gratiaeo: While I have no problem with whoever would fault Awo’s judgement on some of the critical decisions he made in the course of the war as then Finance Minister (which should always be open to debate, especially since he took personal responsibility for the choices he made), I have problems with anybody using that to stigmatise his person or the entire Yoruba people. Within the same context, I consider it unacceptable and indeed reckless that any Yorubaman would libel, insult or abuse the Igbo people to make any silly points.

However, what worries me is not so much the antics of some Igbo and Yoruba juvenile adults who spend valuable time on the internet trading diatribes but rather the dangerous seeds they are sowing for our children who read many of the intemperate postings which paint a distorted picture of who we really are. For instance, I have Igbo friends who if anything happens within their families I would be one of the first persons to be contacted. This bond of trust is also reciprocated by my family who care less about the ethnicity of those friends. Even at that, I am also aware that this sort of relationships goes beyond the personal to the political arena, notwithstanding all the posturing to the contrary.

One of the most memorable assignments I covered as a reporter with the defunct Concord newspapers in the nineties was the burial in Ikorodu, Lagos, of the late Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya. I had never witnessed anything like that before or after when thousands of people (including the high and mighty) from another ethnic group would rally to bury someone who is not their kinsman. But that is because they considered him their kinsman; which then strengthens the argument of Dr Chika Ezeanya in her recent brilliant thesis on the issue and supports the message in ‘Magun’: a man is a man; a race is a race.

There are critical issues facing our nation today that should task us, beyond the infantile debate as to which ethnic group produced the first person to eat ‘ponmo’ in Nigeria! For instance, ASUU has been on strike for several weeks now but that is not generating debate because the children of almost anybody that is somebody in Nigeria today are either in private universities at home or schooling abroad. Unfortunately, that speaks to the current issue. Three days after Lagos dumped the destitute in Onitsha, it was reported that one of them had died.