RETORT TO FFK'S SPEECH; MY STRUGGLE MY DREAMS

I had to undertake a fairly long journey today on account of work I really didn't feel like going but what to do when a means of livelihood is involved? Grit ones teeth and suck it up!


So here I was on the train chugging along, an annoyingly obnoxious indian man behind me literally screaming on the phone with no though for other passengers.I am staring out at the rolling fields to distract myself,then burying my head in totally engrossed with my phone screen  while scrolling through twitter for a nice morsel of news to gnaw up and what did I behold but good old FFK's sanctimonious beatitudes as usual replete with the good old ethnic superiority.

Seeing as I didn't have that much to do including i must admit my shameless curiosity induced intrigue I held my breath and dived into his newest offering.....

As soon as I started reading the first 500 words I started feeling that familiar unease and angst that comes with a vintage FFK piece of literary offering.

Now I will firmly desist from blindly castigating him but try my best to offer up an objective but fairly critical review of his article.it was a long read and i am mentally tired after a work day so please permit me as i would not be doing a paragraph by paragraph rebuttal of his piece hence i will pick out what i consider were the contentious points to me.

For a start you call me touchy,critical or down right intellectually jaundiced but i firmly believe using a far right,evil and devil personified Mein kampf as a model to interface ethnic consciousness and Nationalism is not only downright insidious,it is patently absurd, ignorant and it leads me to seriously question what sort of moral indices drives this man's ideals including his religion and faith.

This is because like Ffk stated without me adding anything these set of Germans he seemed to be glorifying their ideals for one were believers in the communist nationalistic ideals.I hope he realised or probably didn't pay attention to the fact that they were no believer in religion as opposed to his strong faith as a christian.

They were also responsible for the indiscriminate annihilation  of millions of jews amongst other allies. Any student of history also remembers the plans hitler had for Africa, to turn it to a farmland,this is without mentioning the atavistic scientific believes they had about black people generally which still re echoed today.

He goes on to contradict himself,the first of many which seemed to be a recurring theme throughout his speech.While  strongly emphasising that he was not racist (absurd choice of words if you ask me considering we are all same race) he goes on to say he as a Yoruba man his

  

"RACE WAS SECOND TO NONE" his exact words not mine. He further reiterates this when he sardonically announce that  

"I am a Yoruba man and that my race is second to none and has proved that over and over again during the course of world history"

Now while i am also a proud Yoruba man,proud of my culture and traditions i am struggling to understand how exactly the Yorubas have proven according to FFK's  warped logic to be superior to other tribe/ethnicity. If the scientific research findings or peer review body only made the report of these findings available to him then i will be interested in seeing it so i can arrogantly shove it in every igbo or hausa face to show how superior we are according to the gospel from Fani Kayode i will even campaign for his canonisation with a nobel prize to boot.

He goes on to further make several veiled and indirect inferences towards other tribes as he did not specify although not  explicitly,albeit hinging  this on the  contentions and oft repeated "No man's land" comment. Some of his other frankly astonishing include comments like 

"Unlike some other nationalities that reside in the Nigerian state, the 50 million people that make up the Yoruba nation can trace our ancestral roots and heritage for many centuries back " 

 He further goes on in the comment below…

"a new Nigerian state where we are, more often than not, envied, despised, held down, held back and cheated by so many others that do not understand and cannot possibly fathom our ways"

 

I will not pre empt him  but i earnestly hope he will be tasked to expansiate on this ambiguous but interesting comments. without going into ensuing portions of his speech,he also had some abrasive choice words for Yoruba people like myself  dare to expouse an objective and liberal mindset concerning the place of the Yoruba race in the general scheme.

The conclusion of his long winded speech however seems to me most disturbing.Not only was he expressing dubious views concerning a united Nigeria,he was encouraging,urging and even inspiring  Yorubas to actively prepare for war.in his own words he opines clearly without any confusion,his words..

" No matter what lies ahead for Nigeria, we the Yoruba, must be ready and we must be in a position to defend the people of the south-west and their interests in the event of war or conflict. Let me make this clear. This is not a call for violence because I do not believe in violence and I abhor bloodshed. As a matter of fact, I am a pacifist by nature believing more in the power of the intellect than the power of the gun. However I do believe in the right of self-defence" 

While i was not old enough to experience or even passively witness the effects of the only civil war that has occurred in Nigeria,i strongly and earnestly believe when a public figure,politician and a moral compass and mentor to other's especially impressionable young Nigerians like this man encourages and incites with these sort of borderline treasonable pronouncements then it shows in stark contrast the moral judgement of those who are electing to rule over us.

Like i said i did not witness the civil war,but i am pretty sure even if FFK witnessed it,i am sure none of his family members or aquintances participated or lost anyone,properties in the war so for him not only to acknowledge this shows a total disrespect for the participants on both sides and more importantly for the memory of those Nigerians from both sides we lost to the war.

Like i promised at the beginning,i will restrict myself from going off on a long drawn out tirade but state quite clearly without any ambiguity that at this critical point of our national convergence,it is neither helpful nor particularly beneficial for anyone to foster hatred nor serve to highlight and magnify barely visible differences.

This is instructive considering Nigeria as a country have never sat down to convene a gathering to hear the grouse and complaints of those who were victims of the war on both sides but mainly on the Biafra side.

Like Mrs oby Ezekwesili remarked during her brief  twitter spat with FFK,it cannot be denied that the Igbos being the side that lost more in terms of body counts,property etc needs some closure and an outlet to ventilate resentments,frustrations and dissappointment never mind a legitimate quest for some sort of reparations .

Fani kayode while pontificating on and espousing the laudable ideals of Hitler,forgot to read up on the main cause of world war 2 and what actually drove the Nationalism and anger of the German people which Hitler was only crafty enough to exploit to his own nefarious ends.

Their anger,resentment and grouse which were largely unattended to or summarily dismissed by the versailles treaty,Europe and the allies including the carving up of land they believed were theirs incubated their resentment   simmerring and bubbling just below the surface.The resentment of the Germans for the way they were being treated,the disrespect,the crippling financial burdens they had to undergo in paying fines to the allies after the war.This was what informed and inflamed their Nationalism hence 2nd WW.

We have to realise similar sentiments are floating in the psyche of a battered and vanquished Igbos and those affected by Biafra which they are still enduring without recompense.

I would have expected a true and objective nationalist like he labels himself to seek out and proffer ways of a national congregation,an avenue that can foster inter ethnic healing and mistrusts,instead of doing the opposite.

I would have expected a nationalist to espouse ways of changing our educational syllabus so that primary and secondary school students will be given compulsory lessons on the three major languages with an option of other Nigerian languages if interested, including a knowledge of important watersheds in our national history like the civil war,the coups,june 12 and the chronology leading up to them.Including ways of fostering a National sense of belonging,and sense of shared history,diversity.

One thing I am sure of and crystal clear about is that at this stage of our national history the problem confronting us as a nation transcends race or ethnic prejudice, the unbridled brigandage and theivery at the helm of affairs transcends a single ethnicity but actually binds us all together as Nigerians Hausa,Yoruba and Igbo rather than separates us.

I can state clearly and declare without any ethnic subservience or being an apologist that I have more in common with my Igbo neighbours, childhood friends and aquintances than i do with Ffk a political elite and his ilk who together are a group of  morally and politically castrated individuals with no aunction of  redeeming  qualities that i can point to.

The average Igbo or hausa,yoruba middle belt etc like me and my family all are victims  wallowing and suffering the effects of the Obasanjo Government which swallowed amongst others 16billion dollars without accounting for it,including the corruption cases hanging round the neck of Ffk himself and his co travellers.

When the civil war started those who suffered the brunt of it on both sides especially on the Biafra side were not the ojukwus,Achebe's,Obasanjos,Fani kayodes,Gowons and other elites from both sides, those who suffered neither had a say in the war nor any control on their involvement by both the Nigerian and Biafran sides.Yet at the end of the war those people were neither rewarded or compensated for the loss of their properties yet we know what the awolowos ojukwus etc are worth after they all converged together South west,South East,Northern elites together.

We are wiser now and more discerning in our support,I will neither be blinded nor carried away by some misplaced ethnic patriotism especially with ambiguous and unclear ends.

Those like Ffk who want to leave the more serious issues of corruption in politics,Asuu,waiver and concession scams,NNPC  scam and crude oil bunkering,our moribund economy and other serious issues to be championing some non issues,with all due respect should start by encouraging their children,especially FFK'S daughters who are safely ensconced abroad to move back home and champion the cause they are encouraging us to embark on,after all his daughter's are Yorubas too so we both share the superior DNA.

I will end my own disjointed mini tiradewith albert einstein's oft used quote which surmisses my stance perfectly    “Older men start wars, but younger men fight them. ” ― Albert Einstein