Racial discrimination in the Southeast of Nigeria – Reno

Rather than ganging up against Dr. Reuben Abati, let us accept the fact that the Southeast is the part of Nigeria most closed to outsiders.

Even amongst themselves, there is discrimination. Ebonyi people have repeatedly complained of difficulty renting properties in Anambra. Fact-check me. There have been multiple cases of Ebonyi people showing evidence of how their money was returned to them by Anambra and Enugu landlords when it was discovered that they were from Ebonyi.

When President Tinubu appointed Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla as the Chief of Naval Staff, he was accused of being a non-Igbo speaking Igbo by people from his region.

Over 25 Igbos have been elected into high office in Lagos and the Southwest, including Oghene Egoh, Rita Orji, Tony Nwoolu, and many others. Even President Tinubu, whom many Obidients love to insult, appointed Igbos into his cabinet as Commissioner when he was Governor. Ben Akabueze was one of them.

There are Igbos elected and appointed into various political positions in Northern Nigeria, including Chidebelu Ewuzie, a Special Adviser to the Gombe State Governor, George Dike, a Special Adviser to the Niger State Governor, Kester Ogualili, a Special Adviser to the Borno State Governor, and Cyprian Nelson Len, an Igbo man who won a House of Assembly seat in Taraba, amongst others.

But how many Lukumi Yorubas, Northerners or Niger Delta people are elected or appointed into high office in all the five states of the Southeast? Please name one.

During last year’s election, political opponents of Anthony Chinasa, a Labour Party candidate in Abia, added Abiola to his name in a poster to make people not vote for him. Please fact-check me. The man had to call a press conference to reject the name Abiola!

Even when you look at the results of the #NigerianElections2023, you find that the only region that voted tribally was the Southeast.

Whereas Peter Obi got 19.90% of the SW votes, Tinubu only got 5% of the Southeast votes, totalling 127,370. Waziri Atiku got only 4% of the votes in the Southeast, totalling 90,968. Meanwhile, in his own region, the Northeast, Peter Obi got 315,107 votes, which was 9.17% of the votes.

However, the Southeast is also the most vociferous in accusing the other regions of being tribalistic in their voting patterns even when the facts indict them.

So, let us not act as if Reuben Abati lied. He spoke an inconvenient truth, and as usual, those he exposed wanted to bully him into submission on social media. It failed in 2023, it will fail in 2024, and it will keep failing in the years to come.

Reno Omokri

Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.