This Oba Akiolu penkelemesi is at once sad and comical. It is hard to come up with any issue in recent times that has exemplified with more clarity, the perfidy, sloth and evil of our ruling and intellectual elite. I used to think that we are in denial about how bad things are in Nigeria, I can now confirm that I am wrong, we know how bad things are, we prefer to look the other way for self-serving reasons. This pantheon of alleged intellectuals has been in flames over just one symptom of deep dysfunctions; with precious few exceptions, the lack of introspection has been mind-boggling, you begin to wonder, these people really teach young ones. We have had sixteen years to structurally change our system of governance so that these dysfunctions are minimized, we have done nothing to change a thing except our wallets. And anyone that complains around here is heckled by bigots with PhDs.
Oba Akiolu's behavior is reprehensible, no ifs, no buts about it. His comments were particularly appalling and beyond insensitive given the history of our country and the Igbo, the target of his nonsense, the victims of ethnic cleansing over and over again. Is he a baboon as an angry commentator blurted out? He may not be but he sure behaved like one. I don't know why many of our ruling and intellectual elite insist on living their lives as if they are pretending to be human beings.
To be fair, outside of this hallowed pantheon, I know only of a few fools out there from the South West that have not condemned without buts his action.
On social media, Yoruba have come out in droves to roundly and unequivocally condemn him and assure those of us from the SS and SE who reside in Yorubaland that the Lagoon is not our portion, IJN! In fact, it is the case that in their eagerness to please and smooth things over, many have gone overboard in cringe-worthy, patronizing apologia ("I love Ibo people! My mama na Ibo! My driver na Ibo! I almost married an Ibo lady, nice people!!! I love nkwobi!!!" SMH).
What is interesting is a cursory look at the voting results would indicate that the most diverse voting patterns were in the South-West; in many other places, especially whole swathes of the North, the election results are simply mathematically and logistically implausible. The South-West comes across as more cosmopolitan than most. There are reasons for that.
Again, the Yoruba are not the problem, it is those who claim to be her leaders and her thinkers that are cynically exploiting ethnic differences to bring out the worst in us - the Tinubus of our nightmares heralded by their PhD vuvuzelas are taking us down a dark valley and we are going down willy-nilly. This is where we are; the executioners of the "Change revolution" are the same people who raped, pillaged and ruined Nigeria and left a once-rich nation with nothing but pennies in change: Obasanjo, TY Danjuma, Atiku, Tinubu, Buhari. If you don't believe me, go read the lyrics of Army Arrangement by the prophet, Fela. Na today?
If you think Oba Akiolu is our problem, here is our own Professor Pius Adesanmi, social media overlord, taking ethnic baiting to Goebellsian levels:
"Una good morning here o. Any news from the electoral secessionists in the two geo-political zones where cooks have been at work since Saturday? Even if you are cooking stone, it should be about done by now?"
Pius Adesanmi, after the "presidential" elections
"Governor Fashola says that the important thing is to shield his pulpit from the refugees flocking into his church from PDP. No wahala. But when certain fringe minority but extremely vocal elements among his guests declare his pulpit a no man's pulpit, let Fashola not come and disturb my sleep at night o. I will not listen to him."
Pius Adesanmi, ahead of the Lagos "show down" Saturday, April 11, 2015
Why am I not shocked by these thinly-veiled ethnic taunts? Oba Akiolu is not our problem, our public intellectuals, the vuvuzelas of graft, bigotry and buffoonery aka "change", our hell, are the problem. Change ko, change ni. Among the intellectual class, an Abati is born every day. Change ko, change ni.
Pius, let me read Chimamanda Adichie's words to you:
"The anti-Igbo rhetoric that has been part of the political discourse since the presidential election results. Accusatory and derogatory language – using words like 'brainwashed,' 'tribalistic voting' – has been used to describe President Jonathan's overwhelming win in the southeast. All democracies have regions that vote in large numbers for one side, and even though parts of Northern Nigeria showed voting patterns similar to the Southeast, the opprobrium has been reserved for the Southeast.
But the rhetoric is about more than mere voting. It is really about citizenship. To be so entitled as to question the legitimacy of a people's choice in a democratic election is not only a sign of disrespect but is also a questioning of the full citizenship of those people."
I guess one doesn't need a PhD to have common sense and integrity. Pius, if anyone believes in that country after reading your nonsense, that person is smoking something really good. Ethnic cleansing should be beneath you. Nonsense.
Read the rest of Adichie's words here:
- Ikhide
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