‘Don’t tell me nonsense’ — Abati replies critics of remark on south-east land purchase
Mixed reactions have trailed Reuben Abati’s commentary on land purchase in Igbo land.
On Thursday, the journalist and ex-presidential spokesperson inferred that Igbos in Nigeria’s south-east region do not sell land to “outsiders”.
Co-host of Arise Television’s ‘The Morning Show’, Abati shared the story of how Theophilus Benson, minister of information in the first post-independence government, narrated how Igbos do not sell lands to non-indigenes.
“Chief TOS Benson, former minister of information, now late, on one occasion at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs — and I’m not making this up — he said it publicly, if anybody can contradict me let them do so… he said something about Igbo people,” Abati began.
“He said he had an Igbo wife, and had an Igbo daughter, that he wanted to buy land in Igbo land for his daughter, for his wife, and he said ‘I’m getting old, let me build in this place for my wife’.
“He said that his in-laws told him that they don’t sell land to outsiders.
“That is the irony of Nigeria, about the politics of federation of unity.
“The same Igbos who are so industrious that they are all over and do well in other parts of Nigeria, you go as a non-Igbo man to go and buy umunna (kindred) land, you will be told that you don’t belong even as an in-law.”
Abati’s remarks elicited a pot-pourri of comments on social media.
While some supported his perspective, others criticised the renown journalist for x-raying a subject as sensitive as ethnicity.
Here are some comments.
ABATI DOUBLES DOWN
Unmoved by the backlash, Abati doubled down.
“I have no further comments on that subject,” he said on Friday after Ojy Okpe, a colleague, prompted him to clarify his previous remarks.
“I was very clear yesterday, I was very specific, I made my point, I provided a context in which I was speaking. If people have selective hearing, that is their problem.”
Some social media users from the south-east had disagreed with Abati’s views.
Okpe said she was only fulfilling her journalistic obligation of presenting diverse viewpoints. Abati was having none of it, however.
“Replay the tape again! Replay the tape!” Abati retorted.
“I was specific about what I said, I provided context. Nobody should tell me any nonsense. If people have a different opinion, they have anthropological evidence to support it, they should say so. It’s not for me to reverse myself.”
Turning to Okpe one more time, he said: “Except you are expressing your own opinion, and then I will come after you and say you are wrong.
“It’s not for you to come and challenge me. If you try that, we will fight.”
