Gradually, the ugly and dangerous trend is building up, and the ripple is widening. Unless urgent steps are taken and soon, we may end up with consequences that we did not bargain for.

Last week, the Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, mobilised action against a Canada-based Nigerian lady involved in a lunatic rant calling for “mass poisoning” of people of Benin and Yoruba extractions. Nigerians in Canada were encouraged to identify and report her to the Canadian authorities for appropriate action.

While Dabiri-Erewa, a former ranking member of the House of Representatives, was applauded by some on the social media for her prompt action, others took her to task for failing to summon the same proactiveness when UK-based Adeyinka Grandson, for years, serially called for genocide against the Igbo ethnic group. It got so bad that Scotland Yard had to pull him in, in August 2019, to face the law.

This apparent double standard, unfortunately, is the usual attitude of our government officials towards this trend of open and extreme ethnic profiling. This made a diabolical landfall in the country when some Northern groups gave members of the Igbo ethnic group living in the North a deadline to leave their region because of Biafra agitations by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB.

Since then, the same pattern of ethnic profiling and “quit notices” have been levied against the Igbo residents of Lagos after the #EndSARS riots of October 2020, the general elections of 2023 and the recently-concluded #EndBadGovernance protests. An “X” platform account which called itself “Lagospedia” called for an “Igbo Must Leave Lagos” protest throughout the South-West.

Ironically, many of the subscribers to the platform were found to be ranking members of the Lagos ruling party and government personnel. It took the intervention of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos for the effort to be dismantled and the Lagospedia “X” account pulled down. President Bola Tinubu had also, in his speech after the #EndBadGovernance protests, threatened to “come after” ethnic profilers.

Actions speak louder than words. The task of bringing culprits of ethnic profiling and hate-mongers is made simple by the fact that they operate on the worldwide web. Many of them do not bother to hide their identities. Indeed, some of them dare the law enforcement agencies to arrest them, and yet, they are never touched!

If urgent and decisive actions are not taken, matters can quickly reach a breaking point. An egg once broken can never be mended.

We commend Afenifere and Ohanaeze leaders of thought for their untiring efforts to defuse tensions between Yoruba and Igbo, and urge all pillars of our society to prevail on the law enforcement agencies to stop this hazardous drift.

Let us act before it is too late.