Dear Prof. Anglo Abdullahi,
DON'T SET NIGERIA ABLAZE WITH YOUR ETHNIC CLEANSING AND ETHNOCENTRIC SALVOES.
I write to relay my concern and worries to you over your recent entitled opinions/statements as captioned above in respect to recent happenings in the nation with particular reference to your pre and post RUGA statements. I beg your indulgence to pray God to grant you wisdom, knowledge, understanding, sound health and long life in the land of the living.
Prof., it might gladden your heart to know that you were one of those Nigerians — now an elder statesman young people(we) were proud of and aspire to emulate when they are grown. However, these rare qualities and characteristics that were the magnetising factors that attracted us to your personality are now active centrifugal forces repelling us. Strong.
Given the recent public outcry; expression of contempt for the RUGA idea and the subsequent suspension of the initiative by the Federal Government with the resultant expression of satisfaction by the vast majority of the people; all these were not pleasing to you — hence your outbursts.
Sir, on different occasions, you have gone to town to make quite racially inciting statements to exacerbate the already skewed polity. These infamous statements read in part:
"If an Ibo man could go to my state and set up a shop, why shouldn't herdsmen operate elsewhere? Or are you the one who planted the grass the animals are feeding on? Are you the one who created the water they drink?
"The land belongs to Nigerians and herdsmen are Nigerians. If an Ibo man can go to North and set up a business, why won't herdsmen go to the South, including your village, to graze their cattle?" Haba mallam!
In another development, you called on all Northerners living in the South to leave in support of the so-called threat of 30-day ultimatum given to Southerners accept RUGA or face unpleasant actions by Northern youths.
In the light of the foregoing, I was(am) happy when other responsible elder statesmen (Edwin Clark, Adebanjo and Nwodo) rebuked you over your seed of discord.
As I watch and read your indecent and demeaning venoms with great shock and utter disbelief, I am compelled to say that the logic in your argument is weak like the reasoning of an ignorant child; and if you were to be a child, one could gladly excuse your utterances as juvenile exuberance. But, being an elderly scholar, you have successfully placed yourself in queer street and in an unenviable position in the society by running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
My dearly (beloved?) Prof., it is a known fact that you have lived and spent most part of your life span and the remaining one you are left to live should be dedicated to the entrenchment and fostering of unity, peace and love among the people of Nigeria as former Head of States, Gen. Yakubu Gowon is doing. If you humbly heed to this admonition, your name will be etched on gold in history. Nonetheless, if you wave it with a sleight of hand saying that such advice is coming from a youth, your name will be totally obliterated and forgotten or only referenced when negative examples oMpfailed elder statesmen are to be mentioned.
Prof., think how much better Nigeria would be if people like you bridle their tongues. As scholar, you should have known that history has demonstrated that any nation that desire to go the 1994 Rwanda pogrom way need not travel via air — but the road to that place is the balkanization of the society through inflammatory sayings as frequently made by you.
You would have observed that your dwindling and battered reputation in recent times is as a result of your insensitive war-word that is fertilizing urban terrorism and insurgency in the North. Today, the entire Northeast is fully in the state of Hobbesian anarchy: where life is short, brutish, hellish and nasty. Of course, you know, it is the brinkmanship of Northern hegemony. What about that monstrous Frankenstein — called Book Haram? People like you created it.
If you have not dissipated all your energy on war-word, then kindly join to make Nigeria a better nation than you met it. It is a solemn duty of a patriotic citizen. Our nationalists sacrificed for this nation. Don't destroy it.
Thank you very much for sparing time to read this open letter.
I convey to you, your immediate family and well-wishers as always, the assurances of my deepest respect, consideration and high esteem. God bless you sincerely.
Comr. (Hon) Ogar, Emmanuel Oko
TheScribe;
The Observer.
