My Dear Abike, By Chidi Ekeh
My Dear Abike,
When I watched you take the oath of office as Chairman/CEO of NIDCOM in 2019, I felt the pride of an old man who had seen another daughter climb the ladder. Your résumé sparkled; your tongue carried both Yoruba sweetness and the clipped confidence of the global boardroom. I told my wife, “This one will make us proud.”
Four years later, I am writing you an open letter because the silence of elders has often been the womb of national miscarriages. I write as a father, a Nigerian, and—if you will permit me—an Igbo man whose ancestors traded kola nuts across the Niger long before the word diaspora was minted.
1. The cracks we ignored
First, it was the 2020 “re-tweet” affair: a viral post that labelled Igbo travellers “noisy smugglers.” You deleted it, but the screenshot demons had already done their work.
Then came the 2021 evacuation flights from Dubai; stories spread that your list carried more Yoruba surnames per square inch than the Lagos census. You blamed “logistics,” but wounded people do not count spreadsheets—they count hearts.
Last year, the scandal of the “missing 40 million dollars” in unremitted diaspora bond contributions was eventually traced to a procedural hole. Yet the first name the social media jury convicted was “that Igbo director,” whom you hastily suspended—only to reinstate quietly when the smoke cleared.
Each episode, standing alone, could be dismissed as a storm in a Twitter teacup. But strung together, they form a pattern no public-relations perfume can disguise.
2. The tweet that broke the camel’s back
Three nights ago, you re-posted a slur that caricatured Ndigbo as a “stateless tribe that can only shout Biafra.” Within minutes your “RT≠endorsement” disclaimer arrived, but the harm was nuclear.
An entire generation of Igbo techies in Winnipeg, Atlanta, and Kuala Lumpur—many who had never uttered the word “Biafra”—now quote it over breakfast. A London cab driver of Igbo extraction sent me a voice note: “Prof, I’m removing the green-white-green from my dashboard; my children will not be insulted in my own car.”
That, Abike, is how nations fracture—one careless click at a time.
3. The disaster you are courting
Let me speak plainly. The Igbo nation you caricature is the same that produced the silicon chips powering the phone in your handbag. The same tribe you deride owns 68 percent of the small-scale factories in Aba that kept Nigerian soldiers booted during the civil war.
Diaspora remittances from Ndigbo alone last year equalled the oil revenues of two South-South states combined. If they choose tomorrow to route those dollars through Ghanaian or Kenyan fintech apps, the naira will dance naked in the market.
Politically, a wounded ethnic bloc in Nigeria is a lit match near a petrol tank. I have seen three civil conflicts in my lifetime. A fourth, if it ever comes, will not respect VIP armour. And when the fire starts, the arsonist is often the first casualty of the smoke he inhaled while lighting the match.
4. The olive branch: seven steps back to the light
a) Public confession: Book a live TV interview—not a press release—and read the exact tweet aloud. Then apologise without the usual “if I was misunderstood” clause. Nigerians forgive genuine contrition; they reject apologies dressed in cosmetics.
b) Igbo advisory council: Within 30 days, constitute a 12-person council of Igbo professionals in diaspora (not politicians) and grant them quarterly, unfettered access to your board papers. Publish their reports.
c) The audit of shame: Commission an external audit of every NIDCOM contract awarded since 2019, categorise them by the ethnicity of the lead contractors, and publish the results on your website. Sunlight remains the cheapest disinfectant.
d) Language immersion: Spend two weekends in Enugu and two in Owerri—not for photo-ops, but in town-hall meetings conducted entirely in Igbo. Let the people shout at you in their mother tongue; you will discover that anger loses its venom when heard in one’s own language.
e) The 50-50 rule: For every town-hall you hold in Yorubaland, hold one in the South-East until the balance is restored. The diaspora is not a monolith that ends at the Seme border.
f) Scholarships named after victims: Create a ₦100 million annual scholarship for Igbo girls in STEM, named after the five Igbo traders killed in the 2022 Abuja market riot. Nothing heals like educating the next generation in the name of the last generation’s pain.
g) The fast of the tongue: Take a voluntary 90-day break from personal social media handles. Let your media team speak for you while you relearn the discipline of silence. The Igbo say, “When the mouth eats kola nut twice, it forgets the teeth are few.”
5. The final warning
History is a cruel auditor; it balances books with blood when necessary. I have seen powerful men reduced to paragraphs because they thought tribe was a playground. You still have time to choose the paragraph you wish to occupy: the one that says “she rebuilt the bridge,” or the one that begins “she once had promise…”
When you were sworn in, you placed your left hand on the Constitution, not on a sectional hymn book. The diaspora you serve is 17 million shades of Nigerian—not a monochrome. Heal the wound now, or the wound will heal itself at your expense.
May the God who watches over the Niger and the Benue guide your steps back to the centre, where every Nigerian can claim you as daughter.
With a father’s heavy heart,
Chidi Ekeh
chidiekeh@yahoo.com
