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The Doctor of Theatre Art is Now Professor on Igbo Culture

Written by Igbo Focus 29th November 2024 A man with a professional certificate in journalism. A man who chaired editorial board and editorial page editor of a newspaper. A man who is a news presenter on Arise Tv. A man who used to be a Special Adviser on Media to President Goodluck Jonathan. A man from a different tribe or to be precise, a man from a Yoruba tribe who seemed to “know it all” in Igbo customs. Ruben Adeleye Abati is a man who became a professor of Igbo culture without formal studies. Akin to majority of Yoruba people that currently believe they know more about Igbo customs and traditions than Igbo people. If a Yoruba person has a problem with one Igbo person, he will alter it that he had problems with Igbos. Igbo man bought Yoruba man’s land; Igbos bought may land. Igbo person didn’t sell his house to a Yoruba man, he will convert it to Igbos didn’t sell their house to me. They will continue repeating until people start believing it without investigating the genuineness of the story. Everyone grasped what occurred and what Reuben Abati said about Igbos and land. When he was being asked to repeat or correct what he said to no avail. Taking into consideration on how he verbalised it by yelling at a fellow news presenter, Ojinika Okpe for asking him to clarify what he said previously. Instead of clearing up what he aforementioned, he started shouting at Okpe. The story is about what a lot of Yoruba people sightlessly believed in, even though a lot of them believe it to be a lie. The falsehood is that Igbos don’t sell lands to other tribes. Go to Igbo cities and towns like Aba, Onitsha, Orlu, Asaba, Owerri, Enugu, Abakaliki, etc., one can find a land to buy and use for any purpose. Some villages like other villages around the world raise objections on buying and usage of their village land. For example, to buy a land in a village in the UK, the land has to be for sale and not a heritage or listed land. Then, submission of a plan of what the land will be used for. Details of yourself or the buyer which must include nationality or citizenship, profession, draft plan of the type of the house to be built including rooms. All this will be advertised to the villagers to comment on, whether they want you to buy or not. All this cost money, funds which you would pay before the result is revealed. Thus, in some British villages, you may find it easier to buy a house already built on land or sold on freehold meaning that you are the owner of the house and land as long as you own the house but if the house falls or is destroyed, you may or may not build on the land especially if it defers from the previous building. In the past, Yoruba people had this notion that Igbo people don’t want them to speak Igbo language so Igbo people don’t teach other tribe their Igbo language. How can people that call themselves educated people reason like this. Even a man who called himself a doctor can reason like a goat without researching what he is talking about. According to Abati “I had no comment on that side again, I was very specific, I made my point.” Consequently, everything he said stand even if what he said was wrong. In accordance with the story that Ruben Abati was speaking about: Chief TOS Benson wanted a land from his in-laws’ place to build on. His in-laws’ place is the people of Mbieri who saw selling land to him to be an unmentionable to sell a piece of land to their respected in-law. Therefore, instead of selling a piece of land to him, they would rather bestow the land to him than to sell it to him. Thus, they gave him a piece of land free of charge to build on as their customs necessitated. Chief TOS Benson saw it as a good gesticulation for giving him a free land to build on and whilst reciprocating the action of his in-laws by building for them a post office on the same land which subsequently remains, up to the present time. As someone said in his/her article “why would anyone distort this remarkable cultural practice; what mischief would make someone push a narrative to profile and ridicule a whole ethnic group?” And continued saying that “our unity lies in understanding and appreciating the fact that our diversity enriches us.” “Facts must remain sacred in our national discourse.”