Re: “Tinubu’s first year: The ugly face of Yoruba,” by Doyin Odebowale
Let me make it abundantly clear that I do not speak for President Bola Tinubu. There are too many aides, both virtual and actual, who are more than willing to defend the policies of the current administration. I cannot but conclude, however, that the denigration of the ethnic stock, classified, globally, as Yoruba, one of the most sophisticated species of homo sapiens on the planet Earth, to which I am very proud to belong, by Mr Osuji, concerning their political choice, is not only hypocritical…
Reading through Steve Osuji’s diatribe, with the above headline, evokes a feeling of revulsion, impelling the urge to respond in kind. The long, deep and reverent association with some members of the Igbo ethnic stock cautions restraint in the face of this unwarranted and scurrilous rant. One is bound to resist the compelling and burning desire to be less charitable while dealing with characters, such as he, who insist on imposing their views and preferences on others, subsuming their manifest bias and partisanship under some nebulous claims to patriotism.
Granted that every person has the right to choose in a manner that best approximates his/her best interest, political or social, the determination of the outcome of such participation, after a voluntary election to tread a laid down regulatory path, should be the prerogative of the agency of state clothed with the statutory responsibilities to make it happen. It is only decent that disagreements emanating from such an exercise should be handled within the set precincts of an assize.
The descent of this writer into the pit of vulgarity, while painting the judiciary with the odious brush of infamy, as it refused to bestow a stolen crown on his preferred candidate, speaks eloquently of his jaundiced disposition. The executive is bad. The legislature is useless. The judiciary is irredeemable. The only saint in the arena of politics in Nigeria is Mr Peter Obi, a former two-term governor of Anambra State, former President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange under President Goodluck Jonathan, the current owner of the controlling shares in Fidelity Bank, an unrepentant importer of finished products, a notorious trader, and unprincipled politician.
According to him, he had forewarned the Yoruba people against supporting one of their own, who is “a dullard,” while rejecting the “brilliant” Obi. He even wept while writing on the dire consequences which awaited a people bent on choosing their own. The few “Omoluabi” among them are “in retreat” now. He says that, “From a chorus of ‘Yoruba ro’nu a year ago to Yoruba n sukun’ right now (sic). Every true Yoruba (not omo ale) is heart broken right now.” The fact that the Yoruba refused to support Professor Yemi Osinbajo in the party primaries of the APC “says something about the Yoruba character and essence, of course”.
Any group of persons, imbued with a sense of exaggerated relevance, must learn to temper an unreasonable gush of the wild wind of misplaced expectations stacked with the stark realities. He must be considered bereft of not only basic intelligence but, more instructively, its emotive twin, a veritable measure of mental acuity and sanity, who classifies a whole ethnic group as “ugly,” exploring the familiar terrain of mendacious rascality, trodden by popular but rabid irredentists, the ignoble purveyors of the philosophy of “victimhood”, a disingenuous scheme designed to confuse, subdue and dispossess; an attitude which attracted grim repercussions in our recent history. Osuji’s thoughtless vituperations are evidence of the growing and pervasive thick-headed stupidity and arrogance which plunged the country into a needless civil war.
Let me make it abundantly clear that I do not speak for President Bola Tinubu. There are too many aides, both virtual and actual, who are more than willing to defend the policies of the current administration. I cannot but conclude, however, that the denigration of the ethnic stock, classified, globally, as Yoruba, one of the most sophisticated species of homo sapiens on the planet Earth, to which I am very proud to belong, by Mr Osuji, concerning their political choice, is not only hypocritical but typical of the vagrant, uncouth Igbo elites, deprived of quality representation by the circumstances of their origin and evolution. A mediocre craftsman continues to blame his tools, while ignoring the fact of the fundaments – skills deficiency.
It is indecorous for anyone, let alone a peripatetic journalist, to pick on a whole ethnic group and classify them as stupid for rejecting Mr Peter Obi, a pathological dissembler and major contributor to the economic woes of Nigeria. It is typical hubris, nay overweening hypocrisy of an average Igbo elite, for a person who once picked a column in The Nation, owned by the same Tinubu, to regard him as a “dullard”, while Peter Obi, who claims to have had a stint in the Philosophy Department of the University of Nigeria, and has been reluctant to bring to a foreclosure the controversies surrounding his result and, indeed, the charge of non-completion of the degree after many years, as “an Igbo fit”. A chartered Accountant is a dullard. A supposed graduate of Philosophy, BA (permanently in-view) is a genius! How more ludicrous can a person be?
The allusion to the outcome of the 2023 presidential election results, suggesting that it was rigged by INEC, is not surprising. The contestant, who came third in a race, believed he won. Osuji believes that the same Yoruba people, described as unthinking and emotive, gave the genius, Obi, the highest votes, having rejected their own son. They “rejected him but allowed themselves to be steam-rolled by the small clique of Tinubu’s political propaganda machine. The race was cowed into acquiescence and coerced support.” Osuji embarks on an itinerary of deliberate amnesia, forgetting easily that these were the same people who stood firmly on the principle of fairness after the annulment of the 12 June, 1993 presidential election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, until some kind of national appeasement threw up a military apologist and an omniscient hypocrite as presidential candidates.
One wonders why Osuji suddenly expects the Yoruba to act differently since it is about their “character and essence.” The writer, in a characteristic dubiety, failed to acknowledge the consistency in animosity between these two ethnic groups and why it is not about to stop so soon, regardless of the queer sophistry employed, unsuccessfully, to promote naked bigotry, clothed in some dubious patriotic fervour. Osuji should go back in history to unearth the voting patterns of these groups. He should not have expected the Yoruba people to pick the “Igbo genius” and “…settled for a Yoruba dullard – one that was spent physically, cranky mentally, burdened morally and unfit to lead himself, not to mention a nation of 200 million people.”
He reminds his readers that he “warned and even wept…” about the possibility of a Tinubu presidency. He goes on to descend on Professor Wole Soyinka in a most irreverent and crude manner, describing him as compromised and useless. He believes the literary icon is one of the beautiful legacies of a developing country destroyed by Tinubu in one year. Soyinka has succumbed to stomach infrastructure by ‘pallying’ (sic) Tinubu and not supporting Peter Obi. The Nigerian society has been debased in the past one year. The Igbo society is progressing nonetheless.
Mr Osuji goes on to suggest the likely results of this omission on the part of the Yoruba. A military coup is not ruled out. The country may also “disintegrate and become a Militia-dom like Haiti. That is, bandits, terrorists, militias and just anyone who can raise a small army who hold his small piece of Nigeria.” It is very obvious that this man does not care about the safety of the people of this country for as long as his “Igbo-fit” candidate is not allowed to rule.
As noted earlier, it is not my charge to respond on behalf of President Bola Tinubu. I belong to the group addressed as Yoruba and shall proceed to make certain assertions since I did not support Peter Obi and will not never support his likes, even if he contests a hundred times again. Stating that Steve Osuji is rude and crude will appear complimentary. Describing him with the fitting epithet of an irredeemable irredentist and obdurate hypocrite will be for want of appropriate adjectives to qualify his duplicitous being. Osuji deviously sidetracks the incidents of wanton killings of soldiers in Aba and the prevention of Igbo children writing WAEC from doing so, from his catalogue of atrocities warranting imminent balkanisation of the country. He mentions the closure of Banex Plaza by the military after some Igbo traders attacked and injured, seriously, two soldiers. He fails to remember the latest killings of soldiers and civilians by IPOB.
The Igbo people could return a vote of 98 per cent for Obi. The Yoruba were stupid to have supported Tinubu in preference to the “Harvard-trained market-to-market expert.” He talks of the “mortal fear of the Igbo by the Yoruba and vice versa.” He should try and substitute the word ‘fear’ with ‘contempt’, ‘disdain’ and/or suspicion. It is the indiscretion and vile disposition of characters like he, who abuse hospitality and gestures of amity that threaten to deepen the current distrust between the two groups. The gulf created by indecorous behaviour and a certain propensity towards aggression and greed will continue to be widened. Nobody will choose our leaders for us in our space.
I round off this riposte assuring Osuji and his fellow dreamers that the 2027 elections will be a coronation among the Yoruba people. The concept of One Nigeria was designed by certain elements of Igbo extraction after the first military coup. The bad effects are still with us today. If Tinubu did not draft the repealed Decree 34 of 1966 for Major General Aguiyi Ironsi, and he did not enjoy the rare privilege of being a member of the “Economic Advisory Committee” instituted by him with members like Pius Okigbo, Chief Nwokedi and Colonel Nwabanalo, which advised him to “harmonise the civil service” and abolish the regional system, it is hypocritical to hold him responsible for the retrogression of this country.
Any honest historian knows the role of the Igbo political elites in the destabilisation of the nascent Republic and the destruction of a political system, which allowed the Regions to develop at their respective paces. The unitary system imposed, ostensibly to favour the Igbo who had captured power at the centre, destroyed the very foundation of advancement laid by our own leaders. Anyone who imagines the possibility of development with the current arrangement is dishonest.
The Yoruba people will determine what represents their enlightened self interest at all times. Any covetous denizen of the forest can go to Hell.
It should be easy for Osuji to know the greatest beneficiaries of the current political arrangement. The Yoruba will not be missing it in case the much anticipated happens.
Doyin Odebowale (High Priest) writes from Ibadan.
This piece was published in the Premium Times.
