by Emmanuel Ugwu,
In a shadow rebuttal to my piece, Femi Fani-Kayode and The Laughter of
Biafra which was an answer to Femi Fani-Kayode’s Nnnamdi Kanu and The Cry for
Biafra, a devotee of The Tsetse Who Flew To Cambridge, obviously under pressure to produce a passable riposte, stitched together tissues of his principal’s supposedly pro-Igbo remarks from yesteryear.
The patchwork of cherrypicked quotes, conceived as a positive testimonial, was supposed to negate my characterization of Fani-Kayode as a predatory Biafra secessionist and original vector of Igbo xenophobia.
Of course, the refutation was padded with signature curse words. I cannot respond to the master and his disciple in their native sewage language. I will dwell on the kernel of
issue.
Which is this: Fani-Kayode, a man possessed of the most belligerent instinct of territoriality, cannot invite himself ‘as a wildcard’ to a debate on the merits of an alleged Igbo breakaway agenda. He cannot presume to exercise the entitlement to vote on the direction of the Igbo race. He cannot arrogate to himself the luxury of invoking a sequel to Biafra.
Fani-Kayode’s self-appointed role in this project of Biafra necromancy is typing hawkish rhetoric on a laptop. That’s about the most strenuous tactile involvement he can vouchsafe the backward-walking Biafra movement.
When the reckless course of action he is urging explodes, the Yoruba chauvinist, a silver-spoon son, will not venture out of the bounds of his picture perfect life to participate in the ordered consequences. He will be ensconced in his bubble of comfort, occasionally drip-feeding the media his crocodile-tears commentary on the cataclysmic mess in born again Biafraland!
It’s a riddle, a surreal riddle, that a man who would banish foreigners from his delineated space has become a conflicted busybody dividing his time between campaigning for the eviction of the Fulanis from Yorubaland and trespassing into Igbo heartland and staking an opinion on the destiny of the Biafran landscape!
Fani-Kayode must not cheat on his own insularity. He should focus on raising alarm on all matters Afenifere, instead of feigning affection for the Igbos. Because the notoriety he has achieved as a hypocrite has sabotaged his ability to con sane people by display of fake concern.
The Igbo people know their lovers. The Igbos know those they can trust to contribute wisdom to the discussion of the tribe’s existential habitation. Femi Fani-Kayode doesn’t belong in that number.
Fani-Kayode is an incorrigible Igbo hater. Worse than that, he is a canvasser of Igbo hate. He has labored to legitimize the stigmatization of NdIgbo, even the most vulnerable of them, the destitute. This precludes him from presenting himself as a volunteer advocate for Biafra right to self-determination.
In the thick of the saga of the deportation of Igbo-born beggars from Lagos to Onitsha, Fani-Kayode desperately worked hard to contrive a scenario that would dead-end in a full scale, all-gloves-off, internecine Yoruba/Igbo clash.
When his frantic bid began to look frighteningly close to actualization, sane voices chastised him. Our man pleaded innocence. He argued that his xenophobic crusade was an act of love. He loved the Igbos so much he needed to show it by trying to cast them away.
He brandished a supporting evidence; the roll call of all Igbo females he had had dated since his first wet dream!
His present I Love The Igbos remonstration follows the pattern of its forerunner. This time, Fani-Kayode did not reference the young Igbo girl he is currently seeing. He had learned he could not cite a historical high girlfriend turnover, from his youth, as evidence of his present love for the lady’s ethnic group: Nigerians had denounced him and ludicrous innuendo. Yet, this new denial imitated that response.
He dredged up some past compliments he had paid a couple of Igbo persons and his favorite constituency of Igbo women to countervail his Igbophobia bona fides. He even hinted that he has excelled in the practice of Igbo love because he had ‘given’ many Igbo people jobs as a minister.
He ‘gave’ them jobs- out of his pocket! Like alms!
Another point he touts as a badge of honor is that he once challenged the anti-Igbo gaffe of the Oba of Lagos. Rilwanu Akiolu had warned Igbos in Lagos to vote for his preferred political party or risk being deported to the Lagoon. Fani-Kayode praises himself for affirming that the monarch had no power to intimidate any segment of the Lagos electorate; that Igbo indigenes in Lagos have the right to vote freely, like other Nigerians elsewhere.
The truth is that Fani-Kayode was merely doing a salaried job. He was hired as spokesman of Jonathan’s campaign. His brief was to promote the ticket of his hirer and to woo the demographic that is most likely to lean toward Peoples Democratic Party. He was under contractual obligation to push back a potentially vote-swaying game-changer.
He had to earn the pay cheque. A generous cheque- we would later discover. One that the most romantic sugar daddy in Nigeria needed to gift his girlfriend the surprise of a luxury car!
But Fani-Kayode’s Touch Not The Igbo Voters reply was bereft of any palpable human concern. He was striving to rescue the flailing campaign from looming defeat. His so-called love letter sprouted from vote lust. Majority of the Igbos, who constitute about 40% of the voter population in Lagos, was sympathetic to an extended presidency of a southerner.
Besides, it was odd that Fani-Kayode would be the person acting like an Igbo defender. He was, as he is always, credibly fake and incredibly fake. He had threatened Igbo-born residents of Lagos with similar fatal deportation; and he did that in more mystifying hyperboles.
The irony was obvious and off-putting. Wasn’t Fani-Kayode trying to harvest votes off the Igbos in Lagos because his previously declared Igbo fatwa had not caught fire? Was he not trumpeting the Igbos eligibility to universal suffrage because his original fantasy of having Lagos purged of people of Igbo extraction had failed to materialize?
Fani-Kayode is a patient of terminal racism. This is because he doesn’t have a strain of ethnic chauvinism. If he had it, owning it as a proprietary flaw, he would be able, with some effort, to tame himself. But he cannot tame himself. Ethnic chauvinism has him. Ethnic chauvinism owns and dominates him.
When there is no ethnic confrontation, Fani-Kayode, the hyperactive racist, would arrest some fleeting newsflash and rig it to provoke a reason to proclaim an inter-ethnic hate duel. He would not let Nigeria have a long interlude of tribal harmony. No, he reckons it his life calling to orchestrate divisive, ethnic contentions in the polity as frequently as possible.
It’s no surprise that Fani-Kayode’s soul has cleaved to Nnamdi Kanu, the hate entrepreneur who disguises as a freedom fighter. They are each other’s alter ego. They share so much in common they are interchangeable in their respective hate dealerships.
Take Fani-Kayode and enclose him in the broadcast cubicle of a pirate radio station in Europe. And he will unload tons of the vomit of hate on you just as casually as Nnamdi Kanu would do it. Transcribe one episode of Kanu’s broadcast. And you will have vitriol as toxic as any of Fani-Kayode’s bile-dyed releases.
Fani-Kayode says Nnamdi Kanu’s language is normal. This is true. They speak the same tongue. They share the same warped idea of normalness. That’s why Fani-Kayode sees the wellspring of Kanu’s acidic venom as rivers of living water!
Fani-Kayode’s defense of Kanu’s method is not linked with the welfare of the generality of the Igbo race. The Igbo people are wiser than to subscribe en masse to a secessionist lunacy. The Igbo people are nobler than to subject themselves to the leadership of a demented irredentist.
Fani-Kayode supports the second founding of Biafra on hate. It’s a foolish proposition. But the Cambridge graduate swears it is the effectual way to pursue the ‘right to self-determination.’ He avers that Biafra will be retrieved from extinction, if Radio Biafra would keep fouling the airwaves with the beatitudes of hate!
Fani-Kayode would sanction hate any day. He would hail a hawker of hate. He would laud a hate song. He would love to see the pregnancy of hate eject a new country. He would wish he could create a parallel planet of hate!
Fani-Kayode is attracted to a like nature. Time and chance have aligned to present him an opportunity to establish comradeship with his fellow hate preacher. And the overlap of their zeal for sponsoring Fulani/Hausa-Fulani xenophobia is a plausible ground for collaboration.
So I will advance Fani-Kayode a suggestion;
The trial of Kanu will, most probably, drag on for a while. And his long separation from the microphone is sure to progressively reduce the station’s rating- and ultimately atrophy the Gospel of Hate.
Since Femi is a consummate hate preacher and “a friend that sticks closer than a brother”, he should relocate to the UK address of Radio Biafra; and inherit his Brother-in-Hate’s vacant pulpit!
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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu engages the issues of the day with honest audacity. He writes with an intense passion that is tempered by prudence. He tweets via @emmaugwutheman
