Former presidential media aide and Arise TV anchor, Dr. Reuben Abati on Thursday disclosed how a former Minister of Information, the late Chief TOS Benson was denied the opportunity of buying a land in Igboland simply because he is a Yoruba man.
Abati, said the late Minister, who was married to an Igbo woman, publicly made the remarks in Lagos at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
While reacting to the statement by Senate President, Gosdwill Akpabio that Igbos build houses and establish businesses in any state they reside across Nigeria, Abati wondered why the Igbos can’t reciprocate the good gestures to outsiders.
“He (Akpabio) is right if he says Igbos are entrepreneurial and I end by what people say about Igbos that if you enter a community, a village and you don’t see an Igbo man there, please pack your things and go. It means that place is not conducive”.
“However, let me give the flipside. The late Chief TOS Benson, former Minister of Information, on one occasion at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) and I am not making this up. He said it publicly and 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”.
“He said that he wanted to buy land in Igboland for his daughter and wife, to say I’m (TOS Benson) 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 the federation of the unity”.
“The same Igbos who are so industrious, that they are all over and they do well in other parts of Nigeria, you go as a non-Igbo man to go and buy a land, you will be told that you don’t belong even as an in-law” Abati said.
