NewStats: 3,265,254 , 8,186,133 topics. Date: Saturday, 14 June 2025 at 05:56 AM 4pw70

Chess master, Tunde Onakoya responds to a man who said he has never seen him help anyone outside his tribe.

Here is what he wrote

"If you put a 100 black ants and a 100 red ants in a jar, nothing happens. But if you shake the jar, the ants start killing each other. Each red ant will believe the other black ant is the enemy, but the real enemy is the one who shook the jar”

I’ll pardon your ignorance today.

Someone tagged me “ewedu excellence” on Twitter this morning. The tribalism and bigotry here really saddens me. It never used to be like this .
I hope you someday see that I am not your enemy. It is those who shake the jar we must fight.

I have nothing to prove to anyone, but for the sake of posterity, I feel compelled to say this.
I’ve always tried to “stick to chess” on Twitter, not out of fear, but out of reverence for the sacred work we do. This work is about children and giving them a fighting chance to belong in a world that too often forgets them. It would be terribly selfish to let my personal opinions or politics smear the integrity of this important mission.

But I worry now. I worry that we’re becoming so divided as a people, so consumed by suspicion and tribal lines, that we’re losing sight of what truly matters. And if we continue on this trajectory of hate, the ones who will suffer most are the very ones we claim to love, our children.

It is simply untrue and deeply unfair to suggest that I favor any tribe or ethnicity. In all my years of living, the thought has never even crossed my mind. I have stood in IDP camps in Maiduguri and Yola. I’ve held hands with children in Bayelsa, Cross River, and Delta etc. We have ed education projects across every region in Nigeria, and now in over 20 countries across Africa.

In all my travels, what I have seen is not tribe or religion, but talent, possibility, pain and deep suffering.

I have made it my life’s work to stand in the gap for these children and be a voice that compels the world to be less indifferent to their plight. That should be our shared mission: to stand in the gap, together. Not as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, or Ijaw. But as Nigerians. As humans.

If we allow those who shake the jar to pit us against one another,we will fail the children and leave behind a legacy of hate. And that would be a tragedy too great to bear.

I am proudly Nigerian. And my life will always remain committed to helping every child, no matter where they’re from, find their place in this world.

Because in the end, the true measure of a nation is how fiercely it fights for the children it did not birth, but chose to love anyway.

Source: https://x.com/Tunde_OD/status/1918748631617650860?t=YlYjXtN-grmsjSYW-8fmuw&s=19

What an intellectual reply... Unfortunately, trubal and religious bigots also abound on NL.

dawnomike:
What an intellectual reply... Unfortunately, trubal and religious bigots also abound on NL.

This is Mary, a Northern girl who was picked up and rescued from an IDP camp in Adamawa about 7 months ago. She’s not in anyway related to Yorùbá.

Some people will set up an evil agenda, and when it backfires, they will start playing the victim.

obembet:


Source: https://x.com/Tunde_OD/status/1918748631617650860?t=YlYjXtN-grmsjSYW-8fmuw&s=19

An average Nigerian is a tribalist yet they are quick to complain about racism in abroad

Hmmm

I may agree with this guy on this.
Fulani and politicians are our company enemy in this part of the world. I don't think Yoruba is a problem.
Let this e get one Yoruba girl wey enta my eyes, but the babe just da do shakara unto say she don da see me with other babes or maybe enemy don go lie to her say I wan play her.
But I don tell the babe say I want marry her. Today she go pick my call tomorrow she no go pick.
I have no reason to hate Yorubas. They are wonderful people

Nigerians and tribalism, it's becoming so strong nowadays. May God help us

Good one

Always help even the tribalistic one too.
Jesus saves

Well composed rebuttal.

Now now.

Then don carry their bigotry reach this guy side.

Even for nairaland the tribalism wey full here dey three much

It is their habit, they want to handtwist and stampede Tunde also.

Baffle me how some people will ignore their problems and focus on what
Doesn't concerns them.

The tribalism on this nairaland sef is something X.

Wisdom!

Too much wisdom in his response.

This is what you get when you're trying to be Mr Nice. See his nice response to the slowpoke. Are you not supposed to look for his size and give it to him?.

Na the usual suspects. Always out to deceive and gaslight others to do their bidding, while pretending to be fighting for the greater good and a noble cause, like it happened in 1966

COMRADES are speechless, Odukoya has tried...don't allow politicians to cause disharmony among us. I understood that line very well

That's what those stupid irritants (Harry & Bayo Bilisi) are breeding on X

we know the usual suspects

OK ,






Princess Faith Chukwu

Interestingly, the girl that was in the picture the man referred to used to be in an IDP camp in the North and she is from Adamawa State.

But some people are quick to call others tribalist even when they gave one man from their own region over 90% of their vote, while the ones they call tribalist only gave their own kinsman around 50%.

An average Igbo you mean

femi4:
An average Nigerian is a tribalist yet they are quick to complain about racism in abroad

It was never like this before AP__

ClearFlair:
It was never like this before AP__

Lol. Yeah right. We know how the Fulani and the Hausas were tribally taunted and insulted for the 8 years of Buhari.

One Reverend called Muonso from Anambra even called Buhari a brain dead cow and said 1 igbo man equals 500 Hausa men. The irony, Buhari is not even Hausa.

KingAzubuike:
Onakaya dey there dey play chess when igbo boys dey make cool money for Oshodi arena, ladipo and alaba.

That's the problem why thousands of your people are locked up in jails abroad for drug offences. Everything to you is about money and hustling.

Tribalism is an albatross holding Nigeria down