Quick one on cheap propaganda

To all Nigerians, what the Tinubu campaign is trying to do is to create a siege mentality first among his supporters, and then among his ethnic fellow Yoruba people. — Source

The following message has been making the rounds:

I was going to ignore it, but I have come across it in at least three WhatsApp groups now, and even though my contribution wouldn’t make much of a difference, I think it’s important to put it down, just for the records.

This message is clearly propaganda, and I would take a punt and say that it’s from the Tinubu camp. Sadly for them, it plays into some incredibly stupid stereotypes, and ironically, those stereotypes, as a starting point, prove that “George Udom” is a fictional character and is not who he says he is. If “George Udom” were really Igbo or Efik or Ibibio, that is, from either Southeast Nigeria or South-South Nigeria, there is no way he would have made the error of pronouncing “Igbo” as “Ibo” or even going so far as to put it in writing.

For a moment, let us assume that “George Udom” is either Efik or Ibibio. That brings us to the other big failure of this operation. Jim Obazee, the head of Nigeria’s Financial Reporting Council, is a Bini man from Edo state. Bright Okogu, who used to be at the Budget Office and was most recently with the African Development Bank, is Urhobo from Delta State. No one from the SE/SS would do this conflation of ethnicities. As a matter of fact, given Nigeria’s regional stereotypes, there is only one set of people who call anyone who comes from the East of Ore an “Ibo person.”…

Still, on this matter, I think it’s important to point out that first, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had nothing to do with Godwin Emefiele’s appointment. It is also important to point out that she had nothing to do with Mustafa Chike-Obi’s appointment to AMCON and to make it clear that Mr Chike-Obi was appointed to AMCON by the Umaru Yar’Adau government after the CBN under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had organised a clearout of toxic assets. Or is “George Udom” saying that Umaru Yar’Adua was from Amawbia, and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi left the CBN to become the Obi of Onicha?

Here is what I think: as I said before the elections, the APC crew would tug at our religious and ethnic fissures. Having gotten to power by exploiting that divide, they have decided to double down on it. I mean, why change a winning formula abi?