Hate Speech: Urging Tinubu To Call Igbo-Haters To Order -By Isaac Asabor

If there is any tribe that is most hated in Nigeria, it is unarguably the Igbo tribe. The reason for the hatred has over the years been a subject of debate, yet the reason remains imprecise to the consternation of many.

Against the foregoing factual backdrop, it will be recalled in this context that the hatred which not a few Nigerians have for the Igbos has been so deep that Nigeria’s foremost novelist Chinua Achebe of blessed memory in his book “There Was a Country” alleged that Nigerians, especially of the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba stocks, do not like his Igbo ethnic group because of the Southeast’s cultural advantage.

While shedding light on the inspiration behind the writing and publication of the book, ostensibly to address the controversy that the book generated, he said, “I have written in my small book entitled “The Trouble with Nigeria” that Nigerians will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo.” He wrote under the heading, “A History of Ethnic Tension and Resentment”, and traced the origin of “The national resentment of the Igbo” to its culture that “Gave the Igbo man an unquestioned advantage over his compatriots in securing credentials for advancement in Nigerian colonial society.”

At the time of his parley with Journalists, as extracted from The Nation newspaper published on October 20, 2012, he noted that the ousting of prominent Igbos from top offices was a ploy to achieve a simple and crude goal. He said what the Nigerians wanted was to “get the achievers out and replace them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background so as to gain access to the resources of the state.”

In a similar vein, a group of United Nations human rights experts, in response to the deepening hatred being exhibited against the Igbos, particularly in the North where the Igbos were in August 2017 issued an ultimatum to flee their homes, warned that the ultimatum was of “Grave concern” as contained in a statement issued by the UN group on 25 August 2017.

The experts also deplored a hate song and audio message being circulated on the internet and on social media. The Hausa-language audio message urged northern Nigerians to destroy the property of Igbo people and kill anyone who refuses to leave by 1 October 2017 the same date given in the ultimatum.

“We are gravely concerned about this proliferation of hate messages and incitement to violence against the Igbo and their property, especially considering the previous history of such violence,” the experts said.

“The Government must be vigilant, as hate speech and incitement can endanger social cohesion and threaten peace by deepening the existing tensions between Nigeria’s ethnic communities.”

The ultimatum was issued on 6 June 2017 during a press briefing by the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum in the city of Kaduna. It called for sustained and coordinated campaigns to remove the Igbo population from the northern region.

The human rights experts noted that some local and national figures, as well as some media representatives, had publicly denounced any form of hate speech and incitement, but said other officials still needed to follow suit.

“We are deeply concerned that some prominent local leaders and elders have not condemned the ultimatum, hate speech, and the perpetrators,” the experts stressed.

“We call on the Government, media and civil society representatives, and local and religious leaders, to reject and condemn hate speech and incitement to violence unequivocally and in the strongest possible terms.”

The UN experts said any incidents of hate speech and incitement to violence had to be investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted and punished. “This includes the people behind the ultimatum and those responsible for the creation, publication, and circulation of the hate song and audio message,” they added.

Still in a similar vein, human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, while bemoaning the unusualness of hate speech against the Igbos that characterized last year’s electoral campaign, of which the main target was the Igbos, in no unmistakable terms, said the Igbos are the most hated set of people in Nigeria, and stated the reasons behind such hatred.

Speaking in a six minutes and 29 seconds video that went viral on various social media platforms during the period, Aisha Yesufu said that the Igbo people are the most hated tribe in Nigeria because they represent success and will never give up, and added that the Igbos’ continuous perseverance to their dream even when everyone sees it as failure is part of the reason for their being the most hated ethnic nationality in the country.

She said, “My dear Igbo brothers and sisters, how are you? I just want to have a conversation with you. It is going to be a one-sided conversation. I see many of you, most times, talking about the fact that you are hated all over Nigeria, that you are the tribe that is most hated and I say to you why not? Why shouldn’t you be the tribe that is most hated? You have to understand something. The hatred, anger, annoyance, or whatever it is that people exhibit towards you, is not personal. It is not to you, as a person that you are, it is more or less about what you represent. And what is it that you represent? You represent success. You represent, the ‘never give up’ spirit. You represent audacity that would dare, go and succeed, even when everybody sees failure. How do you expect that you will not be hated?”

Given the fact that “Igbophobia” is of worrisome concern to not a few Nigerians and members of the international community, the Oluwo of Iwoland in Osun State, Oba Abdul-Rasheed Akanbi, on the heels of then Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s emergence as the president-elect, urged him to address the pains of the Igbo.
He noted that the wound of civil war is still fresh in the minds of some Igbo, saying Tinubu should consider reintegration of the tribe to cement the nation’s unity.

In a statement personally signed, Oluwo appealed to Tinubu to propose a committee or conference to address the pains of the Igbo.

The monarch observed that the attitude and utterances of the Igbo towards the just-concluded general elections have further unraveled their pain.

Despite the concern that not a few people across the globe are showing concern for the plight of the Igbos, it appears that only one man, the former Niger Delta agitator, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, has mischievously decided to be vilifying the collective personality of “Ndigbo” at any given time as he has again fired a shot at them through the insults he heaped on the leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for calling him a freedom fighter turned to bunkering militant and political thug.

Dokubo was seen in a video that went viral on Tuesday night addressing the Igbo people as slaves who would have continued to be sold if not for the British government’s intervention.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to urge Tinubu to call Igbo-Haters to order. The reason for this call cannot be farfetched as replicating Buhari’s failure in 8 years to unite Nigerians will not augur well in his own ongoing administration.

In fact, it will be recalled in this context that in appointments that Buhari broke all records of sectionalism, religious particularism, and nepotism, even as he alienated other regions, faiths, and ethnic nationalities. To worsen the situation, his kinsmen and fellow party men that resorted to hate speech were left to walk free.