Adebayo Ogunkoya

Dear @DONUKOGBARA, I have to admit, your rejoinder was rather revealing. Damn! I had actually intended to leave my response at my original post because, quite frankly, I have very little interest in dragging an older woman on social media. I cannot even remember the last time I had to speak this harshly to someone significantly older than me. But then you responded by telling us that there is nothing more satisfying than discovering that your enemies are morons and imbeciles. That certainly explains a great deal. You present yourself as an educated, experienced and exposed woman, yet when challenged on something you said, your first response was an insult. What I genuinely expected from someone with your age and “experience” was a more dignified and thoughtful defence of your position. But I guess that expectation was too high for a woman with a mindset like yours. You mentioned that APC should recruit smarter trolls. Perhaps some of the people who responded to you are APC trolls. I AM NOT! I am saying this here and I will say it anywhere. I am nobody’s troll, and especially not APC’s. I do not do political parties. I do individuals! Nobody attacked you because you mentioned APC. This was never about APC. I do not even remember APC being the issue in the part of the interview that caused the reaction. You spoke very favourably about Peter Obi and then described Northerners as riffraffs. People challenged you on that. Then came the explanation that perhaps you meant Northern political leaders. Fine. Let us even accept that explanation. You still have no right to generalise and describe the leaders produced by an entire region as riffraffs. We have had good leaders. We have had bad leaders. We have had leaders whose records deserve serious criticism. That is true everywhere in the world. It is not peculiar to Northern Nigeria. So please do not turn this into an APC argument when it was never about APC in the first place. You are free to support Peter Obi and also free to criticise Northern politicians. You are free to support or oppose any political party or politician you choose. Nobody has a problem with that and certainly not me… The problem is reducing an entire people, or even an entire region’s political leadership, to riffraffs and then dismissing anyone who objects as a moron or an imbecile. And let me make something very clear. I am not intimidated by your age, your education, your exposure or your experience. I respect age, but age alone does not command my intellectual respect. You could have explained your position. You could have clarified what you meant. You could have defended your examples. You could even have told us that you thought our response were unfair. Instead, you chose to call your critics morons and imbeciles. I will not return the favour. Not because I cannot, but because I do not need to reduce you to an insult in order to make my point. Your responses have already said enough. So, I will allow people to decide for themselves which response demonstrates greater intellectual substance. Gracias ☺️