Thread by @Chxta

It is a pity that we have normalised branding people the moment they criticise the APC government.

That bad habit of hurling insults rather than addressing the points raised will stay with us for another two generations at the minimum.

I’ll tell a little story, rehash the history many of us know…

On 8/2/15, I made the decision to vote for Muhammadu Buhari, and I published a piece about it in @dailypostngr the next day. bit.ly/2XPjI7t

A few days later, I was a part of the campaign trail, and I ended up addressing the APC Youth Summit in Abuja on 21/3/15, a week before the election.

Here's the speech for those who are interested in reading - bit.ly/2XQiUzo

I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, and so it was with the Buhari campaign.

I went all in.

Another thing is I have always been critical of the government in power, thus my voting record since is Obasanajo, Gani, (not in the country in 2007), Ribadu, Buhari.

This year, the nature of my work meant that I was not in Lagos for the election, else I’d have voted Atiku.

I consider it nothing personal, Buhari has been a bad President and has no business having a second term.

My very first criticism of Buhari as #Nigeria’s President came even before he was sworn in. A full month to be precise, when on 27/4/15 2015, Garba Shehu announced a ban on AIT for a bad documentary that they did before the election.

I and @gbengasesan, who'd both campaigned for Buhari a month before, criticised the decision, saying there was a due process that ought to have been followed.

What shocked me was that a group of APC supporters while simultaneously trying to explain why the decision was the correct one to Gbenga, dismissed my statements as those of a bigot, borne out of hatred for the person of Buhari.

This was 1 month after I had been their comrade.

Forward the hands of the clock 7 months, and with no cabinet in place, I voiced criticism, and again was called an ethnic bigot and hater, and this time, for the first time in my life, a Biafran separatist.

There is no need rehashing all of the ethnically motivated insults I received, but in the Igbo language, my name, Cheta means “remember” and trust me, I remember each one of them.

One thing became quickly clear to me that the word “bigot” for these people, was reserved for people of Igbo origin, including those who had been friendly with them in the past but then dared to be critical.

I made this observation publicly in 2017 as gradually many of those from the lower Niger, who had supported Buhari in 2015 (or at least did not support GEJ), began to call out his misrule, as is our right.

https://twitter.com/Chxta/status/908629790953033728

This is where it gets scary…

The same set of people have now normalised the use of insults in all arguments. This normalisation is a gradual process of othering, of painting people from a particular ethnic group, my ethnic group, as others.

It has crept into real life, with threats being made against Igbos multiple times over the last 4 years.

Witness the circulation of an image claiming that INEC staff & civil society actors of Igbo origin tried to sabotage the elections because "they have Biafran sympathies".

This particular threat was very well analysed by @ChidiOdinkalu and @MTechLaw, I recommend you read it - bit.ly/2XRNnNx

I think the Igbo baiting is a strategy to deflect from the woeful performance of this government. It’s a tested and trusted tactic throughout history, that when a government is doing badly, pick the other, and make the conversation about them so people can forget their woes.

The people I pity the most really, are those people of Igbo stock who think that by trying very hard to appear “detribalised”, or “pan Nigerian” or whatever else it is, that when the whistle blows, you’ll be safe.

My name is Cheta kwa na Chukwu nomu nso. It is a marker. I have 4 identities — Anioma, Igbo, Nigerian, African. Of these 4, there are 2 which will follow me anywhere I go — Igbo and African. The other 2, depending on realities, could be exchanged for something else.

I’ll leave this with what @I_Am_Ilemona said at #NSF2017 to a friend of Anioma Igbo stock — “Bro, one thing I can promise that #Nigeria will not fail at, is that one day, it will tell you who you are.”