Nigerians And The Xenophobes

By Paul Onomukpokpo

If William Shakespeare lived in the 21st century, Shylock might not have made the foil to Antonio. After all, with the prodigious inroads of the Jews into every realm of human endeavour- ranging from the arts to the sciences and high-profile businesses – the respect they have earned would have served as an impregnable bulwark against any fecund imagination desirous of casting them in the mould of the greediest and despicably and mercilessly shrewdest species of the human race. 

Not even those segments of humanity that Donald Trump considers irredeemably reprobate and terroristic and thus places under his travel ban would sufficiently embody the vices that Shakespeare would have associated with that foil. But if Shakespeare had looked at Nigeria, he might have successfully ended his quest.