Abike’s Canadian hate speech saga: Abike Dabiri must lose her job the same way she demanded Amaka Sonnberger’s job. Her own letter to Canadian Authorities is the very letter I now bring up and ask President Tinubu to immediately sack Abike Dabiri in line with the conditions she set out in her letter to Canadian Authorities. She must drink her own medicine. She must be arrested and charged like Amaka, removed from NIDCOM and permanently barred from holding any political office because she is unfit to hold any office as long as Nigeria remains one country. Keeping her in office is a one way highway to 1994 Rwanda. Neither silence nor inaction is optional. Abike MUST Go.
By Ambassador Lilian Onoh
In August 2024, an unknown Canadian woman of Igbo descent made an obscure post that quickly went viral, mostly because Abike Dabiri amplified it with all her might. With the near-limitless Government resources at her disposal, she was quickly able to discover and expose the identity of the poster, being a certain Amaka Sonnberger and turned it into a global viral post.
It is Abike Dabiri that vociferously screamed, “Hate Speech” when Amaka Sonnberger made her audio post threatening Yoruba and Benin people who had been abusing Igbos with virulent hate speech on their social group.
Abike mobilised the National Assembly and so many others to join her in condemning Amaka Sonnberger and demanding that the authorities in Canada arrest and jail Amaka Sonnberger for hate speech. I have attached the letter she personally signed and sent to the mayor of Amaka Sonnberger’s town, going after Amaka’s job in addition to the criminal complaint lodged against Amaka. Abike wanted Amaka Sonnberger’s life destroyed totally – a criminal record, no job and possibly deported to Nigeria.
- Abike Dabiri’s letter to the Mayor of the Canadian City of Brampton seeking severe actions against Amaka Sonnberger
Her media blitz knew no bounds. I counted over 72 websites on Google reporting that Amaka Sonnberger had been arrested. Only Guardian and Punch Newspapers reported Amaka’s own version of what transpired, with evidence of the sort of hate speech she had been subjected to, including an audio recording on TikTok by one Kingsley who threatened to kill and bury all Igbos in the Niger and telling her that all Igbos will be killed off and nothing will happen.
Abike did not unmask Kingsley as she did Amaka Sonnberger. She did not condemn Kingsley’s post. She did not demand Kingsley’s arrest or ask TikTok to take action against him. In fact, by her inaction towards this Kingsley, she proved Kingsley’s assertion that he could kill and bury Igbos and nothing would happen.
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Abike then used her 15-year media career to mobilise all media, including the BBC and MSN, to demonise Amaka Sonnberger whilst her Yoruba abusers were totally ignored. She used the incident to showcase the massive media clout that the Chairman of the Diaspora Commission wields – the very same powerful clout she used to amplify Wale Akerele/@akerele_s’s hateful post against Igbos and added 18 laughter emojis to boot. Abike Dabiri knew exactly what she was doing.
Abike’s outcry about Amaka Sonnberger’s “hate speech” was followed by media attacks against anyone who did not fall in line behind her determination to guillotine the Igbo woman in Canada. But Amaka’s words did not even come close to General Buhari’s statement that the blood of the baboons and monkeys (non-Moslems) would flow if he did not win the elections – a threat that was carried out even after he was declared President, with several hundred Christians slaughtered in Kano before they realised that Buhari was the winner. But members of the National Assembly quickly joined Abike’s bandwagon and instantly wrote to Canadian Authorities in righteous indignation about Amaka’s “hate-speech”. In short shrift, Amaka Sonnberger was arrested in Canada and charged in September 2024 – one year ago to be precise.
Veereeeee Goooooooood
It is time for Abike Dabiri Erewa to take her own medicine. Her own letter is Exhibit 1.
She must immediately expose the identity of the original tweeter under the handle of @akerele_s in the same way that she outed Amaka Sonnberger. That is non-negotiable.
Then she must vocally demand the immediate arrest and prosecution of Wale Akerele/@akerele_s by Nigerian authorities with the same vehemence she demanded Amaka Sonnberger’s arrest by the Canadian authorities and Nigerian Police must comply. She must also write to his employer and his Local Government Chairman to take action, as she did for Amaka Sonnberger.
She must immediately condemn @akerele_s with the same vociferous indignation with which she attacked Amaka Sonnberger. If she does not condemn it publically, then it is clearly an admission that she was fully in support of Akerele’s vicious hate speech and that her 18 laugher emojis were a full endorsement of this @akerele_s, who would have remained in the coffin of irrelevance had Abike Dabiri not amplified his vile comments.
I have my suspicions that the handle of this @akerele_s might be one of Abike’s proxies for attacking Igbo people and that the comments were made by her and then amplified by her under this moniker, because it does not make sense that of all the comments she could have chosen, this was the one she chose to amplify.
The fact that not only has she not apologised for her actions or condemned the original post or called for any sanction against @akerele_s or even demanded that the hateful post be pulled down only makes my suspicions stronger that @akerele_s is another one of her fake online identities or one of her E-Rats. If it is not as I believe, then she should expose the identity of this Wale Akerele/@akerele_s and have him arrested and charged with the swiftness that the Canadian authorities responded to her complaints against Amaka Sonnberger.
Thereafter, the National Assembly must write to the DSS and Police to demand the arrest and prosecution of Abike Dabiri and Wale Akerele/@akerele_s. His hate speech, retweeted by Abike Dabiri with 18 laughter emojis, is more than capable of causing disorder and start ethnic unrest in Nigeria and capable of undermining national security. After all, it is the National Assembly and others who keep screaming that “Nigeria Must Be One”. So, if Nigeria must be one, then the same medicine is required for anyone, including Abike Dabiri Erewa, trying to mess up this much touted “oneness”.
It cannot be one law for Igbos and a different law for Abike and Wale Akerele, especially when Abike was the prescriber of the punishment. She should face the music she played for Amaka Sonnberger and eat the porridge she cooked for her.
I recall Peter Obi condemning Amaka Sonnberger. It is time for him to condemn Abike Dabiri Erewa and @akerele_s with the same righteous indignation. After all, he cannot condemn an Igbo for hate speech and fail to condemn two Yorubas for hate speech that refers to his ancestors as gorillas and monkeys and calls him a bastard offspring of the same. That cannot be. 2027 is round the corner and we will remember if he keeps silent.
Ohanaeze, who issued a statement distancing themselves from Amaka Sonnberger, must equally rise up and speak more vociferously against Abike Dabiri Erewa’s promotion of hate speech and ethnic jingoism.
For those trying to defend, whitewash or excuse Abike Dabiri, I will repeat my first-hand account of Abike Dabiri’s hate speech to me on July 4, 2018 at State House, Aso Villa, in which she came to me and without provocation, declared that Igbo people were all criminals and were the ones committing all the crimes overseas and that Igbo people were Nigeria’s problem.
Abike said those words to me, then High Commissioner of Nigeria to Namibia, with foreign diplomats and others in close proximity. All of them are still alive. There is video and photographic evidence of the meeting she tried to deny in an article engaging in her usual character assassination to deflect attention from her vile actions. She is a rabid Igbo hater, an ethnic jingoist whose words and actions will one day come back to haunt all those keeping her in office or defending her. And her media attacks against me are a waste – I will not be silenced.
I appeal to all Igbos in the diaspora to rise up beyond online complaints and follow Abike’s playbook by doing the following: come together in groups of two or three or even as individuals and petition your host government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of the Interior and their external security agency – eg CIA or MI6. Attach screenshots of the original tweet and Abike’s 18 laughter emojis and demand that they sanction both Abike and Wale Akerele (if he is real) for promoting hate speech against Igbos. Only when their visas are cancelled and they are banned from various countries or arrested on arrival in foreign countries will there be respite from her vile behaviour.
I commend the action of the Igbo Unions in the UK under the aegis of Ogbako Ndi Igbo UK for their petition to President Tinubu and which they submitted through the Nigerian High Commission; but I need to ask them to forward these petitions to the Home Office, MI6, The Commonwealth, Chatham House and to the many International Organisations and Human Rights bodies based in London. They should forward their petition to the BBC and ask Igbos to petition their MPs to bar Abike Dabiri from ever entering the United Kingdom. The more petitioners, the better. It only takes a few minutes to send an email with a screenshot of Abike’s re-tweet attached. Do the same in Canada, USA, China, Germany, South Africa, wherever there is an Igbo man on this earth.
Each individual has a duty to act. Do not let up. Send in a petition once a week. Write to all media houses in the UK or wherever you live. Do not stop because Abike Dabiri is shameless and believes that very soon this will blow over and she will continue her odious promotion of Igbo hatred and ethnic jingoism.
Abike Dabiri must lose her job the same way she demanded Amaka Sonnberger’s job. Her own letter to Canadian Authorities is the very letter I now bring up and ask President Tinubu to immediately sack Abike Dabiri in line with the conditions she set out in her letter to Canadian Authorities. She must drink her own medicine.
She must be arrested and charged like Amaka, removed from NIDCOM and permanently barred from holding any political office because she is unfit to hold any office as long as Nigeria remains one country. Keeping her in office is a one way highway to 1994 Rwanda. Neither silence nor inaction is optional.
Abike MUST Go.
