Spokespersons should always know where to draw the line between their personal bile to that of the person they are representing. Bayo Onanuga’s statement trying to make Peter Obi, the Obidient movement and Igbos the fall guys for instigating a protest is actually when not to speak for the President. People holding position of trust should sieve their sentiments while making comments that may pass as coming from the office they are representing when it is their personal view.
Onanuga could not hold his biases and bile-laden hate for Obi and the Igbos in general. I don’t know why they always want to rope Igbos in everything. They always want to make us the escape goat.
Instead of the government to face the issue squarely and solve it, they are looking for excuses and fall guys. Was it Obi that instigated the hardship and the ravishing hunger in the country? Yes! Bring it on! Blame it on Obi, his Obidient movement and the Igbos.
At some point, I try to align with the call for Igbos not to participate in any protest, not because the government has so favoured us, but because we have been apparently marked as the fall guy. At the wee stage of this administration, the people were already complaining and the Igbos in a dramatic display put up sarcastic clips of them enjoying the government, we were called out for being insensitive. Now, we have not even raised any protest banner and they are already calling for our heads.
The President should make bold to disassociate himself from the Onanuga’s bigotry statement alongside that of his co-travelers as a leader that belongs to nobody, but to all in the voice of former president Buhari.
This Onanuga syndrome needs to be uprooted from our system. Lets look beyond ethnicity, religion and party and put on a detribalized lens for the advancement of this nation. The hunger in the land is not partitioned in regions; we are all experiencing it, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. So if the people raise a voice complaining of hardship, one tribe’s voice should not be detected. It is the voice of the people. It is the voice of hunger. And hunger has no tribe, party or partition except in Onanuga’s Island.
I am Anya Igu Idika.