Lilian Onoh, stop your rabid tribal bigotry
By Moradeke Kolawole
Lilian Onoh has gone crazy, glaringly so in her latest outburst, “Abike Dabiri-Erewa, please inspect list of Nigerians deported by the U.S.” She is insanely obsessed with the amazon, Abike Dabiri Erewa. Her write up is obsession. It is not analysis. It is tribal fixation dressed up as concern for national unity.
First, let us address the deliberate mischief. The deportation list released by the United States Department of Homeland Security clearly described the affected persons as Nigerians. Full stop. Crime is crime. Deportation is deportation. There was no ethnic tag. No tribal qualifier. No regional coding. Anyone attempting to ethnically dissect criminality is the one injecting division, not the public officer who refused to play that dangerous game.
And one thing Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman/CEO Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) has always advocated is this: anyone who commits a crime and is deported home, should also be profiled at home. Many Nigerians are working hard abroad. The few who get into trouble should not define the hard-working millions
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Abike Dabiri-Erewa will not rush to label criminals by tribe because that is not leadership. That is not governance. That is not nation building. Nigerians in diaspora are Nigerians first, whether law abiding or in breach of the law. The refusal to ethnicise crime is not silence. It is responsibility. Is Lilian aware of the list of deportees from US a few months ago? Is she aware of deportees from other countries, not in the pages of newspapers?
What is however loud and consistent is Lilian Onoh’s rabid fixation on Abike Dabiri-Erewa. Every issue becomes an excuse. Every event becomes a launchpad. Every development must somehow circle back to her long standing grievance. At this point, the pattern is impossible to ignore.
Lilian, do not worry. Your eyes have long been on the NiDCOM chairmanship. Everyone can see it. Perhaps when your preferred candidate, Peter Obi, wins someday, you just may get it. Until then, attacking the current office holder with invented statistics, insults and tribal bile will not rewrite reality.
Reality is this: NiDCOM under Abike Dabiri-Erewa has made diaspora engagement a force to be reckoned with. Nigerians abroad now have an institutional voice. Evacuations have been coordinated. Distress cases have been handled. Diaspora investment conversations have been elevated. These are measurable outcomes, not opinion pieces soaked in rage.
It is also deeply ironic that someone who claims to abhor ethnic division is the very person counting names and assigning tribes to criminals. That exercise alone exposes the hypocrisy. If Americans can treat offenders as Nigerians without tribal profiling, why is Lilian Onoh so desperate to break them into ethnic fractions?
The answer is simple. This has never been about unity. It has always been about bitterness.
So while Lilian Onoh continues to write herself into knots, let it be clearly stated. Crime has no tribe. Justice has no ethnicity. And leadership does not thrive on insults.
In the meantime, keep up the good work, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa. Nigerians in diaspora can see the difference. History will too. We remain ever proud of you.
- Moradeke Kolawole can be reached via email: moradekekolawole19@gmail.com
