education, he said, and he would ask him to facilitate the issuance of a Benin Republic citizenship certificate to me. (Benin Republic’s current President, Dr. Thomas Boni Yayi, also hails from Borgou).
I also learned during my visit that the late Dr. Abdoulai Isa, the fiery Marxist intellectual who served as Benin Republic’s vice president under President Mathieu Kerekou and the intellectual powerhouse behind country’s 1970s “socialist revolution,” was my mom’s second cousin. He died in a car accident in the 1980s. Family members spoke of him with a lot of ambivalence. On one hand, he brought glory to the family by rising to such an important national position. But on the other hand, he also brought “shame” to the family because he not only routinely denounced religion (including Islam) while he was alive; he was also an aggressive atheist who had an ice-cold disdain for faith, leading his father, who was an Imam, to publicly disown him.
But if the man’s family was ambivalent or hostile toward him, his city and country celebrate, even worship, his memory. His tomb in downtown Parakou near the governor’s office is a marble splendor. It is one of Parakou’s tourist attractions, along with the statues of Hubert Bio Maga (Benin Republic’s first president who was a Batonu man from Parakou), Bio Gera (the audacious, no-nonsense Borgou monarch who fought French colonialists to a standstill), and many others. I was taken to these historic sites—and many more—during my visit.
To say that I experienced a surreal and ethereal sensation connecting the dots in my maternal heritage and living history in this poor and tiny country (which nonetheless suffers no power cuts like we do in Nigeria) is to understate the tremendous sense of personal fulfillment I felt about this exhilarating journey of genetic self-discovery.
Concluded