By Steve Osuji
“Would Abike joyously retweet a Twit that describes Yoruba as *monkeys and gorillas?
#abikemustresign”
SHOE IN THE OTHER FOOT: It’s quite predictable what would have happened if Abike Dabiri-Erewa were Igbo. She would have been fired within a week of openly endorsing a most vile tweet against the Yoruba nation.
If perchance, she escaped the axe, all hell would have been let loose in the media and the public space.
Most newspapers in the land would have penned strong-worded editorials denouncing her and accusing her of deep-seated bigotry. They would unanimously declare her position as a public official, untenable.
A bandwagon effect would have been orchestrated and most columnists would have shafted her all round and most certainly taken off her head.
If Abike Dabiri were Adaobi Daberechi for instance, she would have been history by now almost one month after sanctioning one of the most hateful messages ever put up in the public space ( X ).
She would have honourably resigned or have been sacked by President Bola Tinubu.
She would no longer be sitting comfortably on her perch as Chairman/CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM).
She would have been tarred black and red; she would have been held up as the poster woman for bigotry in Nigeria. She would have been vilified and the entire Igbo would have been labelled and stereotyped along with her.
THE FIRING OF HAPLESS CHIDIA MADUEKWE: For instance, just last August, a certain Dr Chidia Maduekwe was brusquely yanked from the Nigerian Council on Climate Change (NCCC) where she was pioneer Director General.
Maduekwe spent barely two months in an agency where she turned the sud, broke the hymen and raised the structures.
It’s okay to disengage an erring official but Nigerians never got to know Maduekwe’s offence. The grape vine however, insinuated that she was too professional for the gang of people who introduced her for the job. She wasn’t front-loading and dispensing the booty as they expected.
Maduekwe was ‘nipped in the bud’ by the ‘franchise’ owners of the agency and was replaced by a certain Ms. Omotenioye Majekodunmi. But Nigerians would never know.
AN AMORAL REGIME. But Abike would never resign. She has neither honour nor such a level of moral rectitude. She lives gaily in a community where right is wrong and wrong is easily made right using lies and propaganda.
From her defiance and indeed brazen defense of her odious action, it’s obvious she has lost every iota of propriety; every sense of right and wrong, good and bad.
Of course the total absence of good sense and basic moral norms have been the hallmark of the Tinubu administration.
History has so recorded this fact and indeed, annotated it quite copiously, one must add.
ABIKE WILL NOT BE SACKED: She knows too well that as long as the sun rises daily, she would never be sacked. She’s part of the inner caucus of a raging Klepto-kakistocracy. Impunity is their handmaiden.
Honourable resignation is, therefore, anathema to her. She’s brusque and banal. And indeed, you have to be negatively bloody-minded to even conjecture fellow humans and a section of your compatriots as “monkeys” and “gorillas.”
Worse, you have to be gross to remain unapologetic and mirthless about an episode that hurts tens of millions of an entire ethnic group so deeply.
What’s she thinking? Of what bilious constitution is her heart that she wouldn’t offer even the most offhanded of an apology or a soft word of contrition?
What manner of person would choose to live with this manner of ignominy for the rest of her life? “The lady who deemed Igbo monkeys and gorillas” would become a fitting headline and epigram someday if this episode gets no salutary closure. How about that?!
Especially so, being a public official. Her refusal to offer nary an olive branch, further spotlights her ingrained disdain for Ndigbo. Let them go jump into the Pacific Ocean for all she cares, she would have told herself in cold-blooded defiance!
She would rather raise an army of hacks to explain a plain situation and more stone-heartedly, to attack anyone who dares to raise his/her voice about what appears to be her deep-seated Igbo paranoia.
In the place of dignified words to fellow compatriots, she doubles down on them; attacking even those who seek an honourable closure on her behalf.
In trying to explain a simple issue presented in basic English grammar, she makes a fool of herself the more and raises question marks as to her eligibility for the sensitive position she occupies.
One would expect an official who daily interfaces with a most sophisticated diasporan community to live and act above board always.
One expects Abike to epitomise the finest cosmopolitan ethos. As an envoy plenipotentiary, she’s so devoid of such diplomatic etiquette incumbent upon her pristine position.
But on the contrary, Abike assumes a bolekaja (come let’s duel) stance. She assaults the intelligence of right-thinking Nigerians by her childish bluster and fobbing. But her jejune arguments only diminish her the more.
Now that she’s pigheadedly trampled the Igbo nation, one wonders how she’s gonna face thousands of Igbo Diasporans she must interface with in the line if her job?
One last question for Abike: in all her superficial and empty defence: would she select the laughter emojis and strike her screen eighteen (18) times if the offending tweet had labelled Yoruba as monkeys and gorillas?
As the sages of yore would say, it’s sometimes nice that the wind blows enough that we may espy the nakedness of the hen.
It’s said that you can’t hide or disguise a hateful heart. So it’s just as well that this little gust of wind has revealed the nakedness of Abike’s hen.#
Osuji was editor at The Guardian and Thisday, among others
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