Comparative Equality in Inter-Ethnic Relations in Nigeria
A Debate
Obinna Osuagwu, Mazi Akuchịe and Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Introduced and Slightly Edited by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
This debate is inspired by right wing Yorubas' identification with Nigerian and Lagos State ruling party APC's efforts to disfranchise Igbo voters from voting in the ongoing Nigerian elections by attacking them with thugs at polling units in localities where they are numerically strong, destroying ballot papers of cast votes, compelling them to vote APC or not vote at all as well as preventing Igbo shops from opening, attempts at intimidation meant to discourage Igbo voters from voting so their votes will not shore up the opposition PDP, towards which Igbo voters are rightly understood as largely gravitating towards.
Other Yoruba and the central Yoruba cultural organisations, OPC and Afenifere, have decried the attacks on Igbos.
I responded to a post on the subject by Obinna Osuagwu on his Facebook wall leading to the debate between myself, centre in the cover picture, Obinna, right in the cover picture, and Mazi Akuchie on the left. The debate is driven not only the substantive issues but by the other two debaters being Igbo and perceiving me as Yoruba on account of my name and my views. The debate is also propelled by my sensitivity to what I understand as various perspectives on the subject even as I work against the efforts to disenfranchise and demonize Igbos by APC manipulations stoking existing ethnic tensions in Lagos State.
2/4/2019
[ The visibility of the post is restricted to Obinna Osuagwu's friends through its Facebook settings]
"If you look in the polity, you would see that there is a serious and very insidious problem with building a citizens' state of Nigeria. Most of the LGAs and states appear to just serve as avenues for ethnic peoples to get their own share of Nigeria. These ethnic people colonize the government positions, civil service, government institutions, etc as their own share of the Nigerian state. They dread a competitive society as they fear that non-indigenes may take over political decision. This is the bane of the Nigerian State--for which it is not advancing by modern governance. Unfortunately, this is the spirit of many Yoruba in Lagos as it is the spirit of many ethnic Nigerians throughout the country. Such sentiments bred the recent attacks targeted at non-Yoruba voters in Lagos.
This attitude sustains an order whereby for all the worth of the non-indigenes of Nigeria, for all their efforts and ingenuity, they could not contribute in the development of the society by participating in governance of the societies where live, do business and are tax-responsible. Hence, they are limited in the carte blanche to make decisions about these societies where they have so much stakes. It also means that since the idea of government in Nigeria prioritizes ethnic peoples for primitive entitlements, the "bastard" citizens of Nigeria throughout Nigeria who are non-indigenous to the domains where they live, could not-- for all the taxes they pay and their economic impacts--be in a social contract with the government of the domains where they find themselves--as those governments are not designed to serve that purpose but to serve as entitlement to ethnic peoples.
In fact, the general appeal of the indigenes to non-indigenes is usually, "Go your state go take your own". This spirit too is felt in Lagos. For the unique origin of Lagos and its federal-capital status over the years, the city has been a city for all Nigerians--and enabled by the ports discovered and harnessed by the Europeans and the Nigerian State, the city has always had great potentials for an all citizens' State--which exceeds ethnic parochialism.
It could be smelled that many Yoruba, most of whom were even migrant to the city like other Nigerians, having seen the potentials of the city, simply want it a city that preferentially satisfies Yorubas by same sense of entitlement as is characteristic of most states in Nigeria as earlier mentioned. They are miffed that unique origin, status and potentials of the state are making the city race past such prebendal cornering for entitlements as bedevils most Nigerian states. Where Lagos is is where the rest of Nigeria should be: a State that rises over government as an ethnic privilege to a free citizens state. Lagos has surely gone beyond such ethnic cornering and the Yoruba must live with that reality".
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju : "Obinna Osuagwu, please help me answer this sincerely and forthrightly. Ndigbo have been and perhaps still are elected officers in Lagos govt. Is such a development possible for Yorubas in Igbo dominated states in the SE?"
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, If they are more in number in the SE, they sure can influence votes, provided the individual makes the right argument. Ndigbo are very democratic. It has happened before in Enugu, in the 60s."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju the mistake you are making is that Igbo are being merely accommodated by other Nigerians: they are not; their population of migrants and life style puts other Nigerians under pressure to grant them space. For reasons I have explained, other Nigerians are not doing that in Igbo land and may never. Now such sentiments may exist among hosts--that their ancestral lands were being taken over, but know this: once 'your lands' start genuinely developing, you lose primordial ownership with time. That is the bitter pill to swallow. One could not eat one's cake and have it."
"You can't eat your cake and still have it!....you can't enjoy the manpower, rent, development, economic boost, taxes and levies, etc, that migrant communities bring and then turn to whine about their imminent political influence,....you can't on one hand enjoy all the goodies that accrue from their presence, and on the other hand want to deny them their voting rights!.. No!. If Yorubas want to influence politics in Igboland, then let them reciprocate by migrating in masses to Igboland, own property and businesses there, pay rent/taxes/levies, and boost the host economy. Modern Politics is about number and influence....check modern metropolis like London and Paris... unless you guys want us to return to prehistoric era."
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju: " Obinna Osuagwu, Mazi Akuchie and Egere Gremann Emeka, is the culture of mere accommodation of other enthnicities not the norm in Nigeria, including the SE, with Lagos significantly making progress beyond this mindset than other parts of Nigeria?
We all know that regardless of the strong Igbo numerical and economic presence in the Muslim North, they are not likely to have much, if any role in political office in those areas.
Is Igboland better than that, the same Igboland where a governor sacked staff from other Igbo states in his own state's civil service?
Along with the ethnic centred politics, the Muslim North has a history of violence agst non-natives.
Bottom line- I dont think Igolaland reaches the cosmopolitan and accomodationist culture of the people of Lagos, thus Obinna's castigation of Lagos people needs to be qualified by a recognition of the fact his fellow Igbos in their own land are nowhere near the accommodationist stance of the people he is criticizing.
Summarily, this latest flare up is the manipulation of politicians and that should be our focus, not the effects of the causes they initiated."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju You are shedding primordial sentiments which is unnecessary. So long as Nigeria lives, anyone discriminating against migrant is on a primordial and clandestine if not criminal mission.
My aim here is not to assess the relative accommodation spirit of various ethic groups to their fellow Nigerians, but to put it to you that we cannot have our cakes and ear it--we cannot have a modern state in our hands --with its constitution and yet wish to go by ethnic sentiments.
The very fact if the existence of Nigeria news there would be cultural assimilation and even extirpation of some ethnic entities for the building of a citizens' states. Even largely ethnic states in Europe today have been overtaken by Arabs and Africans. Therefore, I shall not feed that appetite of yours for intertribal accommodation which has no instrument for measuring it."
"Obinna Osuagwu are you willing to examine the fact that your fellow Igbos are nowhere near Lagos people in being accommodating?Are you going to analyse the contention that your fellow Igbos are even more guilty of those primordial sentiments?
Are you going to explore the idea that your fellow Igbos are even more guilty of the contradiction of having a modern state in our hands --with its constitution and yet go by ethnic sentiments, the same Igboland where even fellow Igbo are discriminated agst in the name of the dehumanising Osu phenomenon?
Bros, lets be real.
The tendency to castigate others without acknowledging that the other you are criticizing is even better than you makes some of this discourse hypocritical.
You will never find Yorubas engaging in a version of Osu nor will they eject fellow Yoruba from any Yoruba state civil service, like the Igbo governor did. Those are your indices of measurement.
Again, as you criticize the Yorubas who are dancing to evil political drums, do same for your people who are not even as good on this subject. We should work agst the evil devices of politicians, not dance the dance they are inspiring for their own nefarious ends.
Reading your post again, I see we are on the same page. It simply seems the specification of the Igbos as even more guilty of what you are critiquing is what is making you uncomfortable.
Ethnic centred politics is bad. It should be condemned everywhere."
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju please quit the nonsense: Lagos are not accommodating Igbo: Igbo are asserting their right to live anywhere in Nigeria enabled by their migrant attitude. Please prove to me that I castigated Yoruba in these discourses. Just show me one point . What has the OSU caste system got to do with this discourse. The expulsion of fellow Igbo from the civil service in Abia--a thing I am equally disgusted about--that states in Nigeria appear to be entitlements to aborigines rather than spheres for all Nigerians to pursue collective prosperity. This is what some ethnic Yoruba want Lagos to revert to but the city of 1861 has long transcended such levels.
I cannot criticize Igbo until there is clear cut cause to. The origins of these debates is that Igbo who are populous enough and are interested in political participation in Lagos are being warred against by louts sponsored by Tinubu. Debates on this matter have betrayed the fact that many Yoruba want Lagos a land for ethnic privileges rather than a free citizens state. That is the matter at hand. Your gesticulation on the spirit of accommodation of Igbos is completely uncalled for as a clear case such as we have at hand has yet to happen in Igbo land. If it does, I shall support the right of non-indigenous Igbo to politically participate. Simple!"
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju you're flogging a dead horse , he is like them."
"Faith Ayodele he knows me better than you do and we are in the same school of thought and federalist in search of a citizens' state. You are far from that. I have engaged you years and so I know."
"Obinna Osuagwu :'I cannot criticize Igbo until there is clear cut cause to'.
Are you not the same person who came to my inbox to write the following-
"My state Igbo [ Imo] is useless for instance. The definition of development in Imo is rotation of governors among sections of the state. This is because the state was simply politically created for ethnic people. Such states where there is no free economy are highly politically manipulable and prone to massive corruption and cannot work. Let us be careful what we wish for. We need human prosperity and not ethnic profiling"
Here is your anti-Yoruba castigation on this thread-
"ethnic people colonize the government positions, civil service, government institutions, etc as their own share of the Nigerian state. They dread a competitive society as they fear that non-indigenes may take over political decision.... Unfortunately, this is the spirit of many Yoruba in Lagos as it is the spirit of many ethnic Nigerians throughout the country. Such sentiments bred the recent attacks targetted at non-Yoruba voters in Lagos."
To what degree do Ndigbo allow others to live in Igboland and share in all the benefits of indigenes or natives?
Since Ndigbo are guilty of the OSU caste system against their own people and the expulsion of fellow Igbo from the civil service in Abia, does that not provide an answer?
To be taken seriously, you need to recognise that Lagos state is far in advance of the SE on such issues while decrying the efforts of political manipulators to create ethnic tensions in Lagos for their selfish purposes. Otherwise you will be seen as another one sided ethnically motivated commentator."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju not just in your inbox: I have written this of not just Imo state, but most States in Nigeria. I again cited it in the cause of our discussions to tell you why I do not support ethnic supremacy ahead of free citizens state.
In this epic of Igbo being disenfranchised from the polls by Yorubas in Lagos, all I have averred in that I will deal with the case in its own merit, whereas you wanted me to consider the spirit of accommodation of Igbos of themselves and their neighbours and I said a No! There is no need coming out here attempting to blackmail me.
Igbos cannot let or hinder your growth in Igbo land: all you need to do is migrate in droves to their domains in search of survival if beneficial. The Nigerian state grants you that right. If you would not use it, Igbo would. You can keep being stuck at OSU caste system and the sack of other Igbo from Abia civil service.
Lagos state has been advanced from 1861 when it was founded by he British and this sophistication of Lagos was simply because of its cosmopolitan nature and not for any silky spirit of accommodation of the Yoruba--many of whom were largely migrant like other Nigerians in Lagos. Your utterances here show that you are bigoted against Igbo: you already show your grouse that Igbo are not as "accommodating" as others are of them--and that is at the roof of the matter--not political manipulations by politicians. The elections have merely unearthed that sore but unattended Nigerian matter--which is whether ethnic Nigerians are ready for a citizens' state or they want to be stuck on ethnic and genetic partitioning and privileges.
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju please take the cases I have made here to any intellectual and let them vote on its objectivity: it would be foolproof. You are only disagreeing for one reason: you are a Yoruba man and the case is making your people look bad."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Have you lived in the SE to see how the Yorubas are thriving undisturbed? When I say lived, i don't mean a mere 3 days visit.
Do you know that there are places in every igbo cities called, "Ama Hausa" (The domain of hausa citizens). They sell cattles, chickens, are tailors and mixes up with fellow business folks in Nigeria, undisturbed. Now the difference. During election, some of them travel back home to vote for their brother, many vote in owerri. Now imagine if all of them stayed and voted in owerri, will they make an impact? No one, ONE TOUT has ever bothered them. When their was violence in the north, their was little to no reprisal attack in the SE. Go to Ebonyi and see how the northerners are thriving, go to Enugu.
The problem with my Yoruba brothers is that, save for UK, Europe and America, and just a few here and there travel to other parts of Nigeria, you'll are too lazy to explore other parts of Nigeria in droves, and in search of opportunities. Most just sell their lands to the highest bidding migrants, and then follow the crowd to complain about Igbo this and that. Tell them to get their arse up and go develop a swam in Awka or a forest in Umuahia. You can't eat your cake and have it back. You'll need to stop that accommodating argument, it's lazy, stupid and outrightly ignorant.
See my guy, I was born in Lagos, educated in Lagos, before leaving the country, I understand the psychology of our Yoruba friends. Most are just jealous and threatened by the Igbo advancement. This is 2019, way past the years of timidity. Either you'll reciprocate it, or tell them to stop selling their lands, but then again, their hunger in the land, coupled with greed in thinking that you are selling a swampy area to one mumu, and when the mumu and his brothers develop it, you cry fowl. It doesn't work like that."
"Mazi Akuchịe, I thought you were better than the ethnic stereotype spewing type, emboldened by a thread dominated by fellow Igbos and which Obinna Osuagwu has kept closed to all but his friends.
Anyway, I can handle you both without difficulty without playing your ethnic stereotype card."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju are you kidding me about stereotyping. Do you really know the meanings of the words you use. You have severally lumped Igbo as a lot who would not allow others thrive in their domians as though they entered into some agreement to do so voluntarily, yet you give yourself a clean bill of health on stereotyping. Jesus Christ
" Its clear you, Mazi Akuchie and Obinna Osuagwu represent the typical one eyed ethnic champions that cannot see beyond their self and ethnic centred arguments.
People who will argue that every creature is thriving in Igboland but refuse to address the fact that that is the same Igboland where one community rejected a catholic priest posted to their region bcs he is not from their locality.
The same Igboland where fellow Igbos are discriminated agst bcs of ancient and confused religious codes called Osu. The same Igboland where Igbos from other states are driven out of the civil service of one state.
How can such a place be as accommodating as Lagos, where Igbos are able to campaign, vote and be elected into office?
Condemn the political manipulations of the politicians but when you start stereotyping Yorubas its time you are told home truths of what you need to learn from Yorubaland.
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Where is the stereotype? Nigeria will never go forward as far we desist from telling ourselves the truth.
Where is the stereotype?
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju are you a dunce? I have told you that you are not accommodating anyone. Igbo are pressuring you to shift. You are selling your lands to them for economic survival. Could you please migrate to their lands and thrive amid the heat, that is what Igbo are doing in your domain. You are not "accommodating" them."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Again, bros, you're using age long cast system that all Igbos have advocated for its extinction to make a 21st century political problem on our clime. No bases for comparison.
You cite the Ahiara Diocese disagreement to validate your argument, bro, it has no bases.
I asked you if you have lived in the east to see how other tribes live, even during election, undisturbed?"
"Mazi Akuchịe those regurgitation you claim come from your knowledge of living among Yoruba people are the stereotypes representing the house you inhabit.
I might as well invoke similar ridiculous ideas about Igbos being so greedy they are able to sell their parents, as people who are unable to develop any unified political strength bcs of greed for individual advancement, people who believe they are smart when they are actually being foolish, people who picked a fight they could not win, chickens who are slaughtered in droves in the North but grow big mouths in the South, but I expect you get the picture.
You have demonstrated a deeply yeye-Yoruba for ridiculous- mind set.
Obinna belongs to the same mind-in-a-hole thinking but he struggles to cloak in it a roundabout intellectualism."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju I have asked you to get even a Professor of sociology and political science and show our debates. Every word I have typed to you here is "value free" and objective. I am completely incapable of inobjective debating. I am so confident about that.
" Mazi Akuchịe All Igbos advocated for extinction of Osu?
Really?
Yet an Igbo body had to make a declaration last year to bring it to an end, a move in which some Igbos on Facebook opposed them? Some people forget you can longer collate ideas like fake INEC results in your living room and get away with it. It will take at least 100 years of concerted selfless effort, not just proclamations,to destroy the Osu system.It is based on a mindset so primitive and deep that even Igbo Christians uncritically subscribe to it.
You cannot come from a place where such intra-ethnic dehumanization is the norm and lecture people whose humanistic culture is superior without acknowledging your own limitations.
A zone where even a priest has to be from a locality to be accepted, a priest from a Church which has the most widespread missionary activity in history across the world, yet you stand to declare to the world that anyone can thrive in such a place simply bcs they live there.
I understand Nigeria's ethnic and general cultures. Are Ndigbo not living and selling in the North? What is their political footprint there? None.
So, being allowed to settle in a place does not mean you are treated as an equal there.
Engage the scheming politicians and the bad blood they are invoking and stop telling shallow tales about Yoruba people."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, All you just typed here has got nothing to do with us. Unlike you, I and many Igbos, are too thick skinned to be bothered by the always emotional outburst of rabble rousers. So stop being emotional when facts are presented to you. It does you no good. Have YOU, Oluwatoyin, I asked again, travelled to the SE to see how other tribes live undisturbed, even during election time?
Answer the damn question, rather than ranting."
"Obinna Osuagwu you are not serious. Bcs of a few words you wrote we should find a professor. I'm here picking out the holes in your ethnically framed thinking and you are proclaiming that "I am completely incapable of inobjective debating. I am so confident about that."
Really? When did you become a person without a socially constructed, spatio-temporal history? Only such an anomaly would have no biases.
The strength of a thinker is the ability to identify and engage with one's biases not claim they dont exist even as they are staring in your face."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju You are founding your debates on things you cannot establish and that would definitely lead you to bigotry. Simple thing: once there is Nigeria, all citizens have right to exist anywhere, any resistance to them is criminal.
It does not matter what Enugu people or Yoruba people may think about those who live in their domain and their potentials to influence the politics in their domain, what matters is that such migrant Nigerians have that right under Nigerian laws. But if such sentiments against migrant people were overwhelming, then ethnic peoples could sue for the dissolution of the union.
It is you who are bent on doing a comparative analysis of the sense of accommodation of the peoples as though such mattered under Nigerian laws. That is not how to debate: it is value laden and inobjective debating. The result would always be subjective and produce bigotry."
" Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Sorry, you are not an iota of sense, whatsoever. Ascribing to yourself the already beat down sophisticated idiocy inherent in your lazy argument, is overrated. Let's be real here. Using the argument about the political footprints of the north to make an argument, is lazy, thoughtless, and shows you don't understand the politics of the north, which is anchored on overly ballooned census data.
Yes, Ósu will be gone, gradually, in no distant time, using it to make your argument, again shows you aren't using the content of your cranial nerves to good use. Do better.
The Ahiara Diocese issue, is a religious thing that has or, on the verge of being rectified. Remember that I ain't bringing out community issues of the Yorubas, intentionally, because it ain't necessary. The Ife - Modekeke crisis. So many to spin around as you are trying to do. Again, you did not let us settle, Lagos, as a capital, automatically, did see alot of migrants, even from Benin Republic, Togo, Fulani enclaves and Co., not just igbos, so stop focusing on the Igbos, it oozes of bigotry."
"Mazi Akuchịe let me help you with your challenged ability to reflect critically. All you just typed here has got nothing to do with people who think like me.. Unlike you, we are too thick skinned to be bothered by the always emotional and shallow outburst of people like you living in mental holes with no light.
So stop being emotional when facts are presented to you. It does you no good. Have YOU, Mazi, I asked , lived among Yoruba people without wallowing in the kind of thinking that makes see your ethnicity as superior even while you enjoy the humanity of your hosts?
Anybody can claim to have lived anywhere.Your claim that what you learnt from living among Yorubas is :
" Most are just jealous and threatened by the Igbo advancement. This is 2019, way past the years of timidity. Either you'll reciprocate it, or tell them to stop selling their lands, but then again, their hunger in the land, coupled with greed in thinking that you are selling a swampy area to one mumu [ Nigerian Pidgin English for 'fool'] , and when the mumu and his brothers develop it, you cry foul. It doesn't work like that.
...save for UK, Europe and America, and just a few here and there travel to other parts of Nigeria, you'll are too lazy to explore other parts of Nigeria in droves, and in search of opportunities. Most just sell their lands to the highest bidding migrants, and then follow the crowd to complain about Igbo this and that. Tell them to get their arse up and go develop a swamp in Awka or a forest in Umuahia."
shows that you either never lived there but have imbibed the shallow thinking of uninformed ethnic bigots or you lived there among such bigots and so could not grow socially and mentally on account of the expanded opportunities for social development your fortunate presence there afforded you.
You carry this toxic mindset about with you and consider yourself a civilized person. Spewing English on Facebook like a cosmopolitan while your inner self is that of a person living in a remote village."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Your last two paragraphs just described yourself."
" Obinna Osuagwu You are struggling to make your biased arguments in a social void. Anyone who is arguing for equal rights in one part of Nigeria must argue for equal rights in all parts of Nigeria.
Igbos everywhere should not be intimidated agst voting their choices.
At the same time, those who stand to demonize Yorubas as inferior to Igbos, such as Mazi Akuchie with his village mindset and you who is happy to castigate Yorubas while arguing his own Igboland has no such or even worse problems need to be told some home truths.
If "it does not matter what Enugu people or Yoruba people may think about those who live in their domain and their potentials to influence the politics in their domain", then no one should seek equal rights where they migrate to.
Why should you be able to migrate to my land and claim equal rights and tell me I cannot migrate to yours and claim equal rights?
How can we agree that "what matters is that such migrant Nigerians have the right under Nigerian laws" and yet you refuse to examine comparative adherence to such rights but want to use Lagos as an exemplar of an ideal no one else should abide by?
Lets have universal and national justice, not one standard for one and another standard for others."
"Mazi Akuchịe , Allow me to again help you with your obvious challenges of critical thinking and civilized expression which demonstrate that in your inner self, you are dwelling in a backward village somewhere even though your body might be elsewhere, a tragic disjunction.
I will do so by adapting your own words to dramatize how you have fled from reason into needless insults where clear thinking is required-
'Sorry, you are demonstrating not a grain of sense whatsoever.. Even the sand on the earth is better informed. Ascribing to yourself the already beat down sophisticated idiocy inherent in your lazy argument, is overrated. Let's be real here. Using the argument about people living in the SE as demonstration of equal opportunity of the kind you are demanding in Lagos is lazy, thoughtless, and shows you don't understand the politics of the Nigeria.
Invoking arguments anchored on overly ballooned census data to account for political footprints in a region, you conveniently ignore the fact that Ndigbo,a stark minority in the UK are yet represented, as Black people, in the UK Parliament, in the figure of such people as Chuka Umunnah, that what counts more is influence of which nos are only one factor.
Yes, Ósu will be gone, gradually, hopefully, but preferring to ignore its demonstration of deeply rooted cultural distortions even as you manufacture fictions agst Yoruba people in the name of claiming Igbo superiority shows you aren't using the content of your cranial nerves to good use. Do better.
The Ahiara Diocese issue did not originate in heaven but among ethnic bigots in the SE.
Are you aware of the international status of Onitsha and other trading centres in the East? To keep insisting on one rule for Lagos and another for the SE is ridiculous and bigoted.
Please be encouraged to migrate out of and never return to the mental village in which you live."
" Mazi Akuchịe - one line response?-
"Your last two paragraphs just described yourself"
I thought you believed you have the know-how and stamina for cyber battles."
"Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, Stop your long irrelevant epistle. It makes no sense Ogbeni [a Yoruba term for a person] . Until you travel to the east, live amongst the people, understand the psychology of the indigenes, then we can talk. Get up, travel, see for yourself, stop with Google education. Go and see. I'll give the Hausa-Fulani credit, they live in the East. All you do is cyber battles and you pride yourself in it. All talk no action. Be a talk and do.
As you talk and cyber battle, àwọn ọmọ onílé [Yoruba for children of the owners of the land] arẹ selling another swampy land to the highest bidder, while you and [Adeyinka] Grandson [ a dedicated anti-Igbo Yoruba Facebook activist] rant on. What a shame. I I don't have to regurgitate what I have said earlier, it's pointless. A man speaks a few words and his message or sent across. Pack your belongings and go a field trip to the east, you will learn a lot. Social media gyrations won't help your cause. This is real talk Ogbeni. I have made my point, it is up to you to take it or leave it."
"Obinna Osuagwu you are clearly worse than a dunce.You are a clear demonstration of the adage-
"He who does not know, and does not know that he does not know and does not want to know, is a compound fool."
Igbos are migrating for economic survival and people are saying that arguing for equal rights where they migrate to should be complemented by arguing for equal rights for all where they are coming from.
If they cannot provide equal rights to even fellow Igbos in Igboland what does that tell us?
Even then, Lagos must be enjoined to continue its policy of assimilation, in which Igbos can vote and be voted for and enter elected office, unlike the distorted attitudes represented by such crude, village dwelling mentalities of a Mazie Achuzie for whom Yorubas are inferior to Igbos even as he freely lives among Yorubas and of an Obinna Osugawu who finds himself compelled to start spiting on a fellow interlocutor bcs his ethnic centred mindset is not succeeding in a debate.
No to disenfranchising and molesting anyone in Lagos and yes to combating the shallowness spewed by the Mazies and the Obinnas even as one extricates anything of value amongst the at times descent into muck of their speech.
You will observe that I insult you only when you insult me and operate at the same level of insults you choose to use in your infantile inability to maintain emotional composure in responding consistently to an issue that requires sober, measured responses, not mud slinging by children."
Shortly after this stage, Obinna blocked me so that I could no longer see his posts but, anticipating that block as a tactic used by some people when they can no longer cope in a debate, I had earlier copied and pasted the debate up till this point.
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