Adam wasn’t just a minority in Nigeria he was a minority everywhere. He came from a tribe so small that most Nigerians didn’t know it existed, He was from Taraba State and those who did often mispronounced it, laughed at it, or asked, “Which kayn tribe be that?”(Meaning what tribe is that) Back home, in his village tucked behind a long stretch of dusty road and thick forest, their was literally no road, they had no influential people form is tribe and that meant no development would be leveraged to their village. In fcat he was the first graduate from their village, being from his tribe felt normal, natural. His grandmother would sit under the Umbrella tree and say,“Adam, never be ashamed. We are few, but we are not small.” But outside that village, the world was not so kind and did not adhere to the sayings of his grandmother. When he moved to Abuja for school, he realized quickly that Nigerians loved to classify people, tribe first, name second, everything else last. During roll call, the teacher paused at his surname, and always had a hard time pronouncing it A few students giggled. Someone whispered, “Must be one of those bush tribes.” He wished, for a brief moment, that he could borrow a more popular name something that didn’t need explanation. He felt small.Invisible. A footnote in his own country. And yet, being from a minority came with its own strange beauty. He realized it one harmattan morning when a classmate asked him about his people. Not with mockery, but with curiosity. Adam told him about their festivals, their flute songs, the way elders still traced family histories by memory. By the time he finished, the boy said quietly, “Your culture dey sweet o. I wish my tribe still did all that.”(meaning your culture is interesting, I wish my tribe was like yours). That was the first time Adam felt something like pride.
Years later, when he travelled abroad on a scholarship, he was a minority all over again but this time, everyone was. Nigerians, Ghanaians, Indians, Arabs, Europeans, all reduced to individuals with stories waiting to be told. When he said his tribe’s name, people didn’t laugh. They leaned in. “Wow, tell me more.” They didn’t care how many his people were. They cared who he was. He learned something then, Sometimes you have to leave home to understand the value of what home gave you. But the challenges followed too. Whenever conflict broke out in Nigeria and tribal tensions rose, Adam felt an old fear what would happen if the majority decided his small tribe didn’t matter? What if history swallowed them one day and no one noticed? He carried that fear like a fragile gourd.,One day, sitting in a park abroad, a friend asked him, “Don’t you ever wish you were from a bigger tribe?” Adam smiled a small, knowing smile his grandmother would have recognized. “No,” he said. “Big tribes have numbers. My tribe has stories. And stories last longer.” He looked up at the sky, feeling both tiny and infinite. He was not just from a minority tribe. He was from a rare one. A unique one And sometimes, rarity itself is power.