Davido’s Chioma And The Tribal Bigots Of Edo By Austin Isikhuemen

Davido, Nigeria’s talented music export and master of stagecraft, is burning cyberspace with his much-awaited wedding to his heartthrob and beautiful Chioma. This is unarguably, the largest gathering of Nigerian celebrities, in recent time, across the arts, sports, business and politics. They came to honor a young man who has washed his hands well and qualifies to eat with adults! 

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Our State Governor, HE Godwin Obaseki was there with his Osun State counterpart and uncle of the groom, HE Demola Adeleke. This ceremony is a beauty to behold and is significant in several ways. First, I congratulate the young couple, Chioma and Davido for staying the course and putting love before anything else. May your marital journey be happy and glorious.

Davido’s marriage to Chioma is a real handshake across the Niger. What fossilized and warped thinking politicians could not achieve is being actualized by this young couple destined for greatness and un-blinkered by ethnic bigotry. All they see is love. For them, that is all that matters.

Davido’s Yoruba parents agree, and Chioma’s Igbo parents concurred.

Only the blind will not see the rainbow coalition of Nigerian youth that filled that hall in various sartorial accoutrements, haircuts, hair paints and hairdos! The ladies were simply a bevy of beauties some of whom may meet their long-awaited Romeos at this carnival of love.

A lot of commentaries and posts on various social media platforms express happiness about this wedding. Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, X, and many others are agog with videos, photos, sights and sounds of this Davido-Chioma fairytale wedding event that brought the Southeast and Southwest Nigeria miles closer. It is helping to erase the bigotry of February 2023.

It is these posts, and my take on the import of some, that inspired this essay so early this morning. While celebrating this event of joyful proportions, I spotted a lot of hypocrisy and hypocrites at work.

I would like to share one such post which on face value espoused happiness, but the writer and his cohorts’ local politics is antithetical to the celebration on social media of this intra-ethnic union made in heaven.

The young man wrote on Facebook:

“Davido for still wear Benin attire for Us na. Your mum is full Edo/Benin woman. Na people like una we want Mk Dey wear am. Nor be all those Agege boys. I’m enjoying this marriage clips. Mk I go back to blogs. Who is not happy for Davido marriage today. Jst knw say u be Azen. Witch.”

What rankles is that these are the same people saying one of the candidates in the election should not be voted for because he has a Yoruba mother and an Igbo wife! They say he is not a home boy. Yet their kids were born in Europe and are growing and attending schools yonder, speaking only European languages.

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They tell you one of the candidates cannot speak fluently in his ethnic vernacular and that he attended school in Lagos and University in Ibadan and therefore, in their warped thinking, not a home boy! Sadly, one does not even know which language their own candidate can speak logically and fluently. They are the same people celebrating this across-the-Niger wedding and embrace and laying claim to Davido as the son of an Edo woman.

These hypocrites, with a limited memory capacity but humongous “phariseeiac” capacity, are sadly unable to see the contradiction in their ungodly position. Is it not shocking, in fact pathetic, that a man who claims to be a Redeemed pastor can voice this same sacrilegious inanity to wit: That one of the front runners in the September Governorship race in Edo State is not a homeboy.

This is despite the fact that this candidate hails from Edo, has a house in Edo, executed many projects freely for his people in Edo, used to spend his holidays in Edo and his father, a foremost protagonist for Midwest Region and governorship candidate that stepped down for Ambrose Alli, was a renowned chief in Edo. These his accusers have their children, some allegedly of questionable legitimacy, ensconced in schools abroad.

I also spotted one particular man, whose UK based wife once locked out for not giving her notice before coming over, mouthing the same insane and silly argument that one of the candidates should not be voted for because his mother is Yoruba. His kids are in London saying ‘innit’ when they mean to say, “isn’t it?”.

I know of one too, who has a child from his estranged German wife making the same argument.  I wish his child would ask him about this his absurd position because of politics. These are the same people that celebrate Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State as their own because his late mother hails from Edo State.

Former Governor Uduaghan of Delta state had an Esan mother. Delta voters never referred to that fact during the two elections he resoundingly won. Neither did the Yorubas of Oyo State. These Edo ethnic bigots must be called out for hypocrisy and crude provincial thinking. They are starting a fire they cannot control. People will remind the children in future. So much for hypocritical grandstanding and ethnic chauvinism.

In my first published article on the subject titled “The absurdity of the homeboy brouhaha” I argued as follows:

“Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie was a Bishop, later Archbishop and finally a Cardinal for decades in Lagos.  He is of Edo origin – Uromi to be precise. He was not rejected there. What would the ace female footballer who has done us proud several times – Ashleigh Plumpter – be thinking when she reads that inability to speak our vernacular trumps your impeccable credentials to perform for your country? 

What of the many diaspora children we have born? They are no more our children.  Meaning Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan could not have contested here in Edo State? She is a brilliant Senator representing Kogi today despite having a Russian mother. The one with both mom and dad from Kogi is alleged to have stolen Kogi blind and is on the run. So much for overhyped homeboy brouhaha!”

Once again, I congratulate Davido and Chioma, their families and friends, and indeed, Ndigbo and the Yorubas, for this marriage that tells the youth of Nigeria that we are one and that though tribes and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand! Those partisans in Edo who think these words of our National Anthem should be repudiated are wrong today.

They will be wrong tomorrow.  And will lose the argument and should lose the election. You cannot have our compatriots becoming mayors abroad and you are here playing ethnic champion at home. Chioma and Davido has no need for praises from pocket ethnic baiters.

26th June, 2024

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