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Oh nooooo!
Shaking my head…
Though my mood lately do not gravitate towards public exchanges, but this incitement of the government against Cubana Group by Mr. Reuben Abati in the name of journalism is stomach-churning and too difficult to tolerate, especially when it is directed against a home boy.
A hit job, at best. Nothing but an anti-Igbo dog whistle purposely put out to set off EFCC and other regulatory agencies on a young man whose crime against the author is simply being a successful Igbo. A scattershot of innuendoes and skewered opinions strung together with fabrics of hate, tribal lies, and naked bias, shamelessly displayed with no intention of any attempt at substantiations, be it perfunctory or pretended. The good news is that the author’s xenophobic obsessions against Igbos, which is long known, caused him to stumble woefully and fell flat on his face, exposing his benighted craft to render hate as a journalistic piece.
Too bad
There is no doubt that hate is the primary motivator. For Reuben Abati to be brazenly unpretentious in his rants against a young man whose actions, accomplishments, and vision epitomize everything good about a decent human heart, thinking that he would pass it as journalism or punditry, sent a wave of cold chills down my spine, causing me once more to pause and wonder the level of low that has become of Nigeria’s vacuous and tasteless journalism that is extremely loyal to tribal affinity and straitjacketed in rootless ambition to achieve sectional supremacy. Sadly, journalism in Nigeria is bereft of investigational skill and boldfaced on its lack of peripheral vision when it comes to news reporting and analysis by the so-called Nigerian fourth-estate professionals. News and analysis of events, economics, religion, political, and others are filtered with tribal lenses by press corps members.
At the same time, I am not surprised. Actually, Mr. Abati did not disappoint. The guy is a tribal irredentist, no matter how he tried to cloak himself with a garb of journalism. He is a reprobate ethnocentric xenophobe with an untamed rabidity when it comes to Igbo hating. The guy hates Igbos; everything Igbo irritates him. He is one who takes great comfort in the traumas and pains of Igbo, which, oftentimes, he instigates. Turning off oxygen supplies to the entire Igbo race and anything or place affiliated with Igbo is his fantasy. But even at that, Mr. Abati would still not have peace. An untamed hater with no cause, Reuben Abati.
This Mr. Abati’s piece was brought to my notice by one of many friends who are enthusiastic followers of Cubana, even all the way from Ghana. These guys forward me every bit of Obi Cubana’s news they can lay hands on as soon it hits the internet wires. Truly, I would not have read this particular piece if not that I saw Reuben Abati’s name as the author. Lately, I am plagued by information overloads syndrome. Anything long text, I dislike. Hence, I am not on Facebook, et al.
Knowing Mr. Abati and his feral hatred of Igbos, I quickly paused to read his lengthy satire against a well-accomplished young man, an Oba son. “Hell no,” I exclaimed under the breath of surging anger; “this crap cannot go un-replied,” I vowed, unable to believe that Mr. Abati can be such enviously unkind to a young man he never met or knows nothing about and old enough to be his dad. Mr. Abati never met anyone from Obi Cubana’s family, his siblings, his late mother, or has been to his town, Oba. Even his State, Anambra, Mr. Abati’s hit piece demonstrated a depraved myopic activism that is bankrupt of any investigational knowledge of the State itself, the people, or its governance. It is a piece drenched in outright lies, uncooked punditry, and willful fabrications, deliberately concocted to deliver mischievous government reactions, create family bad blood within Cubana’s cum Iyiegbu clan, incite government hostilities against the young man and his business, as well as instigate government harassments of Cubana Group — associates and interests. Part of Mr. Abati’s goal is to elicit adverse public scrutiny and derogatory feedbacks. Today, I am hearing Anambra State police invitation of Cubana Group Chairman for questions bothering on “Naira Abuse.” Remember, none of such police invite was served to Adenuga after his own show. All these by Mr. Abati were skillfully done to whip up government attack on Cubana Group, hoping that the move may dust up enough smear to taint the soaring eagle. “We will keep rising…” optimistically stated Obinna Iyiegbu himself in a short video clip sent to me by a friend in Accra, Ghana.
Mr. Abati tried to compare Cubana’s mom burial to that of another burial event done by AIG Imokhuede, a Lagos “bigman”. The bigman hosted the burial of his mom in Lagos, according to Mr. Abati’s account, the same day Mrs. Iyiegbu’s funeral was held. This mismatched comparison demonstrated Mr. Abati’s abject ignorance of the two personalities’ social and class dynamics, which, no doubt, are far from each other as North Pole is from South Pole. While the Lagos aristocrat is class-centric – only sees and associates with folks of his likes and class, Obi Cubana by itself is a surging tsunamic social force that has become a gigantic showbiz ecosystem, built to the top from ashes and dusts. I certainly do not believe that Obi Cubana himself or any of his associates have beforehand a clear estimation or understanding of the height they have been thrusted into either by providence or by happenstance.
Cubana redefined the meaning of “Nigerian bignamism” from being a lone Lord surrounded by coterie of bootlickers, hungry and beggarly bag-carriers, and pliant desperadoes. To Cubana, bigman means creating your own class and to keep expanding it by constantly creating new wealth and “new bigmen” around you while treating all of them as peers rather than serfs. In his BBC interview, he stated: “I no dey call dem boys, I treat them as men…”
Reuben Abati must live with and must make peace with this bad news: Obi Cubana is a phenomenon that has come to become, borrowing from KO’s bank of colorful coinages. Nobody saw it coming but he is here. Cubana Group is the new paradigm – the gold standard for measuring class and tastes in all aspects of black Africa’s social, entertainment, and hospitality networks. There is so much demand for Cubana as I write. Here in Boston, I am currently under a mounting pressure by the Nigerian New England Stakeholders to bring Obi Cubana and his entire gang to Boston, even when I keep telling folks that I do not know the guy or have heard of him until recently. Obi Cubana has shamed today’s “bigmen” and made them look so poor, unschooled, and ignorantly selfish, if not completely disliked. AIG Imokhuede, more than likely is a billionaire, may have had his world made for him by family or rich relatives and his path paved with no bumps; but young Cubana, who started from the lowest rung of the ladder — “selling mama put” — created his own space from the scratch and chatted his path with the help of providence. Interestingly, unlike AIG Imokhuode who from Mr. Abati’s account courted his class and kissed up to the very top, Cubana not only created his class, he transformed it and also pulled along others he met on his way and around him to every height he achieved. The best part is that Obi Cubana believes that everyone can be rich; hence he continues to pull many from ashes and dusts to riches. Guess what, the guy is still climbing; and he has not stopped pulling multitude along to every new height he makes. “We will keep growing…” stubbornly insisted Obi Cubana during an inflight ceremony with associates marking the group’s departure from Oba to their base.
One question Mr. Abati may have not asked himself is how many millionaires has AIG Imokhuede made of folks in his world? Probably none, may be few; but Obi Cubana is like a billionaires minting machine. The guy keeps minting billionaires, millionaires he can no longer count. The knowledge of this is certainly what eluded Mr. Abati or deliberately avoided, which explains this exhibition of obnoxious level of foulmouthed ignorance against a young man who has proven himself both in business and philanthropy. Abati should ask AIG Imokhuede how long he looked for a job after finishing college? No lapse, most likely, I may say. Obi Cubana could not find job after his Youth Service. “I look for job, no job; shared a 12-by-12 feet room with friends, sell mama put…” said Obi Cubana. Two different personalities whose pedigrees bear no resemblance. Why Mr. Abati?
Nonetheless, I will add that I enjoyed everything I read or saw so far about Cubana except for one video clip that depicted him in desperate search for “one particular cow.” That was a bad act. I will add another piece of advice: Obi should timely engage himself with some niche corporate and management courses in renowned world institutions – Harvard Corporate MBA, I will suggest. His communication deserves some tempering, even when he feels like saying it the way he feels. He should tow the communication skills of folks like Jeff Bezos – world richest man — who was asked why folks like him will be spending billions (his own money) in space junketing when the money could better be used to combat climate change. Bezos did not tried to be defiant by saying: it is my money I can do whatever I want with it. Instead, he was diplomatic in his response. “We can do both…” he stated while thanking the questioner. Our boy Obi should be tacful in answering these questions; he should adapt himself to giving prudent answers and even skirt around these gotcha questions. This will help him handle the barrage of gotchas the likes of Mr. Abati will continue to throw at him. This guy has excelled beyond the reach of his detractors, Cubana’s actions and speeches will undoubtedly be overly scrutinized going forward.
Emenike Anigbogu
