Mohammed Adamu
Adamu: Okoro, when will you guys in the Southeast stop amusing us? Did you hear what that your senior brother said last week?
Okoro: Who is my senior brother?
Adamu: I am talking about Anyim Pius Anyim, or did you not hear the ridiculous thing that he said last..?
Okoro (cuts in): What do you mean by ‘my brother’? How is Anyim my brother? The last time I checked the man is from Ishiagu in Ebonyi State and I am from Mbaitoli in Imo State! How is he my brother? Check’am naa!
Adamu: Oh, you mean because you are from Imo State and Anyim is from Ebonyi therefore he is not your brother? Two of una nobi Igbo? Oh, oh, okaaay, now I get it, so are you telling me that the people of Ebonyi State are not Igbo enough to be your brothers; abi?
Okoro: Well, I don’t know about that! Just tell me whatever it is that Anyim has said without referring to him as my senior brother, o’simple as dat!
Adamu: Okay, I get it. But tell me: what do you think about the man’s comments last week, that Igbos in Delta and Rivers states cannot use slots meant for the Southeast. Do you have to be a South-easterner to be truly Igbo?
Okoro: I do not see anything wrong with that. Because the last time I checked, Delta and Rivers states are in the South-south political zone, not in the Southeast! How can you give an Igbo man from the South-south a slot and then you expect the Igbos of the Southeast to jubilate in celebration? Check’am naa!
Adamu: My brother……
Okoro (cuts in): Who is your brother? Abeg, abeg, I am not your brother oo!. You are a ‘Nortaner’; and you are Awusa, or Fulani. Or maybe Awusa-Fulani. I am a South-easterner, I am Igbo. It is by accident that you and I are in the same country. How can you call me brother? Check’am naa!
Adamu: Do you know your problem, Okoro?
Okoro: I don’t have any problem oo! I am just telling you the truth from the bottom of my heart. No bi by force to be somebody’s brother! You are not my brother! I don’t have any problem oo!
Adamu: I mean the problem of some of you Igbos. Or should I say some of you South-easterners? Your problem is that you people know too much ‘buying and selling’ and too little politics.
Okoro: that one na your grammar oo! I am not your brother. Na by force?
Adamu: It is not by force. You are only confirming to us what has always been obvious, that you people are incapable of playing politics without bitterness. In fact I can see that I am the stupid one here -to think that I (a Hausa-Fulani from the North) can make a brother out of an Igbo man from Imo State who would openly disown another Igbo man from just across Ebonyi State. Dis one I don check’am….
Okoro: Na you sabi!
Adamu: In any case, what I was trying to say is this: that no one is saying for example that you people in the Southeast must jubilate in celebration of Lucky Irabor’s appointment as CDS….
Okoro (cuts in): Tufiakwa! What is there to celebrate?
Adamu: Yes, Anyim has already told us; and you have just confirmed it, that Igbos from Delta and Rivers states are not your brothers. We are not asking you to celebrate Irabor’s appointment. The new Chief of Army Staff, Attahiru, is Hausa-Fulani, from the Northwest. I am from the North Central. As you can see, we are not from the same zone. And yes, we did not jubilate over Attahiru’s appointment either. Just like we did not when Buratai from the Northeast was appoin…..
Okoro: Well, that one na una sabi….
Adamu: Hold it, hold it! Agreed! A Hausa man for example, from a particular political zone in the North is not obligated to celebrate the appointment of a Hausa man from another political zone in the North. But he should not also complain that the appointment of a Hausa man outside his own political zone is not sufficient to appease his ethnic solidarity. You too check’am naa!
Okoro: What are you trying to say?
Adamu: What I am trying to say is that only the Igbo man, it appears, has the uncharitable liberty of complaining that the appointment of another Igbo man from outside the Southeast is not sufficient to appease his ethnic solidarity. But why am I even surprised? You have just denied that Anyim, from Ebonyi, is your brother. Who will you not deny outside the East?
Okoro: You cannot decide for anybody who they want to be their brother. Those people from Delta and Rivers, did you ask them if they have accepted to be Igbos? If they decide when to be Igbo and when not to be Igbo, we too have a right to decide when they are Igbos and when they are not! Or to even decide whether they are Igbos at all! Check’am naa.
Adamu: Oh yes, yes! You people not only decide who is your brother, but it is even obvious some of you in fact also arrogate the right to decide who is Igbo and who has suddenly ceased being Igbo….
Okoro: What do you mean by that?
Adamu: Exactly what you just heard. Some of you have the habit of outrightly disowning Igbos who dare to build political bridges especially to the North. Or have you not said that Rochas Okorocha is no longer Igbo? That he is now ‘onyi Awusa’?
Okoro: Of course Rochas is your ‘Nortan’ brother brother naa. The man is a complete ‘Iberibe’! Can’t you see the iberiberism that man brought to Imo state and to the East? Check’am naa….
Adamu: ….and when Arthur Eze recently bragged about his northern connections and the fraternities outside of the Southeast that made him what he was, did some of you not strip him off his Igboness? You said that he was no longer Igbo but ‘Awusa’? And Femi Fani-Kayode you have anointed an Igbo man. You guys are amazing, you know; you celebrated the Igbonness of an Ijaw man (Goodluck ‘Ebele Azikiwe’ Jonathan) who asserted his South-eastern origin through Rivers State but then you had once openly repudiated the Igboness of another, Rotimi Amaechi, from the same Rivers. And now Irabor from Delta isn’t Igbo enough! Why are you people trivializing ‘Igboness’?
Okoro: Nobody is trivializing anything mister man. Igboness is not only by birth or by blood alone. Nor is it only by territory. Igboness is also by character! Only people of strong character are Igbo. Iberiberism is not a part of Igbo ancestry! But come, come what is all these about? What has being Igbo or not being Igbo got to do with what Anyim has said or has not said?
Adamu: A lot my friend, a lot! We are just tired of your complaints….
Okoro (cuts in sarcastically): Then allow us to go naaa! It is as simple as that….. my brother Check’am naa!
Adamu (now getting heated): I am not your brother my friend! Remember? But maybe you are right after all. Maybe you people should just go! Because we are tired of your politics of tribe and tongue, religion and geography….
Okoro (cuts in again): This kitchen is not only crowded, we are tired of the nonsense ‘tuwo’ that you Awusa people have been feeding everybody in this kontri. Allow us to go and form our own kitchen. ‘ora’ and ‘onugbu’ suups na dem de hungry us biko…..
Adamu: …..Yes, we are tired too, of your penchant for playing politics with so much bitterness. You guys are something else! You will not appease others, yet you will not be appeased. Head you are bitter, tail you are bitt…..
Okoro (cuts in again with biting humor): Did you not hear what I said? We are bitter because are tired of the nonsense tuwo you have been feeding us! We cannot wait to return to our sweet bitter-leaf! We are tired of this your cry-cry Awusa black suup that you people call ‘miyan kuuka!’ How person go de chop suup de cry? Check’am naa!
Adamu:….. try and be serious for a moment….
Okoro: No, Adamu, but check’am naaa….
Adamu: ……You people want out of this country yet you also want to rule this country! And what is more amusing is that you want it given to you on a platter of gold as if the presidency is an appointive office….
Okoro: I don talk my own finish. Check’am…
Adamu: …..Play politics of give and take, you no gree; play politics of inclusion, you shout taaaa, play politics without bitterness, mbaa! Hell, be Machiavellian even, plot to get it by crook, mbanuu! What do you people want?
Okoro: Just check’am!
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