Rock’s joke was disagreeable and deeply offensive. But in taking the law into his own hands and responding in a violent way, Will Smith modelled the worst excesses of modern pop culture – broken, out-of-control and narcissistic.

By Azu Ishiekwene

One week before Hollywood, Nigeria hosted a different kind of Oscar moment. At the swearing-in ceremony of Charles Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank and new governor of the most commercially significant southeast state, the wife of the outgoing governor, Ebele Obiano, staged an unusual drama.

Ebele, Nigeria’s modest answer to Kenya’s tempestuous Lucy Kibaki, floated across the dais to where Bianca Ojukwu, Nigeria’s former ambassador to Spain, was sitting to mockingly question what she was doing at the ceremony after years of being a thorn in the government’s side. What followed wasn’t as pretty as Ebele’s butterfly-sleeved pink dress.

Right there before hundreds of guests and hundreds more watching on TV and following on social media, Bianca, a former beauty Queen and ambassador, landed the outgoing governor’s wife a slap and ripped her wig. Nollywood may have called it, Fury of The Fish Wives. But this wasn’t a movie; it was real.

The solemn handover ceremony instantly became a footnote. It was supplanted by an excited public that obviously judged Bianca’s assault excusable recompense for a provincial First Lady whose contempt for the state apart from purchasing a pair of Gucci glasses worth $2,755, also included shopping for personal designer Covid-19 vaccines when the state could not afford a single jab for its citizens.

Bianca’s slap rocked social media. Even though she responded by claiming she had acted in self-defence, questions are still being asked about what kind of example she had set, whether she did not go too far and whether, in fact, the public had not been unfair in judging Ebele‘s record.

We had barely recovered from the Ebele-Bianca face off when Will Smith happened thousands of miles away, momentarily giving the impression that Hollywood had taken a leaf from Nollywood, except that even Woody Allen might have been hard pressed to script this. What was Will Smith thinking when he leapt to the stage and decked Chris Rock in reaction to the latter’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss?

Some might say this question puts the cart before the horse. That the joke should not be on Will Smith but on Rock, who chose the Smiths’ day of joy to crack a poor, tasteless joke with no regard whatsoever for the misery that Jada’s hair loss (a medical condition), must be causing the family.

Unfortunately, comedians, like most creative people, get paid to trade not only in others’ foibles, quirks or pet peeves, but in their misery as well. In his final days, Saddam Hussein served an Iraqi cabaret a death sentence for making him the butt of their jokes. For years, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma was the subject of scathing jokes, and was in fact crowned with a “shower head”, a cartoon caricature from the president’s testimony during his rape trial.

Five years ago, American comedian, Katty Griffin, thought it was funny when she posed for a photo with the replica of Donald Trump’s tomato-splattered head. But the backlash was more than she bargained for. In spite of her apology that it was in the nature of her business to constantly “move the line” and then “cross it” and that she didn’t mean any harm, she lost her tour dates and endorsements apart from being fired by CNN.

And a tasteless joke by popular Nigerian comedian, Basketmouth, in 2014 comparing dating experiences between “white girls” and “African girls”, with a primer on which variety required “a bit of rape” to straighten out, was filed away until 2019 when he was chosen as an influencer for an EU-sponsored campaign against gender-based violence. The joke came back to haunt him. In spite of his apology, it cost him his EU endorsement as well.

I don’t think there’s too much disagreement about whether Rock’s joke on Jada crossed the line. Alopecia, a general term used for any form of hair loss, is not a laughing matter. While the disease is not medically serious, sufferers endure different levels of psychological discomfort, which like talking about periodontal disease or tooth loss in the presence of the elderly, can only compound their misery.

Some have said that a balding man would have taken the joke on his chin and that, in fact, Will Smith laughed momentarily before he caught the joke. But Jada is not a balding man and didn’t need to be. She is an actress who has struggled with a medical condition. She has not been shy to acknowledge her condition and it was maliciously cynical of Rock to exploit it for a laugh.

The relationship between the Smiths and Rock is also fraught. After Rock’s 2016 swipe at the Smiths that “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties,” and his comment that the Smiths “went mad” that there were no Black nominees that year, you would expect Rock to make his mickey elsewhere. But not only did it have to be the Smiths again, it had to be Jada’s hair this time.

Unfortunately, however mildly the Academy may have responded to this embarrassing moment of one Black man striking another on stage, it just feeds the prejudice of a few who would use the incident to justify sleepwalking on demands for a more diverse, inclusive Oscars.

There have, in fact, been insinuations that the Academy’s reluctance to press charges, which is possible under California laws, is not necessarily for Smith’s sake but more for its own enlightened self-interest. How does going from #OscarsSowhite to #OscarsBlackfights help the Academy, for example? And would Will Smith have responded the same way if Rock was a Caucasian comedian? Or did the joke only suddenly become insensitive and bad because he was at the receiving end? 

Medieval literature is replete with fighting for love or chivalry, which not only ended in personal tragedies but sometimes in ghastly blood feuds like the Spanish succession wars. But the world has come a long way since. Jada didn’t need Will Smith to take us back to Lancelot or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Rock’s joke was disagreeable and deeply offensive. But in taking the law into his own hands and responding in a violent way, Will Smith modelled the worst excesses of modern pop culture – broken, out-of-control and narcissistic. It’s part of the reason why we do our best to keep our children as far away from that space as we can. To watch, on live TV, one celebrity decking the other suggests that it’s OK to smash the next fellow if you don’t like his or her joke.

Will Smith didn’t help Jada either. His action, like the unintended consequence of all chivalry, is to portray women as weak, defenceless and incomplete without male approval and protection, even when it is as foolish and needless as it was in this instance. In restraining himself after he was slapped, Rock looked the more admirable of the pair in the disgusting spectacle, somehow redeeming himself even in his moment of insane ribaldry.

Will Smith would have better served himself, Jada and millions around the world watching, by taking the stage not twice, but once, to express his displeasure and demand an apology for Rock’s rotten joke. And even if Will Smith didn’t step up, Jada’s extraordinary career and sterling social work are legacies that cannot be diminished by the unguarded moment of a chatterbox.

We see from the crime scenes – whether at the slapping drama at the Nigerian handover ceremony or at the Oscars in California – that politicians and celebrities are human and like most humans would in a moment of insanity say or do the wrong things in total disregard of their social status or the values we hold dear.

Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock won’t be the last unscripted highlight of the Oscar and other Hollywood big nights. Even if the world turns the other cheek, celebrities would deck it because they assume that their status entitles them to do so.

Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

In President Buhari’s Nigeria, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. That is what the terrorist attack on the Kaduna train on Monday proved most conclusively.

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Those who want to be politically correct may continue to play the ostrich, pretending that all is well. But the country is in such a precarious situation that any honest, dispassionate appraisal will come to an inevitable conclusion: it can’t get any worse. It is both a wish and a prayer, which explains why many can’t wait for 2023 to come.

The bad news is that May 29, 2023 is a pretty long time. For a country that has lost its soul, where the attitudes and feelings of love and respect for human beings have been completely eroded as it is in Nigeria today, things can get much worse in the one year that is left of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency and even long after he dismounts the high horse.- Advertisement –

Anyone who thinks this is a harsh verdict needs to reflect on how animalistic we have become. Even wild animals in the jungle have better rules of engagement. They don’t kill their own for fun as we, who claim to be humans, do.

If we reflect on the carnage in Kaduna State and the reaction of not only Nigerian leaders but also citizens, it will be self-evident that we have lost our humanity.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) finally held its National Convention in Abuja on Saturday, March 26. All the leaders of the ruling party converged at the Eagle Square to coronate Senator Abdullahi Adamu, former governor of Nasarawa State, as the national chairman without a single ballot cast by the over 7,000 delegates that swooped on the Capital City from all the nooks and crannies of the country.

Yes, some pseudo-democrats are ululating that democracy triumphed, but can there be democracy without freedom of choice?

The outcome of the APC Convention and the fact that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that allegedly ruined Nigeria has completely taken over the reins of power therein, literally, reminds me of what former Senate President, Pius Anyim, said recently on the so-called “16 ruinous years” of the opposition party.- Advertisement –

“I am sure they (APC) are no longer saying so. They are rather wooing PDP members to join them. And whenever they succeed in getting any PDP member to join their party, they celebrate it. So, they have reversed themselves and I don’t have anything to add,” Anyim said cryptically.

Truth be told, APC apparatchiks have perfected the inelegant art of living a lie and believing that nobody notices their mendacities, which explains why under their watch, the country is plumbing cataclysmic depths and yet, the party claims that the country has turned the corner under Buhari’s watch.

On Friday, March 25 – eve of the APC Convention – terrorists invaded Giwa local government in Kaduna State and murdered over 50 innocent citizens. Five days earlier – Sunday, March 20 – they killed at least 34 people in Kaura local government.

On the Convention day, over 200 terrorists invaded Kaduna International Airport, shot dead a Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) security staff and prevented a Lagos-bound AZMAN aircraft from taking off.

That attack occurred at about 12.30 pm. The APC Convention didn’t start until about 8.23 pm when President Buhari arrived Eagle Square. I stayed awake all night on Saturday watching the Convention. I saw politicians prancing like peacocks in their overflowing agbada and I listened to all the speeches. I wept for my country.

The ruling party did not deem it fit to observe a one-minute silence in honour of the more than 50 people that were slaughtered in Kaduna the previous day. No prayers were said for the repose of their souls.

No APC leader mentioned the Kaduna killings in their vacuous speeches. They were busy eulogising the president. It was hero-worshipping at its worst. Buhari was deified as the best thing that has happened not only to Nigeria. They fawned over him, claiming he was wearing the finest apparels even when it was obvious the king was wearing no clothes. The adulation was as stomach-churning as it was insalubrious.

Where is our humanity? In which other country will 50 citizens be killed overnight and everyone – leaders and followers – will carry on as if nothing happened?

Then on Monday, March 28, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, did what he knows how best to do – fib – when he claimed that Nigeria was becoming safer every day.

As he was making that odious claim, AZMAN Air was announcing the suspension of flights to Kaduna. A couple of hours later, Air Peace, Nigeria’s largest flight carrier, followed suit, suspending operations to Kaduna International Airport.

And while Mohammed was busy fibbing in Abuja, terrorists, some as young as 18 years, most, if not all of them, Fulani according to eyewitnesses, with turban on their heads and chanting Allahu Akbar staged a most dramatic and audacious attack on a Kaduna-bound train that had just left Abuja.

All hell has been let lose ever since. Now, it is neither safe to travel to Kaduna by air, road nor rail. Rail transport was, until Monday’s attack, the safest option after bandits took over the highways. With this dastardly attack, I wonder how many people will henceforth hop into a train going from Abuja to Kaduna.

Three things struck me in this attack. First, most of the passengers were delegates who attended the APC Convention on Saturday and who refused to use the platform which the Convention afforded them to speak out against the massacre of fellow citizens in Southern Kaduna on Friday night.

Second, it was obvious that the terrorists had information. They knew who and who were on that train and they went for them. After they brought the train to a halt, they went straight to the VIP cabin and abducted many of them with very high kidnap value. Eyewitness accounts said they were looking for lawmakers. The average Nigerian elite has failed to appreciate the truism in the saying that the death of even the lowliest among us diminishes all.  

Third, the terrorists struck at a point where there was hardly internet service. It was in the middle of nowhere and they knew how long it will take for security reinforcement to come from Kaduna. The passengers were at their mercy for a very long time.

Understandably, Nigerians are outraged. A young lady, Megafu Chinelo Nwando, a medical doctor, was killed. A University of Port Harcourt-trained Dental Surgeon, she worked at St Gerald’s Hospital in Kaduna from where she resigned in February. Had she lived, she would have relocated abroad this Friday.

In a terse tweet she managed to send out while the attack was ongoing, Chinelo said: “I’m in the train. I have been shot please pray for me.” Some Nigerians who claim to love Buhari and APC trolled her in the social media. They accused her of wanting to rubbish their god, Buhari, whose leadership adroitness, they claim, has made Nigeria heaven on earth. That is how badly Buhari has complicated matters for Nigeria and Nigerians. Now, she is gone, failed by a country whose leaders do not place any premium on human lives except their own.

Chinelo is a victim of the insufferable idiocy of the Nigerian system that has endured over the years but most especially in the last seven years of Buhari’s presidency. She is not alone. In fact, while the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) is mourning her, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is mourning three of its members – Barrister Musa-Lawal Ozigi, Trade Union Congress (TUC) Secretary-General, Tibilere Mosugu and Farida Sulaiman. A nursing mother who had her baby on her laps had her head blown off even as she pleaded for mercy. There was no reason for her murder other than that the terrorists killed for fun. Sadly, they have all died in vain.

Former Deputy Governor of Zamfara State, Mallam Ibrahim Wakkala, as well as Muhammad Amin Mahmood, an aspirant at the APC Convention are luckier. They are still alive but with bullet wounds.

Alwan Ali Hassan, Managing Director of the Bank of the Agriculture (BoA), and his niece, are still missing. The tales of woe are endless.

But the story of the Kaduna train victims is the story of thousands of Nigerians without a voice who are raped, kidnapped, brutalised and butchered everyday by terrorists while the rest of us go about our businesses unconcerned.

A colleague of mine, Ishaya Ibrahim, just told me a very pathetic story of a young woman who was kidnapped in Kaduna with her three children aged 11, 9 and 6 years about two months ago. The terrorists demanded N10 million ransom and two motorbikes from the family.

They didn’t have the capacity to raise such money. Two weeks ago, the terrorists asked them to bring N2 million and N100,000 worth of recharge cards. Everybody, including extended family members, rallied round to raise the money.

The terrorists took the N2 million and recharge cards, set free the woman but held the three children until the initial N10 million ransom was paid.

Now, the only option left for the family is to sell their house, their most valuable earthly possession. The property is in the market but the highest they could get is a N5 million offer. And because the poor folks could not raise N10 million, their three innocent children are still with the hoodlums two months after they were abducted. Their only crime is that they are Nigerians, citizens of a country that places absolutely no value on human life.

If we continue on this trajectory, sooner than later, even the airspace will no longer be safe. It will be déjà vu the day terrorists decide not only to invade an airport runway but actually shoot down an aircraft, the same way they bombed the Kaduna train last Monday. That will be a deserving ode to our collective hypocrisy.

In President Buhari’s Nigeria, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. That is what the terrorist attack on the Kaduna train on Monday proved most conclusively.

By Azu Ishiekwene

Ebele is unforgettable. How can anyone forget her pair of crystal-studded Gucci glasses estimated by some to be worth only $2,755 or the equivalent at current prices, of three years’ minimum wage in the country?

I thought there was a mistake. The headline said Nigeria’s former ambassador to Spain and wife of Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Bianca, slapped the outgoing First Lady of Anambra State, Ebele Obiano. In my head, however, the news read differently. This was not the sort of thing you would associate with Bianca, a former ambassador and beauty queen.

In spite of what I was reading as the news broke, I told myself that the reality was the other way round: Ebele Obiano must have slapped Bianca Ojukwu. If you know Ebele, you will know why in spite of the news, it is easy to be mistaken about what really happened at the swearing-in of Charles Soludo as governor of Anambra State last week.

Willie Obiano may have been governor for eight years, Ebele ruled. She called the shots in respect of appointments, especially those related to internally generated revenue. Onitsha Market, a state cash cow, for example, reported to her through her protégée/manager. Members of the state universal basic education board took their brief from her, too. And inside Government House, her office was so strategically located, you could not mistake that it was the altar at this official shrine.

She was also a major political force whose influence people vying for political positions coveted. Her displeasure was avoided at all costs. She had weight and she knew how to flaunt it.

During the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship primaries last year, for example, Ebele told her husband – the governor – that she had a different candidate. She reportedly told him that Soludo was a risk; they would be unable to control him if he took power.

But the governor wanted Soludo. His wife, on the other hand, made it clear that her preferred candidate was Chukwuma Ume Umeorji, currently representing Aguata federal constituency at the National Assembly. It took the combined intervention of some traditional rulers, along with members of the clergy, to appease Ebele and save the family divided against itself on the eve of an important election.

It would appear that as part of the “terms of settlement”, the governor would later announce that whereas he had no desire to continue in active politics after leaving office, he would secure a senatorial seat for his wife, Ebele, for her labours.-

Such is the strength of Ebele’s clout and the fear of her majesty that you can imagine my confusion at the breaking of the news that she was at the receiving end of Bianca’s ambassadorial slap. It turned out that that was indeed the case, and to make matters worse, Ebele was alone in her moment of distress.

She was painfully ignored by her husband at the crime scene and left to be set upon by an ecstatic public that seemed so pleased by the incident it was prepared to forgive the indiscretion of an ambassador who ignored the provisions of the Geneva convention, supposedly in self defence. All is fair in love and war, I guess.

But this may well be an incident that Anambrarians, even the whole world, will look back on with deep regret. Had Ebele been permitted to take the dignified exit that she had hoped for and for which she had made elaborate preparations including a dance rehearsal the night before only matched by her extraordinary butterfly-sleeves pink dress on the D-Day, she might have considered sharing her First Lady diary with us.

The diary of her last days in office was nothing, if not extraordinary, worthier in my view than the famous memoirs of Harriette Wilson, the concubine of the Duke of Wellington who, in defiance of the threat of the Duke to publish and be damned, still went ahead to leak her salacious notes to a blackmailer.

I’m told, for example, that two weeks before the handover, the governor had taken journalists in the state on a final tour of his legacy projects. Later when they returned for lunch in the Government House, Obiano hosted them alone; Ebele was not available. As they finished and were departing, however, she returned.

The governor quickly recalled as many journalists as he could find and asked them to take their seats again. As they were wondering why, he announced that he recalled them to pay their respects to Her Excellency, the First Lady. Now that they had paid their courtesies and she had bestowed her benevolent smile on them, they could depart in peace.

People familiar with Anambra protocol in the last eight years said preferments have been amended to ensure that at all public functions, Ebele was duly acknowledged and applauded before the deputy governor. And, in fact, even on the handover day, Ebele’s diary would show that she was her own woman. She chose her own time to arrive at the venue which, by the way, was inside Government House. She arrived, not before the event started, but in line with her disdain for all deputies, including deputy governors, she came in after the new deputy governor had been sworn in.

Ebele has amassed such a rich collection of experiences in the last eight years, the world, especially the office of first ladyship, would be the poorer for the recent public humiliation which I strongly suspect might force her into her shell. Who wouldn’t want to find out what exactly was her beef with Bianca, for example?

I’m told that she was unhappy that Bianca took the Ojukwu political talisman too far. That just because she’s Ojukwu’s wife, Bianca regarded herself as the goddess of APGA, the sun around which everything revolved.

The cold war continued for years. When Bianca made a bid for the Senate in 2019, however, Ebele thought that was the moment to settle the matter of supremacy once and for all. She opposed Bianca’s candidacy and instead, backed E.N. Ukachukwu, the perennial aspirant for Anambra governorship and veteran Abuja politician.

Of course, Bianca “lost” the APGA party primaries to Ebele’s candidate, but another party, the YPP, exploited the divided house and won the bigger electoral war for Anambra South senatorial district. In the end, both Bianca and Ebele lost. That defeat widened the gap and festered the wound. By handover day, matters had reached boiling point.

Ebele is unforgettable. How can anyone forget her pair of crystal-studded Gucci glasses estimated by some to be worth only $2,755 or the equivalent at current prices, of three years’ minimum wage in the country? I think, if she had been treated nicely, she might even have decided to leave the exotic “bones” behind in the state museum. But sadly, that chance has been missed.

And also gone with the Gucci glasses is the inside story of the designer Covid-19 vaccine which Ebele travelled thousands of miles to Houston to receive at a time folks in her home state were wondering when the first jabs would arrive and if they would be alive to be vaccinated.

I’m sure that entries from Ebele’s 2014 diary would also have included the now leaked encounter in Poland where it took Nigeria’s former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, to save Ebele from what might have degenerated into a brawl, on foreign soil, with a Federal lawmaker, Uche Ekwunife. Mrs. Jonathan’s prompt and decisive intervention at that moment of great peril, it would seem, was one of the reasons insiders will forever remember the erstwhile First Lady as “Mama Peace”.

Ebele has given her side of the handover-day story; she explained that on that fateful day, she went over to admire the gloss on Bianca’s lips and to greet her only to be molested and struck in the face by the latter. I honestly think Bianca’s act of aggression constitutes a contravention of the Geneva convention. It was unprovoked (just like Putin’s war in Ukraine), and should be condemned in its entirety. Her supporters, whether they are oligarchs or puny-garchs, should also have their assets frozen as a deterrent.

Yet, Ebele is in good company of a long list of forebears who, though in a higher league, would have been proud of her performance. Former Kenyan First Lady, Lucy Kibaki, once slapped a government official during an Independence Day ceremony for mistakenly introducing her in the name of a woman widely believed to be President Mwai Kibaki’s second wife. That was apart from besieging a newspaper house, slapping a cameraman and seizing a reporter’s notebook on charges that the newspaper had been unfair in its reporting.

Simone Gbagbo, wife of former Côte d’Ivoire Président Laurent Gbagbo, seemed to share Lucy’s aggressive genes; while Patience Jonathan was perhaps a softer, more dramatic and hilarious version of Lucy and Simone.

Grace Mugabe (fondly called Gucci Grace) had a cerebral approach. She pulled the strings behind the scenes and like the breeze, you knew she was there but you couldn’t hold her. She topped off her performance by procuring a postgraduate degree which became a subject of litigation only after her husband’s death. Her fury only came to the fore after her bereavement. Understandably.

Let no one diminish Ebele’s record. She will be greatly missed. In my humble view, our misery can only be assuaged if she could find it in her heart to let bygones be bygones, followed by the publication of her much-expected Government House diary.

It would be a bestseller, the envy of her cohorts, her ultimate revenge against Bianca, and for good measure, the launchpad for her senatorial ambition.

• Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

‘Tope Oriola

We have met only once — via Zoom in August 2020 during a high-level roundtable organized by our mutual friend, Brigadier General Saleh Bala (Rtd), president of Whiteink Institute for Strategy Education and Research (WISER). It was interesting to listen to your perspective and those of former defence minister, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, military generals and a few others. I was pleased to share my thoughts on the theme (“The Bureaucracy in Security Sector Governance) of the roundtable as a co-panelist. You had begun to make major headlines for your sober assessment of the Buhari presidency, the devastation of the North, and insecurity all over Nigeria. Many in the south placed you on the same pedestal as former Sarkin Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the barometer of northern Nigeria. The willingness to tell uncomfortable truths to Nigeria, particularly Northern Nigeria and its elites distinguished both of you. Your presentation did not disappoint.

I was intrigued to learn from Sahara Reporters your comments at the Maitama Sule Leadership Lecture Series. You were reported to have argued ‘We will surprise them in 2023 because we will vote for who we want, including the northerners, and nothing will happen. If we choose to vote for a northerner, the heavens will not fall. We will choose who we want in this country… A northerner is a respectable Nigerian. We can live with our poverty, but we cannot live with a sense of disrespect and anybody who toys with our respect. We will fight them to the end’. You also noted ‘We inherited the North that determined where Nigeria went.’

This is the same mindset that has brought Nigeria to its knees. Individuals who should not have risen beyond the rank of Staff Sergeant became Generals and utterly mismanaged the country by bringing it to their level. There was of course method in their chaos as they skewed what was intended as a federal system of government. I totally agree that the heavens will not fall if a northerner emerges president in 2023. The heavens have been around for a while. Nigeria has not. We do not know if Nigeria will survive it. The heavens are naturally (some would say preternaturally) occurring phenomena; Nigeria is a human invention. It is no longer serving its purpose—security of lives and property and promotion of the public good.

You also noted during your speech that the North had ‘the numerical strength to decide who becomes the next president’. This was a welcome part of your speech. Perhaps you can speak with the commissioner of finance in Gombe state who asked the governments of Rivers and Lagos to be “our brothers’ keepers” regarding VAT collection. Any part of Nigeria that can unilaterally determine who emerges president should be able to contribute to the national purse. That is not disrespect; it is called federalism.

I was alarmed by one part of your speech — “We can live with our poverty”. No, you cannot. We all assumed there was happy poverty in the North until the chickens began to come home to roost. Maitatsine and other millenarian movements troubled Nigeria for decades but were sporadic. Suddenly, the al-majiri phenomenon mingled with other social problems to produce fresh candidates for what would become Boko Haram, ISWAP, herdsmen, bandits and miscellaneous criminals. We respectfully ask you to not live with your poverty (to the extent anyone can lay claims to poverty) because you are our fellow citizens. We believe in human dignity and do not wish to continue to suffer the consequences of spillover social problems. We no longer want rural livelihood destruction, rape, kidnappings, killings and brigandage that have made life unbearable for many Nigerians from Benue to Abia and Ekiti. Anyone who goes to bed when a neighbour’s house is on fire is probably foolish. The North’s problem is Nigeria’s problem. Do not allow pride get in the way of solving our collective failure as a country.

I have always taken enormous pride in being detribalized. I have enjoyed the friendship and kindness of Nigerians of all backgrounds. For example, a Muslim Fulani university official came to my rescue many years ago during my national youth service when a fellow Christian played bureaucratic football with my posting. An Igbo woman played a bigger role than most members of my family when I left Nigeria on a scholarship nearly two decades ago. My point is that I see value in people. That is what my life’s journey has taught me. Ethno-religious affiliation or any other social divide does not define people’s worth.

I do not think your current approach solves the problem. I cringe at the rhetoric emerging from you. Dialogue is the way out. But that means we need to tell ourselves some home truths. The Nigerian system had been systematically rendered weak and ineffective long before the current administration. People with incredibly low scores in JAMB and other performance metrics were selected. That’s not a problem if properly managed. Affirmative action can be a force for good. However, somehow the same persons were the super majority (sometimes over 90%) of “competent” and trusted people found for serious positions. They dumbed down the system clinically and methodically. They hired only their kind and frustrated anyone who seemed bright, including fellow northerners. The nepotism of the core North—taken to its extreme by its current high priest—has destroyed the country in which we should all have joint ownership.

We do not understand why core Northern elites (with few exceptions, such as Kaduna’s Nasir el-Rufai) have refused to educate the children of the masses. We are flabbergasted that some core Northern elite, including sadly some of my colleagues in academia, think roaming around West Africa with cattle is reasonable in the 21st century. Attorney General Abubakar Malami debased the discourse by comparing Igbo spare part trading to open grazing. Some northern elites like Colonel Abubakar Umar have been unequivocal about Nigeria becoming“ dangerously polarized”. However, many simply consider this business as usual and another opportunity to “chop”. How does that help build or secure a multiethnic society?

Perhaps one thing that may come out of the Buhari administration (besides the recent elaborate Shariah non-compliant wedding thanks to Kano Hisbah’s annual vacation) is the realization that Nigeria cannot continue in its current structure. It is a criminal structure. You are probably aware of this but it is worth reiterating. The feeling that people are being held back from development is fueling secessionist agitations. The core North is politically astute. You know the oil of unearned privilege is about to dry up. The core North’s elite has had a good run. It is time for equity.

Many people believe the core North’s’ “one Nigeria” mantra is just an attempt to hang on to the federal feeding bottle as long as possible. Real belief in the unity of the country means making selfless sacrifices. You cannot take a stunning majority of valuable resources and available positions in practically all influential government agencies, run them to the ground and wonder why some groups want to secede. Sanusi said it best when he argued “If the North does not change, the North will destroy itself. The country is moving on. Quota system that everybody talks about must have a sunset clause.” That sunset has arrived.

There is nothing those agitating for Nigeria’s breakup want more than the core North clinging to power in 2023. That northerner would likely govern Arewa Republic. Those of us demanding restructuring are your best friends. Of course, there are those who think we are foolish to assume Nigeria can still be fixed.

Finally, the Yoruba people have a proverb suggesting that when siblings leave a room laughing they have lied to themselves but when they exit with frowns, they have told themselves some truths. I hope you consider this open letter in the spirit with which it was written — a quest for an objective, frank but respectful dialogue to save Nigeria, if we all agree it is worth saving for the good of all.

Sincerely,

‘Tope Oriola.