Churchill Okonkwo’s article “Ndigbo Will Conquer And Rule In Oduduwa Republic” published August 7, 2017 in SaharaReporters, is a figment of imagination as useless as driep-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. His braggings about Ndigbo’s taking over in Oduduwa Republic is an empty foolish boasting with an appeal to twisted morbid desires of a lunatic.
I will not dignify the cow dung from Okonkwo by responding to the phantom of lies, probabilities, impossibilities, and pipe-dream dressed up as achievable outcomes. However, one or two comments will suffice. Okonkwo’s voice of mysterious import begins by saying “I hate to make mysteries out of nothing, but I hope I will be sufficiently understood in telling the mischievous advocates of the Oduduwa Republic like Remi Oyeyemi, Femi Fani-Kayode and Bayo Oluwasanmi that there is a limit of ethnic homogeneity as a basis for political organization.” “These apostles of ethnic jingoism,” continues Okonkwo, “should know that their obsession with seeing Nigeria destroyed by all means possible is a big waste of time and akin to waiting for the ship at the airport.” Salivating and fully inebriated with pride and arrogance, Okonkwo says “As omo Igbo, that’s not my headache anyway; all I know and care about is that irrespective of whether the Igbos are in Kabba, Otuoke, Ojuelegba, Sambisa Forest or Birnin Kebbi, we will always excel.”
Okonkwo concludes that “I sampled the opinion of Ndigbo on their fate in the new Republic. I asked whether they are ready and willing to be treated as foreigners or “slaves” in the Oduduwa Republic, and they said no. I asked if they will be intimidated by the Oba of Lagos, OPC or any other person or group and they said no. I asked if they will continue to be outgoing and fearless and they gave me a resounding, yes! These decisive answers can be summarized thus: Ndigbo will conquer, prosper and rule Yorubaland in the Oduduwa Republic.”
Okonkwo’s sweeping denigration of Yoruba people as foot-mat that will submit to the imaginary towering and overpowering Ndigbo invaders in Oduduwa Republic is a classical example of ignorance and error from a contemptuous ingrate like Okonkwo who mistakes Yoruba kindness as a weakness. His noon-day fantasy of seeing Ndigbos as the conqueror of Oduduwa Republic amounts to a blind and boring purpose. His lash out, round up condemnation of Remi Oyeyemi, FFK, and my humble self for agitating for separation from hostile, separate, unequal, divided, and ungovernable Nigeria shows Okonkwo’s wavering and halfhearted in allegiance to truth, and his choice of darkness of error and satanic delusion.
Okonkwo’s piece is a foolish distraction. Nothing is too insane to say by an ingrate Ndigbo person like Okonkwo. Do Yorubas need the validation or the acceptance of Oduduwa Republic by Okonkwo in his depraved and convoluted write-up? Do we have to go by Okonkwo’s prejudiced warped self-loathing, self-gloating rubrics of the capabilities and capacities of Ndigbo to take over Oduduwa Republic? In days like these when death is busy and loss is common to Nigerians, when hunger, joblessness and homelessness ravaged the land, when young ones are written off as lost generations, when the country is headed into the abyss, no amount of heated imagination from Okonkwo’s product of blurred vision typical of ecstatic and half-hysterical propaganda disciple can delay, detain, or derail the birth of Oduduwa Republic – it’s inevitable!
Sometimes it’s hard being a nice group. Yorubas get taken advantage off more easily, walked all over, counted off as dunces and often looked at as that group that will be okay with everything you say to them, even if it hurts or insults their intelligence. We’ve been that group that gets insulted, walked all over and counted off as ditzy, and we’ve lived to tell the tale. Yeah, it might still happen in the future, but I’m here to say this as disclaimer to anyone who wants to take our heart for granted. Well, let’s just say I have a few words for the Okonkwo’s of the world: don’t take our kindness for weakness. Since when being a nice group of people mean that Ndigbos could walk all over us whenever they please? Just because Yorubas are kind, thoughtful, empathetic, and mild mannered does not mean that we’re the pavement Ndigbos should stomp all over on. We might be kind, but we’re not a side walk. Don’t take our humbleness for a lack of confidence. Just because we’re humble doesn’t mean that we’re ready for you to put us down to pull Ndigbos up. Our repeated refusal to boost ourselves up isn’t a sign of self-esteem issue. Not at all, actually. It just means we rather not spend our time blowing ourselves up just to look good in front of other groups.
Don’t take our silliness for dumbness. When did quietness mean that we’re dumb? Nah, we meant what we said, and we said what we meant concerning the inevitability of Oduduwa Republic. I’ve been through many debates, side eyes, disagreements and conversations on the break up of Nigeria that go on for an unnecessary amount of time, I’ve stuck to my opinions not caring what people like Okonkwo feel or how they interpret them and there’s no changing them. Let’s be real, what’s it to you what my opinion is? I don’t really care about yours, so why care so heavily about mine?
Don’t take Yoruba leniency as being a pushover. We’ll always give someone the benefit of the doubt, just because it’s our nature. But when you keep pushing us down, questioning our opinions, making it seem like we don ‘t know what we’re talking about, don’t know what we’re doing, and make sly insults, do you expect us to simply roll over? Don’t take our kindness, humbleness, silliness, quietness, and leniency as a means for you to diminish us as a group. Because if you have the urge to tear us down, seem more superior than us, get mad for advocating Oduduwa Republic, and try to make us feel dumb, then henceforth you really don’t deserve any of these characteristics in us where Ndigbos live in Yoruba land. Honestly, if you take advantage of our hearts, but refuse to accept our inalienable right to self-determination as a people, you really deserved to be treated as ingrates.
I’ve been a radical truth-teller in my writings more so whenever I sit at my desk to build another cathedral of paragraphs in stubborn support for Oduduwa Republic. I’m not subjected to the whims and caprice of the Okonkwos of the world who are against Oduduwa Republic for telling the inconvenient truth about the soon to be born Oduduwa Republic because it’s our own words that validate our voice. Also, over the course of writing, I have realized that ingrates like Okonkwo who are always after other voices for the creation of Oduduwa Republic for daring to express their opinions unequivocally, boldly, and courageously, want artificial human beings to manufacture narratives that will go along with their own prejudices, biases, and beliefs. To put it mildly, this is an ugly self-flagellation.
No one ever went broke overestimating the ungratefulness of shameless proselyte like Okonkwo the pathetic crybaby and an embarrassment to Ndigbo. Okonkwo’s article not only reads like the field notes of an oddly lyrical skid-row ethnologist, but a lurid prose devoid of reason and intelligent thinking full of heresy and hoopla.
