By Ambassador Lilian Onoh
After hiding and failing to respond to all the criticism of her hideous act of promoting hate-speech by various persons of all ethnicities since last week, as soon as I, an Igbo Ambassador, gave a first-hand account of Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s vicious Igbo hatred, she jumped into the fray with a “Right of Reply”. But instead of addressing her disgraceful behaviour, she chose to lie.
She claimed she had never met me. That is an outright lie. The visit of late President Geingob is a historical fact and with audio-visual records in Aso Villa’s archives. The link to the Channels TV news report with pictures is hereby attached and it shows Mr. Femi Adeshina (Spokesman), Mr. Abubakar Malami (Attorney General), Mr. Lai Mohammed (Minister of Information), among others at the occasion whose memories of her presence cannot be as faulty as Abike’s own. Vanguard newspaper also reported it and Abike’s picture is in their publication. She lied but that is to be expected. https://www.channelstv.com/2018/07/04/buhari-namibia-president-geingob-meet-in-abuja/ and https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/photos-buhari-receives-namibian-president-hage-geingob/ and https://x.com/hagegeingob/status/1014624791347761152. It is also on Femi Adeshina’s Facebook page.
On that day, Abike broke protocol by moving from where she was placed at the end of the line-up to come and stand next to me, the High Commissioner to Namibia, in her usual self-promoting bid to place herself in the most advantageous position. I initially placed another Nigerian diplomat to whom I relayed her words between us; then found the Namibian High Commissioner to Nigeria whom she had displaced and he then stood next to me when the President shook our hands, as shown in the pictures. If Channels TV has a video reel of that occasion, it would definitely show that Abike Dabiri had stood next to me before I changed position and it would definitely show her talking to me. It is to her shame that she has chosen to lie about something so easily verifiable.
Whilst the video might not have picked up her words, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, a rabid Igbo hater, definitely said that Igbo people were committing all the crimes abroad and were all criminals and were our problem overseas. She topped it by telling me that she was sorry to say it to me since they were my people but that it was true. She was indeed uncouth, uncivilised and lacked any finesse or understanding of proper conduct. She has now become a liar by denying that she ever met me or said those words.
Her diversionary deflection to focus on Geoffrey Onyeama’s defamation case against me instead of apologising for her despicable conduct and promotion of hate speech is further confirmation that she is unfit for her position. As Chairman of the Diaspora Commission, should she not have been among the first to raise the alarm that a judge has recognised Geoffrey Onyeama as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Does she know her job at all?
I am not sure that Geoffrey Onyeama would appreciate her reminding the world of his hereditary insanity in her bid to divert attention from her despicable conduct. But it is understandable that she would use him to deflect attention from herself since she and Onyeama despised themselves as she fought tooth and nail to displace him and take over his job – or at least appear to be the real voice of foreign affairs.
She calls my reports of corruption by unsavoury public servants of her ilk a vendetta – I must then assume that she is in support of Nigerian Ambassadors engaging in visa racketeering, VAT fraud, embezzling Red Cross funds and other heinous acts that destroy Nigeria’s reputation and make it harder for ordinary citizens to get visas and travel with dignity. She has proved my point that she is unfit for her position.
She is using the classic media tactic of diverting attention from the issue at hand – that she, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, is a rabid Igbo hater. Her recorded utterances against Igbo people are in the public domain.
On August 4, 2025, Daily Post and other outlets reported that she falsely claimed that of 21 Nigerians on death row in Indonesia, 20 of them were from Anambra State. In 2023, she was accused of removing Igbo people from those being evacuated from Sudan. Our diplomats are replete with stories of her vile utterances against Igbos. She has no other subject in her mind except her hatred of Igbos.
If she had not been given the platform to air her hatred by various administrations since 1999, allegedly to reward her for trauma she suffered in detention during the Abacha era, she would not have had the platform to air her vile hatred and push and expand ethnic hatred.
I repeat: Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s words and actions are the sort of concentrated ethnic jingoism that led to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and she must be stopped immediately. She is consumed by her rabid hatred of Igbos – a reflection of her own self-loathing whenever she compares herself to Igbos and finds herself lagging far behind.
There is nothing in her qualifications, achievements or personal economics that made it possible for her to rise from a mere reporter to member of the House of Representatives. She was neither a politician nor the most popular or best known “journalist” or the only reporter detained during the Abacha era. She owes the country an explanation of how she went from broke reporter to member of the House.
Her touted degree in Mass Communications does not qualify her in any way to be Chairman of NIDCOM. Nigeria has a surfeit of overqualified persons both at home and in the diaspora to handle the job with infinitely more impartiality, finesse and decorum.
And as she rashly claimed that I did not have an enduring legacy as a diplomat, it gives me pleasure to educate her. Abike, the 2000 UN resolution paving the way for Nigeria and all countries to recover stolen loot was co-drafted and negotiated by me, then a mere Third Secretary. The main drafter and Chief negotiator was Late Ambassador Ositadimma Anaedu from Anambra State – also Igbo. Nigeria is still recovering stolen loot from overseas and will continue to do so because of my work. That is a global legacy.
As a mere counsellor in Togo, I was responsible for the release of about 150 Nigerians from jail, most of whom had been in detention for years without trial. Their ethnicities covered all parts of Nigeria – North, East, West, Middle Belt, South-South. All I saw was their Nigerian Identity, not their tribe or religion. The records are on file. That is legacy.
As an Ambassador, I stopped issuing visas to Namibians in response to the detention and deportation of two Yoruba women at the airport. The records are there. They held Nigerian passports and their mistreatment was unacceptable to me as their Ambassador. The Geoffrey Onyeama you mentioned, just like you, was more intent on painting Nigerians in diaspora as the problem and opposed my actions but I stood firm for the honour of my citizens and country. That is legacy.
During the Covid-19 crises, the funds allocated for my travel was what I used to tend to Nigerians impacted by the sudden lockdown through the Association of Nigerians in Namibia (ANINAM). The records are there. I refused to fabricate inflated millions of dollars for you or Onyeama to siphon, as was alleged during the Sudanese evacuation where sub-standard buses that broke down in the desert were provided for our traumatised citizens, despite the millions allocated for the evacuation. The records are there; and if using money allocated for my travel to help stranded Nigerians during Covid-19 is what you call financial impropriety, I feel sorry for you. I left over USD400,000.00 at my Mission at the end of my tenure unlike practically every single Nigerian Mission overseas that was broke. My records speak for me.
I can comfortably tell Abike Dabiri Erewa that unlike her, my academic qualifications, which were earned from some of the best institutions in the United Kingdom along with decades of additional training and experience as a diplomat, not to mention proper home training from stellar parents – one a British trained lawyer and the other a headmistress – were put to good use for the good of Nigeria and Nigerians. The funds I used to repatriate stranded Nigerians during my tenure largely came from funds allocated for my travel since the Government did not make provision for consular assistance. That is legacy.
Not one single person in my jurisdiction ever accused me of ethnic partiality in over 30 years as a diplomat, unlike Abike, whose fixated hatred of one single tribe since she was forcefully inserted into our national discourse by her political godfathers despite not being a politician, is the sole legacy she will ever have.
It is already too late for her to apologise. No-one would view it as sincere or accept it. Her cup of vileness is now a mammoth sewage-filled pit. She should be sacked immediately and replaced by one of our seasoned retired Ambassadors. And no, I do not want her job. President Tinubu should select a person from the vast pool of excellent detribalised Nigerians experienced in international affairs such as the former Consul-General in South Africa, who handled the xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in 2019 and finally rid Nigerians at home and abroad of this vile vessel of putrified hate called Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
- Lilian Onoh was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Namibia and former Chargé d’Affaires to Jamaica
