R
Rachel Okporu Fadoju
Guest
Nigerian journalist, Reuben Abati, has fired back at critics following his controversial remark on land purchases in Southeast.
Naija News reports that the ex-presidential spokesperson during the morning show on Arise TV on Thursday inferred that Igbos in Nigeria’s southeast region do not sell land to outsiders.
Abati shared how the minister of information in the first post-independence government, Theophilus Benson, narrated how Igbos do not sell lands to non-indigenes.
He said, “Chief TOS Benson, former minister of information, now late, on one occasion at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and I’m not making this up, he said it publicly, if anybody can contradict me, let them do so… he said something about Igbo people.
“He said he had an Igbo wife, and had an Igbo daughter, that he wanted to buy land in Igbo land for his daughter, for his wife, and he said ‘I’m getting old, let me build in this place for my wife’.
“He said that his in-laws told him that they don’t sell land to outsiders. That is the irony of Nigeria, about the politics of federation of unity.
“The same Igbos who are so industrious that they are all over and do well in other parts of Nigeria, you go as a non-Igbo man to go and buy umunna (kindred) land, you will be told that you don’t belong even as an in-law.”
Abati’s comment elicited mixed reactions on social media. While some supported his perspective, others criticised him for x-raying a subject as sensitive as ethnicity.
Unbothered by the backlash online, Abati stated that he was unapologetic about the controversial statement during the morning show on Friday.
Watch the video below:
The post ‘Nobody Should Tell Me Nonsense’ – Reuben Abati Blasts Critics Over Issue Of Land Purchase In Southeast appeared first on Naija News.