Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims: Response to Responses
Farooq A. Kperogi
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Cornelius Hamelberg
The dilemma continues as a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Another popular Nigerian English word for this kind of evasiveness is “denialism”
Writing with a sense of purpose, it's a word that my well-respected Brother Biko Agozino uses frequently
Once again, in this article that's circa 1, 600 words long, Kperogi, maybe unwittingly side-steps nailing the dreaded word that's buzzing in his head: Islamophobia.
He fails to transfer it from head to paper even though the spirit of that universal word is all over him, imploring to be used, not to be neglected, deselected, unused, misused. abused.
Reminiscent of Dickens's unctuous Uriah Heep, self-love, well-pleased with himself and beaming with ill-concealed self-satisfaction Kperogi says that “it's flattering that such a large number of people found what I wrote important enough to deserve responding”
“Such a large number of people ” indeed. Hope and pray to you know Who, to be appointed a well-paid, regular columnist for Vanity Fair or The New Yorker, and in a more humble state of mind you will have to revise and upgrade your estimates of what kind of figures constitute “a large number of people”.
That too, is relative, of course.
The fact is that when spurious claims go unchallenged there's the danger that they may slink away into the darkness, passed off as Gospel truth to those who are easily beguiled, unaware, especially in the semi-literate worlds where it's assumed that the bigger the grammar, the bigger the truths, and that's the only reason why your multitudes of people deign to have a say-so on the side, so that you don't simply get away with murder, libel and slander.
The diatribe about alleged Yoruba bigotry concluded with these words of self-praise in the image that the Kperogi ego has of his self-righteous self; “I resist injustice no matter who the victims or the perpetrators are” and in the same mode, a week later the great in his own eyes Kahuna makes me smile when he says that he “always identifies with the underdog, the marginalised, the alienated, and the ostracised.”
Indeed, are we supposed to believe that blessed are those arrogant Muslims who like Farooq Kperogi “always identify with the underdog, the marginalised, the alienated, and the ostracised” for theirs is or will be the Kingdom of Heaven?
And indeed, charity, they say, begins at home, so how does the humble Kperogi for example approach the implications of the alleged castes among his Bariba, is it bottom-up, top-down? Those who profess at the top, vermin at the bottom, waiting for demolition and extinction?