“It is a fact that most of d pirates I see selling
pirated CDs and DVDs are
Igbo,” he unbelievably said. “1 even threatened
me after I seized my film
from him. Why?” he asked. And with this, all my
respect for Kunle Afolayan
went off the window. How could someone who
claims to be so educated mutter
such utter nonsense, in an already heated
situation?
I do not even want to go into the foul-mouthed
tirade of Oba of Lagos,
Rilwan Akiolu. He appears to me as uncivilized
and brash, so I won’t even
blame him. All he has done is do more harm to
APC’s chances in Lagos. But
Kunle Afolayan? What was he thinking? Was he
drunk? High on some cheap
stuff? I can never tell.
Yes, he probably was bitter over what pirates had
done to his business. But
a man of his standard should have thought
better. I am disappointed. Now
let me let him know something. In Abia state, a
Yoruba man tried to sell a
pirated copy of Chinua Achebe’s ‘There Was A
Country’ to me. Let me also
shock him by telling him about a certain Yoruba
man who sells pirated
Nollywood movies at Narayi, Kaduna. Does he
also know a lot of Yoruba men
move round the streets of Aba selling what of
course should be ‘concoted’
herbal drugs? But nobody ever blamed the
Yoruba tribe, even if people did
not like the issues at hand.
Let me use this opportunity to advise people to
stop this insult on Igbos.
During the presidential election, we endured lots
of embarrassment. We were
insulted and told to “go and die”. Now, a certain
Oba has told us to perish
in a lagoon. Now, brother Kunle has accused us
of piracy. The Igbo tribe is
a great one, proud of itself and never would wish
it were from another
place. I, for one, am proud of my Igbo roots. I can
never imagine being
from any other tribe.
Igbos respect other tribes. You can never see an
Igbo man insult an Hausa
man in the east. It is not possible. No Igbo man
would arrogantly dismiss a
Yoruba man in the east. If anything, they accord
those tribes all respect
they deserve. So why this?
The time for us to be serious is now. We can
never succeed in this war
against tribal differences like this. I cannot wait
to see a Nigeria
devoid of tribal differences. I cannot.