Bokku Advert Is Psychological Warfare

 

By Amanze Obi

Anybody who thinks that the ethnic slur from Bokku Supermarket directed at the Igbo was a mistake must be scratching the issue on the surface. Bokku was certainly no happenstance. It was a well-scripted, properly rehearsed enemy action released to the public for a predetermined purpose – to ridicule the Igbo. 

Those who are wondering how the offensive video passed through all the regulatory authorities and their layers of approval without objection or censorship are not being perceptive enough. When enemy action is at play, censorship takes the back stage. It does not come into the mix.

As a matter of fact, the entire layer of conspiracy that attended the Bokku advert, from conception to execution, was driven by negative impulse . A section of the people of southwest of Nigeria have come to see Igbo derision as an exciting pastime. In times past, the hate stimulus was restricted to street corners and bus stations. But with the advent of digital modes of communication, the pastime has come to assume a life of its own. Idle hands now sit in the discomfort of their decrepit homes and churn out irritating hate speech directed at persons, institutions or even an entire ethnic group. The Igbo, unfortunately, have been at the receiving end of such coarse jokes and unedifying banter.

As a people, the Igbo are given to minding their own business. They do not mind other people’s businesses. That is why you can hardly see the Igbo, either as an individual or group, taking pleasure in running the people of other ethnic groups down. The Igbo are too busy for such ribaldry.

But that is not the case with other Nigerian ethnic groups whenever they come in contact with the Igbo. A few years ago, the Hausa-Fulani ethnic bloc issued quit notice to the Igbo. They asked them to leave the North. Those who wanted the Igbo out of northern Nigeria did not stop there, they wrote and uttered unprintable things against the Igbo. They went as far as describing Igbo ladies as high level prostitutes. They even went further to wax and sing disparaging songs about the Igbo. But the Igbo were not perturbed by any of this.

Now, the South West has taken over fully from the North, following the impression they have sold to themselves that the Igbo are a threat to the Yoruba. This negative disposition came to the fore with the coming of the Bola Tinubu presidency. The Yoruba are out to protect one of their own. Many of them, for reasons that fly in the air, feel that the quickest route to that destination is putting the Igbo down.

The anti-Igbo campaign has since gained traction. You need to be seen to be a part of the ugly scheme to earn your medal in South West circles. Bokku Mart just contributed its quota to what is fast becoming a fad among some misguided Yoruba. In fact, when the influencer engaged by Bokku to market its products smiled lavishly and intoned with relish “without an omo Igbo cheating me”, she sounded very familiar. It is a refrain that many Yoruba will chorus almost effortlessly. 

In the Yoruba country, dislike for the Igbo is almost a way of life. Impressionable children go through this indoctrination. In those youthful days when we were still growing up in Lagos, I had a few Yoruba girlfriends who I had cause to ask some harmless questions about the way the Yoruba perceive the Igbo. One of them told me that they grew up disliking the Igbo because any time they needed to buy something in their neighborhood, you must end up in an Igbo man’s shop and he will cheat you. Another told me that they dislike the Igbo because they (Igbos) cook better food than the Yoruba. These Yoruba friends of mine were between the ages of 20 and 22 then. As young people that we were then, we made light of the situation. There were no hard feelings.

Years have rolled into decades since all that took place. Impressionable minds have graduated to the age of awareness. Experience has taken us to new heights. We are now in the age of reality. The hard truth is now before us. Just as time and tide have bestowed maturity on us, so has the reality of our country dawned on us. As we go through our present experiences, one ugly fact that we cannot run away from is that our country was better by the time we had those exchanges than now. 

In today’s Nigeria, inter-ethnic rivalry has grown wings. The major ethnic groups appear to be in a ding-dong race to outshine one another. As one of the major ethnic groups, the Igbo have a unique disposition in matters of competition. As a matter of fact, the Igbo do not compete. They engage in a single-minded pursuit. They just want to arrive at their Damascus. In doing this, they do not see competition. They see the possibility of successful arrival. This tendency of the Igbo is unpleasant to whoever that steps out to run the race with him. Some dislike this indomitable spirit of the Igbo.

Even in the North, some elements have their reasons why they want the Igbo to be kept at arm’s length. One prominent northerner said to me a few years ago: “Your people own this country”. I asked how. He pointed at the array of landed property that the Igbo own across the North. He said it was amazing how a people could be so wide-eyed in their material acquisition. To imagine that the people making these strides are victims of institutional inhibitions beats the imagination of their traducers. It is feelings such as this that are responsible for the constriction that the Igbo face in politics.

 The race is being put in check by those who feel that giving them a chance can alter the political equation of Nigeria. It is this feeling that seems to have aggravated Yoruba antipathy towards the Igbo. There is the feeling among many Yorubas that the greatest threat to the Bola Tinubu presidency is coming from the Igbo. For this reason, deliberate and concerted efforts are now being made across the South West to de-market the Igbo. A certain Bayo Onanuga betrayed this feeling of insecurity which the Yoruba feel around the Igbo when he declared in the build-up to the 2023 presidential election that the Igbo are a threat to the Yoruba. 

Relying on the content of Onanuga’s garrulous indiscretion, a good many Yorubas, including some of their state governments, are digging in. They are employing and deploying all possible means to weaken the Igbo psychologically. The putrid lines from Bokku were churned out in furtherance of this ethnic agenda. The hate speech is undisguised. It was delivered raw and direct. 

The intent of those behind it was to pull the Igbo out and irritate them as much as possible. We are told that Bokku has deleted the offensive video. But that is not important. What matters is that, for those behind the ethnic slur, it is mission accomplished. The Igbo have, once again, been brought to public odium and disrepute.

*Dr. Obi is a commentator on public issues