A young Nigerian, Onyekachi Nwosu, entered a bus from Maicon bus stop, Egbeda, Lagos State, en route to Ikeja on a beautiful Monday morning in October.
It was the morning rush hour in the state and commercial bus drivers, aka danfo drivers, plying the Egbeda-Oshodi route dotted the landscape, ready to make brisk money from the growing crowd of commuters that littered various bus stops.
Before Nwosu entered the bus – it was a decrepit old bus and smoke billowed from its exhaust pipe – the conductor told him with a hoarse voice that the bus fare was N700.
Nwosu declined the offer. He could only afford, even if his life depended on it, a N500 fare, and his frustrated “host,” the already miffed conductor, reluctantly offered him a seat.
In the bus, Nwosu pulled a N1, 000 note out of his pocket and then put out his hand to give the money to the conductor who was gleefully trading insults with some passengers.
The conductor casually took the money from Nwosu and added it, absentmindedly, to the wad of crumpled naira notes in his breast pocket.
When it was time to alight from the bus, Nwosu demanded the conductor give him his change. But to his chagrin, the conductor said he collected only N500 from him, and after a bit of back-and-forth, they grabbed each other by their shirts.
The melee got more violent. The two men, heavily panting, dragged each other into a nearby gutter and Nwosu sustained a deep cut on his leg.
Perhaps, because of adrenaline, he began to yell at the conductor, “I will deal with you today. Do you even know who I am? You are finished, you are a mad man.”
“I hear the remark all the time: do you know who I am? People want to feel important, that is why they try to make others think that they are who they are really not. Most Nigerians make the remark because of their low self-esteem and fear of defeat”
It took the intervention of the driver for peace to reign, however. The driver gave Nwosu the disputed N500 and then drove off with the conductor in tow.
A Good Samaritan helped Nwosu to stop the cut on his leg from bleeding. And out of curiosity, he asked Nwosu in what direction he was headed and where he works.
“I am going to the Ikeja Computer village. I work as a phone technician there,” he answered.
“Oh, really?” The Good Samaritan kept the conversation going. “You kept shouting ‘do you know who I am?’ at the conductor and I thought you were a policeman or in the military,” he added, obviously disappointed.
Many Nigerians, like Nwosu, are guilty of blurting “do you know who I am?” even though they falsely try to paint a warped picture of who they are not.
The expression, too, for all it matters, is also the go-to question that Nigerians, more often than not, like to ask when they confront or are confronted by their opponents, antagonists or fiends.
To these Nigerians who have, one way or the other, used the expression, it was meant to wrench respect out of their adversaries and sometimes, stamp fear on them.
And while its usage pays off most of the time, it could at other times backfire with negative consequences.
For instance, a driver in Lagos State, Bola Okedoyin, was going home from work. He was driving through Obasa Road, Off Oba Akran Avenue, when he encountered some policemen who flagged his vehicle down. They asked for his vehicle documents and Okedoyin began to rant.
“Do you know who I am? Why did you stop me? You have no right to stop me,” he said.
Unimpressed, one of the Policemen said to him, “Oga, you must show us your paper. You are not the first person we stopped today and you will not be the last.”
Okedoyin knew his driver’s license had expired and he had not applied for renewal, so he kept on resisting the Policemen.
“I will make sure that you are all sacked. How dare you? You will all know who I am today,” he roared.
When the Policemen moved in on him, Okedoyin began to plead with them not to arrest him. The “errant” driver knew he had to come down from his high horse and it was the small crowd of onlookers that had gathered at the scene and knew who Okedoyin was, that helped to pacify the Policemen.
It would seem as though ordinary Nigerians were the only ones who are fond of and guilty of using ‘do you know who I am?’ to intimidate their opponents. But that is not the case.
The supposed crème de la crème of the society, the politicians and other highly placed individuals do so, too.
This was evident last week after a member of the House of Representatives, Alex Ikwechegh, who represents Aba North and South Federal Constituency, allegedly assaulted an e-hailing driver from Bolt, Stephen Abuwatseya.
Abuwatseya had driven to Ikwechegh’s house to deliver some snails to him. But when it was time for either of them to approach the other so that the package and money could exchange hands, all hell broke loose.
Ikwechegh threatened to make the Bolt driver “disappear in the whole of Nigeria and nothing will happen.”
He then reminded Nigerians about the popular Big Brother Naija television show after he boasted that he would beat Abuwatseya and show him that he was a big brother to him.
Ikwechegh also said he would lock Abuwatseya up in his generator house and no one, including the Inspector General of Police, could do anything about it.
The verbal spat was intermingled with episodes of slapping incidents by Ikwechegh, and the brouhaha reached a climax when Ikwechegh began to excoriate and disparage Abuwatseya.
“Do you know who you are talking to? Do you know where you are? Because you saw me sitting outside here?” the visibly angry Ikwechegh asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Pay me and let me go,” the driver replied.
“Look at this monkey,” Ikwechegh retorted, to which Abuwatseya replied, “I don’t care what I am.”
The driver’s comment got to Ikwechegh, and he declared, “Are you even looking at me that you can beat me?” and slapped Abuwatseya before he bellowed, “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Afterwards, Ikwechegh asked the “magic” question.
“Do you know who I am? I am a Senator of this Republic. Do you know who the fuck I am?” Ikwechegh cussed.
Although Ikwechegh has apologized to the driver, Nigerians are still trying to wrap their heads around why the repentant member of the House told the driver that he was a Senator.
A public affairs analyst, Prince Enefeli, said it was an act of impersonation. According to Enefeli, his false claim to be a Senator diminishes the House of Representatives.
“We all heard the Oyibo Rep. tell the driver that he is a Senator. Why should you even say you are a Senator when you are a House of Representatives member?
“I suspect it is because the Senate is more prestigious than the House of Representatives. After all, even as a Representative, you have the power to make the driver disappear, if you wanted to.
“And do you remember that not too long ago, the members of the House refused to accept the National honour conferred on the Speaker of the House? They wanted the same honour the Senate President got for the Speaker.
“Yet, here is one of them calling himself a Senator of the Republic. What does that tell you? Is that not irresponsibility?”
A Port Harcourt-based Chartered Accountant, Ifeoma Ogbonna, said that Nigerians tend to say “do you know who I am?” because of their low self-esteem and the fear of defeat.
According to her, it is those who are not satisfied with their current status in life that makes such remarks.
“I hear the remark all the time: do you know who I am? People want to feel important, that is why they try to make others think that they are who they are really not. Most Nigerians make the remark because of their low self-esteem and fear of defeat.
“And if you observe carefully, it is those who are not satisfied with their current status in life that make this noise. They are not proud of their present achievements and want to portray a false impression of who they are not.
“Apart from that, many Nigerians are arrogant and cocky, at the same time. They think the world should revolve around them.
“The amazing thing in all these is that God hardly honours the prayers of such people who make the remark. God will only uplift the humble.
Have you ever heard of (Bola) Tinubu, for instance, asking people if they know who he is? That should tell us something,” she concluded.
