Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Education Minister who enjoyed momentary national prominence with the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, has faced backlash over her refusal to speak against the terrorist activities of the proscribed Igbo secessionist group, IPOB, despite her loud and consistent commentary on happenings in other parts of the country.
Madam Oby, as she is otherwise known, came under criticism after carefully opting to fix her gaze on a JAMB controversy in which a candidate was objectively shown to have paraded a forged result while ignoring the renewed killing rampage of IPOB across states in the eastern region, including her home state of Anambra, as the group tries to enforce a one-week sit-at-home.
Clips of the group’s criminal activities alarmed the nation, particularly its invasion of a school and assault of pupils in attendance to prepare for an important examination. Given Oby’s professed interest in child rights and unfettered access to education, many expected her to break her silence on IPOB’s criminal actions and issue a condemnation as she has regularly done on similar events when it took place in other parts of the country.
Oby’s only known public statement on IPOB was a tweet challenging the military action commissioned by the Buhari administration to curb the activities of IPOB before the arrest of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. Perhaps like others who viewed IPOB as a potential political tool before the group escalated its actions and is now holding the entire region hostage, Oby aimed her criticism at the government and ignored the seditious actions of the secessionist group, critics say.
Oby, whose previous attempts to run for the presidency resulted in failure and financial scandal, has been loud in her criticism of the governing party, the All Progressives Congress, and its principal officers. She has accused various government officials, particularly in the north and other parts of the south, of complicity in incidents of crime and other mild conflicts.
Many are now wondering why she has lost her vim and purported courage in the face of an even greater crisis, especially one that directly affects members of her ethnic group. IPOB is responsible for hundreds of deaths and abductions in the east and remains unrelenting in its goal to restrict movement and hinder trade to protest the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu.
By refusing to condemn the group’s actions, some Nigerians insist that Oby is guilty of hypocrisy and is only interested in opportunistic cases to prop up the undeserved image of an ‘activist’ even if she continues to display a lack of commitment to professed principles. They claim she is a political opportunist and grifter who only criticizes political actors and groups that refuse to support her ambitions.