Opinion
By Val Obienyem
“IN ANAMBRA STATE CATHOLICS HAVE BEEN TREATING ANGLICANS AS SLAVES. PETER OBI STARTED IT. OBIANO TOOK IT TO A FRIGHTENING LEVEL . WE ARE WATCHING GOVERNOR SOLUDO NOW. AN ANGLICAN BISHOP TOLD ME THE STORY.”
This is Uncle Joe Igbokwe’s submission.
My comments: I have always written about religion, but within the sphere of intellectual discourse. I have not and will not refer to religion when it comes to how I relate with others or when merit is in issue.
Just read what Joe Igbokwe wrote in corrosive prose just because he is desirous of proving Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket as right. We grant him the full rights to do so, but we resist his disparaging reference to his state and his people.
Uncle Joe’s writings lack the gaiety and grace, the wit and refinement and manners of a cultured Igbo Chief. Only Chief Ul compares to him in allowing his reason to be distorted because somebody has clandestinely lubricated his palms.
Why is Uncle Joe ever ready to do anything injurious to his own kind with barbaric intensity in order to satisfy BAT? He does this hungrily and being insensitive of shame. Even those he thinks he panders to their whims unreasonably do not write as unreasonably as he does.
I pity Uncle Joe, because even those he tries, now and then, to reassure of his faithfulness, would silently be laughing at his folly. An eminently intelligent people, like all rational beings, they would be inwardly shocked at the length somebody is ready to go to despise his people to prove his love for them.
He should watch his utterances lest he provokes the very people he intends to please because among them are those that are very “ ObIdient.” In the fullness of time, the entire country will be completely “ObIdient” because what is happening in Nigeria is the clamour for a new birth, where those like Joe, intent on keeping Nigeria divided in the Manichaean fashion, between the forces of good and evil, will not have the space to operate.
Why would Joe associate Obi with any manner of dichotomy? Obi is sensitive to the tendencies in society, that was the reason, for example, in giving money to the schools, he did it not on religious basis, but on the basis of number of schools owned. This was among the reasons he is loved – his impartial administration of justice almost beyond precedent in history.
Obi is loved, Obi is going to become the next President going by the sentiments in town. One of the briefs to people like Joe is to search the sins or even peccadilloes he committed since the time of Adam. Nigerians are wiser now.
Is Joe normal? Is he the only Igbo man Lagos or other places has favoured?
KN
Tags: Joe Igbokwe Obiano Peter Obi
