By Amanze Obi
My friend and colleague, Segun Ayobolu, has joined the infamous clan of journalists and writers who are demonizing the Igbo on account of Bola Tinubu’s presidential aspiration. I find this regrettable, especially in the light of my belief that these gentlemen, as cosmopolitan as I thought they were, were incapable of this level of incivility.
But I know that Segun was conscripted and fed a lie. He must have
been taken in by the antics of those for whom Igbophobia is a pleasurable
pastime. I dare say that the views he expressed in his recent article on the
Igbo and the Peter Obi presidency are hardly original to him. They are bits and
pieces of prejudicial narratives on the Igbo hammered into shape by promoters
of hate and purveyors of falsehood.
Like many others who have mischievously tied Obi’s presidential aspiration to his Igboness rather than his personality, Segun outlined many reasons why he is scared stiff of a possible Obi presidency. None of them, strictly speaking, is about Peter Obi. All of them border on Igbo stigmatization and jaundiced perception by many a non-Igbo Nigerian.
