By Steve Osuji
Though the comment elicited pure, undiluted outrage one dithered in commenting about it initially.
First, Igbo hating seems like a norm for Abike; a trait she cannot help. It seems to have lodge in her DNA like a shrapnel. A number of times, in her unguarded moments, her true colours would peek from the horizon like the rising sun.
Second, some Yoruba elements have taken Igbo baiting, bashing and hating to a new level in the last decade.
Consider the line up: a paramount monarch of Lagos, the daughter of the sitting president, the current first lady in Aso Rock and the President’s chief spokesman, among others, all have publicly and brazenly made hate remarks against the Igbo people of the southeast of Nigeria.
For instance, the Oba of Lagos threatened to chase Ndigbo into the Lagos lagoon should they vote against his choice in a Lagos guber election! It can’t get worse than this…
ABIKE MUST RENDER APOLOGY OR RESIGN: But what brought on this article is Abike’s recalcitrance. Even though she brazenly committed a hate crime against Igbo and humanity, she remains impudent and remorseless.
But she has crossed the line this time. She must apologise – and profusely too. On the other hand, she must muster the honour to resign (or be forced to do so).
BACKGROUND: A few days ago, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who is incumbent Chairman and CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), a federal government agency, allowed her innate bigotry and Igbo hate to get the better of her once again (this is not the first time).
Some faceless X user friend of hers had tweeted about how he hated Igbo people whom he described as “monkeys and baboons”!
Abike had replied to the tweet with numerous ha, ha emojis, suggesting her joy and satisfaction over the slur some supposedly social media miscreant cast on the entire Igbo people.
Of course, the internet has been on fire since then. Many wondered whether it was really Abike Dabiri, or her clone. She was to respond with bluff and bluster insisting she did no wrong.
Her remorseless reaction and refusal to render a simple apology have pushed many Nigerians to write her off and to conclude she’s truly the bigot she had been accused to be.
THE JOKE IS ON ABIKE: How could she find such deep ethnic hate funny? How could she indeed laugh so heartily at such an actionable and unwholesome turn of speech, and in public at that? She ought to be upbraiding his friend and making him apologise and take down the tweet.
But no, she encouraged it by being very gay about it.
Considering her age (a senior citizen) her elite education, high office, travels and exposure, the joke is truly on Abike.
Her esteem must have vastly diminished in the estimation of right-thinking people.
The joke is on her, for how would she face her Igbo friends, mates, in-laws, co-workers, going forward.
How would she explain to the numerous, indeed, millions of Igbo Diasporans she must deal with at every level? How can she convince them that she doesn’t see monkeys and baboons in them!
Abike was a star broadcaster, and a member of the House or Representatives; she holds the national honour of Member of the Order of the Nigerian (MON) and she’s been in public office for some long stretch!
Apart from the University of Lagos Mass Communication Department where our paths crossed in 1985 (40 years ago!), Abike has ivy league schools like Harvard attached to her CV (whether real or not), yet all of this couldn’t detox her dark, primordial tendencies.
Further, her role as chairman of NIDCOM places her at direct interface position with Diaspora Nigerians from all States and regions of the country.
If Abike had been humble; if she hadn’t taken a haughty stance, if she hadn’t exhibited much arrogance, what happened could well have passed for a minor faux pas.
We could hold it to a passing error, a momentary lapse in concentration or even a mental meltdown. But Abike has been adamant, not even feigning remorse.
WHY ABIKE MUST GO. If this was the UK, US or any such ordered places, Abike would have honourably resigned before the break of dawn the same day! The misdemeanor is that grievous.
But we are in a clime in which anything goes.
Also, she has no honour. She doesn’t understand the magnitude of her position. That’s why she would smear it with much odium.
Her situation seems to reinforced the need for psychiatric checks for Nigeria’s political appointees!
How could a public official view a quarter, if not a third of the citizens of her country as monkeys and baboons?
This is a country that has forever preached that her unity is sacrosanct and indivisible. Who wants to unite with monkeys and baboons?
But such talks have proved to be mere preachments.
Governments, especially the current administration, has no modicum of respect for unity and togetherness in a diverse country.
President Tinubu especially, obeys in the breach, the federal character stipulations in the constitution.
Abike is actually playing the script of the Bola Tinubu administration which has been viciously discriminative against Igbo in particular and Nigerians (other than Yoruba), generally.
IF ABIKE WAS IGBO, she would have been fired immediately. Or at least publicly reprimanded. But her bad behaviour has been condoned with official silence and immediately swept under the carpet.
BOTTOM LINE: Abike’s official position has become untenable!
EXPRESSO thinks Abike must go. That’s the honourable and right thing to do.
#ABIKEMUSTRESIGN
Osuji was editor at The Guardian, THISDAY, etc.
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