My scholarly interest in the rhetoric of collective identity construction has made me an aficionado of what is called recreational genetics, that is, the use of genetic testing by individuals for personal genetic exploration or entertainment.
That is why I was drawn to the controversy generated by Afrobeats icon Davido’s claim that he is “Igbo by blood” in response to a Yoruba person’s tweet. The tweet accused Davido of straining excessively hard to court the attention and admiration of Igbo people through his sartorial choices, adding that because Davido is a “Yoruba man,” his ingratiation to Igbo people would never be enough and that he would ultimately be “betrayed.”
Well, genetically, Davido shares an equal amount of Yoruba and Igbo stemmata in his DNA. Here’s why.
His father, Dr. Adedeji Tajudeen Adeleke, is the product of a union between Alhaji Raji Ayoola Adeleke, a Yoruba man from Osun State, and Dr. Nnenna Esther Adeleke, an Igbo woman from Abia State.
That means, assuming simple Mendelian inheritance without accounting for the complex recombination of actual genetics, Davido inherited 25 percent Yoruba DNA and 25 percent Igbo DNA from his father.
Davido’s mother, Dr. Veronica Imade Adeleke, was a full-blooded Bini woman, as far as we know. So, his genetic distribution is 25 percent Yoruba, 25 percent Igbo, and 50 percent Bini.
In other words, in genetic terms, he is no more Yoruba than he is Igbo. He is as much Yoruba as he is Igbo.
Of course, identity is more complex than that. Identitarian affiliations are typically traced through the paternal line of descent, which is why Davido’s child with his Igbo wife, Chioma (who would be 62.5% Igbo), is still considered Yoruba. In fact, if Davido’s child with Chioma marries an Igbo person (which would make their own child 81.25% Igbo), such a child would still be considered Yoruba.
Yet, although in patrilineal societies like Nigeria we trace descent from our father’s side, we tend to have more familial investment in our maternal relationships.
In fact, in my native Baatonum, the word for blood relationship is merobisiru, which literally translates as “fact of being mother’s children.” That means consanguinity is determined by the mother, not the father, yet we trace descent through the father. I’d be interested to know how other Nigerian languages name blood relationships.
This is why my doctoral dissertation adviser, Professor Michael Bruner, often says collective identities are grand fictions that are nonetheless politically consequential.
That we give more valence to our paternal heritage than our maternal heritage in determining our identity is entirely arbitrary. Matrilineal societies that determine belonging to a collective identity through maternal lines of descent are just as arbitrary, since each parent contributes 50% of a child’s DNA.
But it seems to me more logical to trace descent through the mother’s side because, as I once observed, while a child’s maternal connection is almost never in contention (except in rare cases of child-swapping in hospitals), its paternity is not always indisputably self-evident except through DNA testing or noticeably striking resemblance.
That’s why Americans humorously say, “Mommy’s baby, daddy’s maybe.”
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