Opinion: Femi Fani-Kayode – Beating the drums of ethnic divorce

by Rahaman Abiola Toheed

Fani-Kayode

In furtherance, I see him as a disillusioned man, a proverbial siren that calls attention to arrival of epidemic but doesn’t wait to wrestle the plague. I also regard his irrelevant questions of hypocrisy as vainglorious display of cynicism and political bigotry.

 

Some weeks ago, I was fortunate to read Femi Fani Kayode’s long diatribe and unnecessary clamour for Oduduwa state and I was extremely pestered beyond the vein of my body.  As a patriotic Nigerian who is daily downhearted and inestimably saddened, and at the same time held to ransom of thought due to incessant and pervading ethno-political plague webbing Nigeria over a decade, I wouldn’t have got exasperated if those salient questions raised by the former minister of aviation are not engineered through the channel of hereditary hypocrisy and pomaded by ointment of political chauvinism.

Without iota of doubt, Femi Fani-Kayode is one of the intellectual goliaths known to be very outspoken, indefatigable and keenly concerned about the puzzling and depressing Nigerian situation, having being an office holder for many times in this country, I couldn’t believe he could have written such balderdash when the country is presently going through the epoch of violence that has taken different colourations, series of insurgency engendered by monstrous Boko Haram, stalwart beast of corruption, robust and greatly armed legion of economic melt-down, political shipwreck, politics of massive ineptitude and inexplicable imbroglios, coupled with unending display of power-drunkiness by our blood-thirsty political gladiators and over-zealous muscle men who are ready to crucify the fate of Nigeria on the cross of oblivion at the expense of their political lust.

What was FFK trying to insinuate or project through his long verbiage of lamentation and wordy elegy of staggering phraseologies? What does he mean by Nigeria a nation born out of unwilling marriage of fruitlessness and almagamation of inharmonious ethnic groups? Perhaps a fallen nation when he was among those who paddled the boat of this nation to the shore of impotence via his excellently garnished mendacities during the presidental spell of Baba Ota? Or a divided state when he’s still one of the intellectual Spartacuses riding on the wit of the nation of over 150 million population? I’m not, in one way or the other, convinced that Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode’s grouse about the nation’s worrisome situation is not a narcissistic display of stale relevance by an elder statesman whose days of glory are bygone.

In furtherance, I see him as a disillusioned man, a proverbial siren that calls attention to arrival of epidemic but doesn’t wait to wrestle the plague. I also regard his irrelevant questions of hypocrisy as vainglorious display of cynicism and political bigotry.

FFK, with previous antecedents is a well-known political bigot. And he has many a time displayed himself as a carrier of this appellation through his deceptive and cunning way of generating ripple of controversy so as to command public attention. He is indeed a cynosure who ensnares gullible minds to his growing legion of dogmatism with his superfluous articles of insincerity and misleading compass.

To start with the issue of Igbo ‘destitutes’ who were deployed out of Lagos by Governor Fashola (which for some months changed the political atmosphere and social tension of the nation), Femi Fani-Kayode wrote a prejudice-laden and very acerbic article titled “The Bitter Truth About the Igbo”, in which he maligned the Igbos and told them to get out of Lagos for the Yorubas. He described Igbos as “collectively unlettered, uncouth, uncultured, unrestrained and crude in all their ways”, and that “they have no restraining factors because money and the acquisition of wealth is their sole objective and purpose in life.” With this vituperative description and corrosive debasement of the Igbos, FFK has shown that he is a man who has no shame; a man that has no respect for the unity and love that womb all the ethnic societies in Nigeria together as one. Anyway, I am not thunderstruck. This is because a man who has been levelling allegations against other tribes, if he jingles the bell of division and fans the ember of ethnical divorce at this moment in time we shouldn’t be marvelled.

Similarly, immediately after his first spell of jingoism he wrote an article titled “A Word For Those Who Say I Am A Tribalist.” In this article he almost ruined the families of female Igbo personalities through his blathering and long-winded argument. Logical thinking, how does being tagged a bigot have something to do with dating Igbo women- those who are now married and having solace in their various matrimonial homes? Why did he still insist, for so long on having love affars with Bianca Ojuckwu when the latter absolutely denied knowing him? At this point I’ll subscribe to the fact that all afore mentioned were inched towards braggadocio, self-esteem and rehearsed display of arrogance and bigotry.

We shouldn’t forget that he blasted the late African literay icon Chinua Achebe for rejecting the national award conferred on him in 2004 by president Obasanjo, though he later wrote him a tribute after his death. He has many a time insulted writers like Tolu Ogunlesi for cautioning him on his plethora of tribal attack. This is man who has shown his buttock to the world through his irrefutable, flamboyant, and unmatched showcase of political zealotry. And if this kind of man can, out of his own wit, think Nigeria should depart due to different crises daily bombarding us, we should just dust it off.

I’m a patriotic Nigerian and Yoruba so to speak. And I believe that these hullabaloos and crises are mere turning point in history provided we Nigerians have faith in one another from the central to the base. If at all Nigeria is vulnerable and inching towards a failed state due to incessant attacks from the extremist Boko Haram, coupled with political complication fuelled by ethno-religious differences and different tongues’ wagging against her governance by the foreign onlookers, I don’t think the best panacea is to clamour for disintegration.

May God save Nigeria from her parasites and termites who think she can no more hold as a nation again. May God save Nigeria from the jawbones of ethnic  propagandists and apologists, tribal confusionists and comformists and most importantly pessimists who can’t offer any solution but rather beat the drum of ethnic divorce.

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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.

 

One comment

  1. Ameen ya Allah. This kolomental of fani kayode needs someone to talk sense into his sick head.

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