By Obi Nwakanma
Chinua Achebe, the leading African writer of the 20th century, did write in his The Trouble with Nigeria, that Nigeria was a fractious nation. However, a shared fear and antipathy of the Igbo was the single thing that unites Nigeria. This situation persists. And this certainly, is the impulse that drives Bayo Onanuga, senior Special Assistant to Mr. Tinubu on Information and Strategy, to keep invoking the name of the Igbo in his enterprise as a hack, and a regime propagandist. The Igbo, it is now clear, are Onanuga’s nightmares.
At every turn of event, he invokes the Igbo. When his world is about to fall apart, he invokes them. His masters love him for sticking it to the Igbo. But he does not seem to know or understand the Igbo. So, let me tell him a little bit about these people. They are democrats. It takes them a long time to arrive at a decision, because they talk, and debate and disagree, to the point sometimes, of distraction. They are slow to anger. They watch. They sniff the ground carefully. They are patient. They make sure that they are on the right they act.