Obidients Weaponizing Cancel Culture

The Alternative

On Thursday, March 9, 2023, Oby Ezekwesili, former presidential adviser, minister, and World Bank vice President, tweeted as follows:

“The ethnic baiting currently going on in Lagos is terribly unfortunate.

Imagine unscrupulous politicians and their allies labelling Igbo people as enemies of Lagos? What’s that?

You’re all propagating such dangerous rubbish for selfish political gain?

Better, STOP IT NOW! “

Commendable words on the surface. But when you go deeper, you see something more sinister.

There has been more video and documentary evidence of people of Igbo origin being physically beaten or otherwise harassed by their own brethren for daring to vote for either the Peoples Democratic Party or the All Progressives Congress, during the February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections.

Yet, Oby Ezekwesili did not tweet or squeak!

After Deborah Samuel Yakubu was burnt to death for blasphemy against Prophet Mohammed (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam), Oby cried and danced naked on the streets in an amazing show of empathy. Or so we thought.

She called on heaven and Earth to fall. She claimed her heart was broken. She said every human life matters.

But then, exactly 10 days later, as fate would have it, a pregnant Northern Muslim woman, Harira Jubril, and her four underaged children, were crudely murdered in cold blood on the streets of Anambra State, where Oby comes from.

And till today, almost a year after, Oby has refused to condemn the incident, let alone cry out, like she did over the wicked murder of Deborah.

Apparently, to Oby, every human life matters, except you are a Northern Muslim.

So, it is no surprise that Oby Ezekwesili is a self-admitted Obidient.

After Dangote visited Bola Tinubu, the disputed President-elect, on Friday, March 3, 2023, an Obidient with the handle @StephenIkechuk4 tweeted as follows:

No Nigerian youth that loves and wants the best for Nigeria should still be working for Dangote & any of his businesses or affiliates.

If you love Nigeria, RESIGN from all of Dangote’s companies.

Do it for the future of your children & grandchildren!

When on Tuesday, March 7, 2023, Bola Tinubu visited the chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, another Obidient (he stated his leanings) asked Nigerians to close all their accounts with the UBA Group and withdraw all their monies.

Like Oby Ezekwesili, many Obidients are oversensitive to what they perceive others are doing to them, yet, they are very insensitive, and even indifferent to what they and their movement do to others. They defend or deny what happened in the Southeast during the Presidential elections and at other times, only to amplify what they suspect happened elsewhere.

They use the flimsiest propaganda as proof of their oppression and marginalisation, even when it has no basis and/or was manufactured by their supporters, and reject obvious documentary evidence against their movement.

In direct response to what Oby Ezekwesili said about ethnic baiting, let’s say that the most accommodating people in Nigeria are the Yoruba. And the most accommodating geographical location in Nigeria is Lagos.

What is tolerated in Lagos will not be tolerated anywhere else in Nigeria, including in Anambra, where Oby Ezekwesili, who is now scandalising Yoruba, comes from. At the risk of repeating myself, I put it to my readers that if pregnant Harira Jubril and her four underaged children had been killed in Lagos, Lagosians would have condemned it, not stay silent, like the usually loud Oby did! Such a thing could not even have occurred in Lagos. Such is the decency of Lagosians.

Oby is just a refined version of an Indigenous People of Biafra militant. This woman said absolutely nothing about the many videos of PDP and APC voters being beaten for exercising their franchise in the Southeast. And now, she has the guts to accuse the Yoruba of ethnic baiting?

When the International Committee of Red Cross worker, Hauwa Liman, was executed by Boko Haram, Oby went publicly mad and displayed her livid rage for all to see. When Ahmed Gulak was murdered in Owerri, she kept mute and slept in her bed. She took to the streets to cry for Chibok Girls. How many tears has she shed for the hundreds of Nigerians killed by ‘unknown gunmen’ in her own state and zone? The hypocritical woman did not complain of ethnic baiting when a Yoruba man plucked her out of obscurity and made her a minister in his government, before later recommending her to be vice president of the World Bank. Ingrate!

I have never seen a people so blind to the offences they cause others and so hyper aware of assumed infractions they feel others may have done to them.

People who walk and deliberately step on your foot and then look aghast when you look at them. Not only that, they take your reaction as an action. Wilfully or unconsciously blind to their action that led to your reaction.

And look at their response to Peter Obi’s lopsided legal team. Rather than accept that their hero made a mistake, they are justifying it by saying he chose people he can rely on. Then why were they trolling Buhari? After all, Buhari can make the same argument for his nepotism!

Peter Obi should have tried to broaden his legal team behind his own tribe. Yes, he wants his chosen advocates to protect his votes in court. But those who voted for him are not exclusively Igbo. It will be hypocritical of me to criticise Buhari for nepotism and keep quiet about a list full of only Azinges, Kalus and Okafors!

Obi’s legal team list makes it look like Peter Obi and tribalism are conjoined twins. He should do something about it urgently. Those who helped him win in places like Lagos, FCT, Plateau and Nasarawa are not just Igbo. He ought to put a few token non-Igbo on his team for a semblance of unity.

Peter Obi and his Obidients should not make their movement like the Mark of the Beast, wherein anybody that does not have the mark of Obi is to be cancelled. His businesses to be boycotted. His family to be harassed. His reputation to be savaged. All his or her prior good deeds are to be forgotten. And Obidients are not to rest until such a one is wiped off the face of the planet. Whether with factual or propagandistic ‘evidence’.

Obidients should not make their cure worse than the disease they want to fight! It is not possible to harbour such toxicity and hatred and still bring a healing panacea to the nation. If Obidients are like this without power, I shudder to think of what they will be like with power!

If Nigeria is to survive and thrive as a nation, then we need national movements. The Obidient movement is a powerful force. But it is not a national force. It is not even a rational one. That is why when you disagree with an Obidient, insults are to be expected.

That is why the major influences around their protagonist are exclusively from one part of the country. And even if you point this out to them factually, they will come out en masse to insult you. And you will start looking from Obidient to IPOB and be unable to differentiate who is who.

Maybe there was never any difference in the first place.

But one thing I know, as long as Obi has people like Oby Ezekwesili on his sidelines, he will continue to be a regional force that may even one day, have the numbers to be President, with his captive audience. But what a regional champion will never have is the national spread.

Slowly but surely, Obi is becoming a Southern version of Buhari. Immensely popular in his neck of the woods. Surrounded by his clan. Allowing people ride on his wild but regional popularity to win gubernatorial and municipal elections, and preaching to the choir instead of expanding his base.

Reno’s Nuggets

A man who spends his money on his wife is not doing her any favours. He is doing her his duty. A housewife is not a jobless person. Being a stay-at-home wife is itself a job. She looks after you. And the kids. And the house. As a result, she can’t earn as much as she potentially can. Husband, better pay her well! And if you don’t know how much to pay her, try this exercise. Hire a cook. Engage a cleaner. Patronise a nanny. Ask how much an escort charges. Finally, investigate the wages of a hostess. Add them all together. And the amount you get is your wife’s minimum wage for all she does!

#RenosNuggets #FreeLeahSharibu