THEY left their home country, Nigeria, at different times, and for varied reasons, but common shelter they have found in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. The Nigerian community in the Twin City is not large, but it bestrides key sectors such as academics, health, industry, and county administration like colossus, as members pursue their callings with commitment and dedication. The goal is simple: to contribute their quotas to the development of the sprawling city in particular, and the U.S. at large.
Renowned figures in academics include Prof. Sope Oyelaran; Prof. Yomi Durotoye; Prof. Segun Ilesanmi, Prof. Mamudu Yabuku; Modupeola O. Akinola, who is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Wake Forest School of Medicine, her husband, Yinka Akinola is Medical Director at Forsyth Medical Centre.
Others in the health sector are Dr. Walter Ezeigbo, Drs. Kayode Onasanya and Benjamin Anyanwu who are leading neuroscientists at Forsyth Medical Centre; Dr. Madu Ireh, while Mr. Ojo Ebeli and Solomon Apara work at Forsyth County. The list is simply inexhaustible.
"You find Nigerians in different professions here in Winston-Salem," confirms Prof. Durotoye, senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of Wake Forest University. "That is the amazing thing about Nigerians."
He adds with pride, "most people do not know that of all immigrant nationalities in this country (USA), Nigeria has the highest proportion of post-graduate degree holders.
"Our people get the best level of education if you compare us to immigrants from Japan, China... and these are Asians who you will think will have this kind of record. Nigerians are in top places across the United States. And that is the same thing you find here (Winston-Salam)."
Durotoye, who has been in the U.S. off and on for over four decades, however, acknowledges the 'indelible' footprints of Prof. Sope Oyelaran, not only in education in the Twin City, but also in developing and promoting what is today known as the National Black Art Festival in Winston-Salem.
Prof. Oyelaran was a teacher at Winston-Salem State University, while his wife, for many years, served as the Dean of Salem College. She later got appointment as the President of Kalamazoo College and the family moved to Michigan.
"Even while there (Michigan), they are still active in the community, especially in the black community. He is a major contributor to the National Black Art Festival that they hold at downtown every other year. It is the flagship of cultural events that happen in this area and Oyelaran is very much involved in that from the beginning till now," Durotoye recalls.
He reveals how fate played a role in his getting hooked to the city. "I first came here in 1989. I spent two years. I was on sabbatical from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Then, I returned to Nigeria, and came back in 1995 and I have been here since then. But before 1989, I had spent about seven years in the States doing my graduate work at the Duke University and taught for a short while at the North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro. I have been coming in and out of here in the last 40 years."
On what attracted him to the city, the political scientist who is also the coordinator, African Studies Minor Program at Wake Forest University, says, "If the truth be told, it is the job. This is where I got the offer. But why didn't I move from here to elsewhere? It is because I like the community. It is a great place to raise your children, and I came here with a young family and I found the place so conducive to good upbringing of the children. That recommended Winston-Salem to me a lot."
Were there social and cultural differences then and how did Durotoyes blend?
"I can't say much about differences and coping mechanism now because I have been living in and out of the States for 40 years. When you have done that you pretty much know everything. It is even difficult now to identify any sort of challenges or difficulties. I have been here most of my life. I share the complaints that people who live around here would talk about. Whether they are Native American or natural-born American or whatever, many complain about things that are really due to the small size of the city and so when you are looking for the kind of amenities and whatever that you find in bigger cities, even like Charlotte, you don't see such things here. For instance, social night life is limited here. But that is just because of the size of the city."
Although, Prof. Durotoye is not all that far away from his native country as he has had to visit Nigeria, once or twice a year in the last one decade especially, he now nurses the desire of 'relocating' permanently home, "because that is where my family is, where everybody that is related to me, that is where you will find them with the exception of my wife and children."
The dream, he notes, is in line with his cultural root where the extended family norm is deeply rooted. "That means that I am limited in term of family contact and network. Other thing is the taste of home. But that I will move back there does not suggest that I will never come back (to the U.S.) again," he clarifies.
"For very many reasons, one, I have been living in and out of the U.S. for 40 years, and so, part of me is also here, and more importantly, when I decide to leave, my children are going to be here, and I need to come and see them. A lot of my friends are here. What actually it means then is that, I will be spending most of the year in Nigeria, but I also will be spending a substantial part of it here, too." Durotoye is a native of Okemesi in Ekiti State.
Professor Mamudu Yakubu and his family have lived in Winston-Salem since 2006. Before then, the scholar spent three summers 2002-2004 conducting research with Professor S. Bruce King in the Department of Chemistry at Wake Forest University. At that time, Yakubu was a faculty member at the Elizabeth City State University, which is located in eastern NC.
His initial attraction to Winston-Salem was the academic environment. The short time he spent in the summers on the WFU campus gave him the opportunity to explore the city and discovered that this would also be a great place to raise a family.
"So we moved here when the opportunity arose in 2006. The weather here is much better than on the coast where it gets very humid and warmer in the summer. I also like the cosmopolitan nature of the Triad area as a whole."
How often does he visit his home country, Nigeria? "Lately, I have traveled to Nigeria about every four years for short periods due to work commitments. I used to go about once a year but I have gotten a lot more busy," he says.
He compares cultural and social life of his home country and Winston-Salem, saying, "first, while 'it takes the village to raise a child' where I grew up as a child, parents spent more time with their children here. There is greater involvement of parents in school. None of my parents had reason to come to my elementary or high school even when my father's office was less than half a mile from my elementary school."
Continuing, he adds, "People are far less busy in Nigeria compared to here. At the end of a work day, you can visit other family members or hang out with friends. If I do not get some of my work done at home, I will always be behind.
"Nigerians love 'football' or soccer and follow European league games and teams. It is the primary sport there. In the U.S., there are multiple sports such as football, basketball, baseball, hockey which are all very different from soccer but provide year round entertainment."
He provides 'yes and no' answer to question on whether he plans to relocate permanently to Nigeria. He explains further, "I don't have a straight answer for you on this question. It depends on the circumstance. There has been some progress in some areas in Nigeria in the last decade or so. Some of my friends, college roommates, high school classmates and juniors and family members occupy important positions in government and academia that, if used properly, could make life better for the average Nigerian citizen. In this respect, I would entertain the idea of returning to Nigeria within a relatively short-time frame to help in some area of nation building."
And the need not to disrupt the education of his three children is the major reason he would not want to return to home country now.
"They are just starting school and I want to avoid disrupting their education unnecessarily. I don't foresee any problem for them adjusting to life in Nigeria if they find themselves there now," he notes.
In addition to being the Interim-Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Winston-Salem State University, Prof. Yakubu also serves as the Program Director of a National Science Foundation program - Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Programme (HBCU-UP). The goal of this programme is to increase the number of undergraduate science majors (biology, chemistry, computer science and mathematics) entering and graduating from WSSU and to increase the number of these graduates entering graduate schools in the sciences. Prof. Yakubu hails from Jigawa State.
Another Wake Forest University Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Segun Ilesanmi is full of praises to the Lord for towering profile he has been empowered to build since August, 1993 when his family moved to Winston-Salem. "My wife and I feel truly blessed as professionals. As an endowed professor, I have achieved the very peak that any academic could hope to achieve, other than taking on an administrative appointment, as the Provost or President of a University. My wife is also the Director of the Student Health Services at Winston-Salem State University. While we fully trust God in the boundless opportunities He has in stock for us, we are grateful to Him for what He has enabled us to achieve thus far, in addition to the growing successes of the two wonderful children He has blessed us with."
The movement was job related, too. In that year, Ilesanmi secured an academic appointment at Wake Forest University and his wife got a job at the Wake Forest University Baptist Health as a registered nurse. But the husband visits Nigeria more often than the rest of the family do. "That's because many of my visits are research related. On the average, I visit Nigeria every other year, although there have been occasions when I make multiple visits in a single year. In contrast, my wife has only been back there three times since she left there in 1991."
And the major cultural difference the family noticed is not unique to Winston-Salem. Ilesanmi said, "It is a pervasive characteristic of the United States more generally. This relates to the raising of children. Contrary to the Nigerian, especially Yoruba culture, where parents enjoy a near-absolute right in how their children are raised, especially in the enforcement of discipline, with children expected to trust and be guided by the wisdom of their parents, such is not the case in this country."
In the US, he said that children are taught from very early age that they too have rights, and that they can enforce these rights against their parents, including how they are disciplined. Sometimes, Nigerian parents feel that the American legal system gives too much latitude to children, and they justifiably fear that this encourages children to rebel against their parents.
Thus, a major cultural challenge that Nigerian parents face is to negotiate a healthy balance between the expectations to raise well-mannered and successful children (the hope of every parent) and respecting the law of the land that many perceive as a potential obstacle to that goal. "Many parents have been very successful in maintaining this balance," he relished with joy.
Prof. Ilesanmi also notices a social difference, which he said is in the area of race relations. "Coming from a country where the colour of one's skin has never been the prism through which a person's identity is defined, we found it very challenging, psychologically and otherwise, that a country whose founding creed is rooted in the primacy of freedom as the hallmark of human dignity would condone the constriction of the exercise of that freedom by the artificial boundaries of racial difference.
"We have explored two avenues through which we initially sought to handle this particular challenge. One is by ensuring that our children attend racially diverse schools, and the other is by intentionally choosing to attend a racially integrated church. Both avenues have helped in giving us a balanced perspective on both Winston-Salem and the country as a whole."
The plan to relocate permanently to Nigeria is premised on the conviction that "Nigeria is home and it's where our roots are. Thus, no matter how more technologically advanced and more politically sane this country may be, Nigeria is where we truly belong, ontologically speaking, for living out our existential dreams, which include contributing our expertise to a society where it would have the most impact." Prof. Ilesanmi is an indigene of Ilesha, Osun State.
Winston-Salem's roots date to 1753, when the Moravians, a religious group from Eastern Europe, settled in the area and established the town of Salem. The nearby city of Winston became a bustling industrial centre with strong ties to textiles and tobacco. On May 9, 1913, the two cities became one, and Winston-Salem was born.
The North Carolina's fourth-largest city is renowned to be rich in arts, music, and education. This profile has continued to be sustained with the presence of A-list institutions such as University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA); Winston-Salem State University (WSSU); Wake Forest University (WFU) among others, as well as hosting of the yearly RiverRun International Film Festival. The 15th edition of the film feast ran from April 12 to 21, 2013.
And its centenary celebration commenced on May 9 with series of events chief of which is the debut of a documentary produced by WSTV-13 that recounts the tale of how the two towns finally came to be one after a couple of failed efforts at amalgamation.
Entitled, Merger: Making The Twin-City, the docu-film was screened on WSTV-13 on May 16, while on May 30, it was shown on UNC-TV. Frank Elliott, city's deputy director wrote, produced, and directed it.
While modernity has changed the face of Winston-Salem greatly, the architectural and cultural taste of the old is still preserved at the sprawling section of the twin-city known today as Old Salem. It has become a haven for tourists – domestic and foreign. And the symbol of the city remains the iconic Old Salem coffee pot, reflecting the passion with which coffee is consumed by the indigenes and residents alike.
The Guardian