Tunde Onakoya, the Nigerian chess champion and founder of Chess in Slums, recently addressed an accusation of tribal bias on Twitter by sharing a powerful analogy highlighting how division and manipulation are used to control people.
A user had claimed, “I’ve never seen this guy help anyone outside the Yoruba tribe.”
In response, Tunde invoked the well-known ant jar metaphor
“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… The real enemy is the one who shook the jar.”
He followed up by addressing the root of the attack.
“Someone tagged me ‘ewedu excellence’ this morning… The tribalism and bigotry here really saddens me. It never used to be like this,” he wrote. “I hope you someday see that I am not your enemy. It is those who shake the jar we must fight.”
See tweet below:
