By Sunny Igboanugo
I bet you didn’t know Abike Dabiri. Two factors will make this possible. Either you were not around in Nigeria in the golden era of our Nigerian television girls – the era when being a regular face on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) gave you the golden key to open all doors – or you were somewhere in the villages very far and distant from civilisation – many of us were – that included not having access to the television.
O! You didn’t know? You didn’t know a time was in this clime when seeing a television screen from a distance was one of the biggest privileges one could get, let alone watching it, that people clustered at the windows of homes with television sets to catch a glimpse of Village Headmaster, for instance.
Bet you didn’t hear about Bimbo Roberts – later Bimbo Oloyede, Julie Coker and later Augusta Maduegbuna, Elizabeth Nze, Sienne Alwell-Brown, Ruth Benamesia-Opia, Eugenia Abu, Ronke Ayuba, Kehinde Young-Harry, Lola Alakija, in no particular order. No! You wouldn’t if you were not that privileged in the 1980s and even 1990s. They were the glamour of that era.
Glamour? Not in the sense of beauty – but glamour, because television made them so. For indeed, some of these television faces were not that glamorous.
But beauty or no, Abike Dabiri was one of the discoveries of that era. Obviously not in competition with these others who were the newscasters on NTA News At Nine, she actually carved a niche for herself elsewhere on Newsline – the soft-sell edition of the station’s news programme aired every Sunday.
Abike Dabiri was a toast of that programme. She was a reporter’s reporter – traversing beyond the seven seas and seven wildernesses to bring to Nigerians those rare stories that either made Nigerians laugh their hearts out or cry their eyes out – a doyenne of human-interest reporting.
Then, suddenly – suddenly – suddenly – the serpent came with the forbidden fruit – the temptation of higher ground – the allure of high office – Tinubu’s tainted chalice that comes like glittering ornament but with hollow and rotten underbelly. She took, she ate and now everything scatter-scatter. Our dear Abike Dabiri accepted and ate the sour grape, and now her teeth are set on edge! What a pity!
The breeze has blown to uncover the romp of the hen. Before now, whoever believed that our dear Abike Dabiri farts. But we now know that Abike Dabiri-Erewa not only farts, but her fart smells badly. At first, no one noticed the degeneration.
The time she was at the House of Representatives was the golden era of Tinubu. That was when Jagaban Borgu was the governor of Lagos State. She glowed along by tapping from the glittering appeal of the Lagos show boy!
At that time, Tinubu was generally holding the golden trophy adorned with the beautiful calligraphy of democracy in Nigeria. That was before he drank from the poisoned chalice of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor, by joining him in the hatred for the Igbo man – a phenomenon that becomes the nemesis of some Nigerian leaders – Buhari’s major insignia. Then the desperation! Then the degeneration! Now the albatross!
Now, whoever hates the Igbo and remains the same? None! That was what sealed Buhari’s fate. And surely the snake that bit that braindead archaeological discovery – that museum piece – has definitely whipped Tinubu with its tail, and the rest is now history. If not, compare Tinubu as governor when he was all cosy with Ndigbo, and now he has turned 360 degrees.
And as long as the darkness will give way to reveal the sun breaking from the East, the sting of the snake’s tail will reach everyone who toes that line. You know why, the dominant culture of the Igbo man is ofo n’ogu – justice, equity and fair-play! Have you watched an Igbo man pray with colanut?
He wakes up and, with his cola in his hands, beckons on his chi with these words – ndu mmiri, ndu azu, mmiri atanaa, azu anwuna – the life of the river, the life of the fish – may the water not dry and may the fish not die! Egbe bere ugo bere, nke si ibeya ebena nku kwaa ya – let the kite perch and let the eagle perch – whichever says the other should not perch, may its wings whither. Which other people say the same or a similar prayer elsewhere?
Now, because the kid-goat watches when the mother-goat is chewing the cud, hating the Igbo has become a fad among those who want to please Tinubu. Obviously, the totem through which this sentiment finds expression is Peter Obi. He has become the tree standing by the roadside that receives the strokes of the machete. Obi has remained the hieroglyph for expressing real and imagined pro-Igbo angst.
So, in 2025, when Babajide Sanwo-Olu wanted to mend fences with Tinubu, after allegedly falling out of favour with his boss, he launched an unprovoked attack on Obi, using the latter’s Johns Hopkins University lecture as a pad. Reno Omokri has since made himself Minister of Peter Obi Affairs. Daniel Bwala, Femi Fani-Kayode, et al., along this line never end a line without Obi getting a slash of their machete.
Enter our dear Abike Dabiri-Erewa. The little birds flying around whistle that her tenure as Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiCOM) is coming to an end, and she is eying a renewal or another job from the Jagaban. How else to go about it than the low-hanging fruit? – Peter Obi.
From nowhere, on Sunday, the media were suffused with the screaming headline – “Peter Obi has actually raised monsters.” As it were with syndicated stories, each of the media used to transport the outing carried the same headline – well crafted – of course, using her journalism skill to make maximum impact.
After rambling some clearly obtuse and incoherent words in the form of reasoning, she ended up with even more brainless, imbecilic and asinine submission – by the time it is Igbo’s turn to produce a Nigerian President, Obidents, followers of Obi, would have destroyed his chances. Me paraphrasing. Chai!
Now, Aunty Abike, whose turn is it now? Isn’t it already the turn of Ndigbo and the selfsame Obi? Isn’t it part of the argument that the seat your Jagaban is occupying was stolen from Ndigbo? So, you know that Ndigbo also have a stake in it? Yes! You know. But now you have eaten Tinubu’s palm nuts, see how your teeth have all turned red.
But Ndigbo have another way of invoking justice – ochu nwa-okuko nwe ada ma nwa-okuko nwe nwenwe-oso! I won’t explain. Find an Igbo staff at NiMCOM – if there is one – because I hear you hate them so much that finding one near you might be impossible. But even a cleaner in your office could help, or better still, ask your spare parts seller. He’s sure to be Igbo!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
