BOYCOTT THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS

By

Nzuka Igbo [USA]

In the aforementioned article, Abati’s journalistic instincts or lack of it unmasked his hatred for the Igbo and his support for the continued massacre and destruction of Igbo property in all parts of the country. We have no qualms with sadists like him whose happiness lies in lawlessness, arson, looting and has more to do with seeing innocent people butchered for no just cause. There had been many Ruben Agbatis whose pettiness; falsehood and lack of vision are demonstrated in their futile efforts to rewriting the history of Nigeria to the detriment of the Igbo. These psuedo historians forgot that the history and the map of Igboland had long been established and documented during the colonial exploration and missionary establishments. We do not pay attention to hack writers like Abati, because the core component of their wasteful efforts neither reflect what is on the ground nor supported by any unbiased study or earlier studies. This deliberate misrepresentation of facts about the Igbo has been on the increase since General Olusegun Obasanjo became the President of Nigeria in 1999. The trend has escalated since the conclusion of Justice Oputa’s Human Rights and Reconciliation Commission simply to thwart the facts that were presented at that Commission.

The President’s utterances and distortions of facts about the causes of the Nigerian Civil War, and his questioning of people’s patriotism, especially Igbo leaders and elected officials when they express divergent views from the President’s faulty vision of what a Federation should be have fueled the increase in hate mongering against the Igbo. It could be recalled that Justice Oputa’s Human rights and Reconciliation Commission concluded with a brazen display of facts on the events leading to the Nigerian Civil War as was presented by the actors in those events. The Commission’s proceedings were televised and the witnesses cross-examined by distinguished attorneys. Abati and his likes should have presented their ill motivated story filled with distortion of facts at that Commission just as other haters of truth tried but failed and departed in shame when cross examined. Instead, Reuben Abati chose to spew his hateful venom and unbelievable ignorance of the facts behind closed doors at the Guardian Group of Newspapers.

We find it both incredible and offensive that the Guardian has become Abati’s willing tool in his hate campaign against the Igbo. Abati thinks that the best way to go about it is through distortion of facts and rewriting of history aimed at recruiting more agents for the ethnic cleansing of people of Igbo extraction. We assure Abati and the Guardian that they will never succeed in their ill-conceived plan.

History has a funny way of repeating itself. We are all very familiar with how the mass media has in the past been used by other enemies of peace and those who are hell bent on wiping out people of different ethnicity or tribe because of jealousy, inability to compete on a level playing ground or for selfish, economic, and political reasons. All the religious and ethnic cleansing that has happened in different parts of the world had always been initiated and sustained by the media. The propagation of hate in the media served as a prelude to aborted attempt to exterminate the Jews in Germany during the time of Hitler. The same media became a willing tool in the hands of the Hutus in their shameful drive to wipe out the Tutsis in not far away Rwanda. The media also played a nasty role in the conspiracy against the people of the then Eastern Region, particularly the Igbo, before, during and after the Nigerian civil war. In those cases, the media was used to effectively demonize the victims before the vampires in human skins carried out the near successful ethnic cleansing of their perceived enemies.