Dr. Tonye David-West’s “The Need for Equality in the
Government of Lagos: The Case for a more Democratic Approach”
published by nigeriaword.com on October 24, 2002, raised a
very crucial but potentially explosive political issue in Nigeria
today. For months now there has been an under-current of political
tension in Lagos regarding the place of resident non-indigenes of
Lagos vis a vis holding of prominent political positions in
Lagos.
The
Odua Peoples Congress in the recent past threatened fire and
brimstones against any non-indigenous people of Lagos who harbour
interest in prominent statewide political positions such as the
Gubernatorial seat. However, OPC was willing to allow
“non-indigenes” to hold insignificant positions such as that of a
councilor. What I find troubling with OPC’s stand is that they do
not have any problem with non-indigenous Yoruba candidates aspiring
to these positions. This dichotomy is unconstitutional and smacks
of ethnic cleansing. Their sole objection is against people from
other ethnic groups holding prominent political positions in Lagos.
They also fail to address the case of Lagosians that were actually
born in Lagos but whose parents are not of the Yoruba stock.
I
read a lot of articles on Nigeria on the net. I am a constant
visitor to nigeriaworld, gamji, lagosforum and
nigeriannews. I read articles because they are about
something and the authors teach me a lot about Nigeria. Some others
you read just for comic relief. A host of Remi Oyeyemi’s
contributions to nigeriaworld fall under this category. They
amuse more than they make any kind of sense. My good friend Remi
Oyeyemi prides himself as having an “open mind”. I agree that
something is definitely open in Mr. Oyeyemi’s anatomy; but I
respectfully submit that it is not his mind. It is rather his
cranium. Having read his latest rant on the subject under
discussion, it appears he has finally lost his marbles. Remi
Oyeyemi’s hysteria in the past amused me but he is increasingly
becoming paranoid and this paranoia is neither good for his health
nor does it augur well for his reputation. When Remi is not ranting
against Ibrahim Babangida, he is insulting the leadership of the
north.
For
months now, Remi has preoccupied himself with mounting vociferous
attacks on our brothers from the north. He blames the north for
every ill that bedeviled Nigeria. Having apparently run out of
individual and corporate targets in the North, he now turns south
and has set his eyes on Ndigbo and their south-south neighbours.
Remi needs to be advised that the fact that he had a free reign in
his anti-north rampage is not an indication that we will let him run
riot on Ndigbo. He will soon realize that it is a suicidal mission
to take on Ndigbo without provocation. He should be rest assured
that he will meet his match in fireworks were he to dare to embark
on a campaign to vilify Ndigbo the way he did our neighbours to the
north. His irate tirades will be met with the right amount of
reciprocal literary fireworks. I got no problem with anybody being
pro-whatever ethnic group. It is a good thing to care about one’s
ethnic group and to advance their cause. It is however not a
license to go off the wagon because one is frustrated with the fact
that his brother is being impeached and the other ethnic groups
refuse to reduce that constitutional exercise to an ethnic contest.
The practice of striking out against other ethnic groups anytime one
does not get his way is rather childish.
Remi
in one of his articles, blame the north for the rise of mediocre
generals in the Nigeria army who he claims are adept at kleptomania.
I agree that the Nigerian armed forces were and still are replete
with mediocre generals. I disagree that the north has a monopoly
over mediocrity. I saw the performance of a few Yoruba generals at
the Oputa panel. Generals Adisa, Olarewaju and Diya’s performances
did not exactly conjure meritocracy. Putting it most charitably,
their performance was beneath mediocrity. The performance of our
“general-in-chief” in the past three and half years is not exactly
stellar either. He is not from the north in spite of Oyeyemi’s
warped logic to the contrary. The north do not have a monopoly of
mediocre generals, the west have them in abundance too. I am sure
there are some from the east and south-south also.
Remi
is frustrated because Ndigbo and the other sections of the south do
not see eye to eye with his agenda. He is frustrated that Ndigbo
would not align with the Yorubas solely to aid the Yorubas reach
their own political agenda. To Remi, the Southern Agenda should be
the attainment of whatever the Yorubas want. The aspiration of
Ndigbo and the other Southern groups are immaterial. That is why he
has the temerity to scuff at the Igbo agenda to produce the next
president of Nigeria and at the same time expect Ndigbo to join him
in his campaign to vilify the north. What arrogance. Here is a one
tract-minded cynic whose hatred and detest for other ethnic groups
in Nigeria seeks to suffocate him. He wants to use Igbo bashing as
therapy for his frustration. Ndigbo will certainly not allow Remi
to vent his frustration on them. I am not saying that Igbos are
sacrosanct or immune from criticisms. If one has a real
disagreement with individuals in Igboland, he should feel free to
vent. But that is not a license to carpet-vilify an entire nation
of people. You cannot hurl insults on and issue senseless threats
against your neighbours simply because they are more aggressive in
business and more adventurous. In his “Of Amnesia and Myopia:
The Igbos in Nigerian Politics” (published in Nigeriaworld.com
of May 8, 2002) Remi Oyeyemi revealed the real motivation for
his Igbo bashing. He rhetorically asked:
“Why are the Igbos continuously failing to align themselves with the
Yorubas to have direct access to the cream, if not the seat at its
distribution table... Finally, the Igbos need to convince the
Yorubas that they could be trusted and that they are not without
social and economic etiquette (sic) as well as political
principles. They need to grab the hand of fellowship extended by
the Yorubas, not by threatening to realize a pipe dream to rule
Lagos state come next time, but by going into meaning political
partnership with them to permanently dislodge their hegemonic
oppressor from the north of the Niger.”
Remi
is convinced that Ndigbo are better off playing second fiddle to the
Yorubas rather than the North. In plain speak; Remi wants Ndigbo to
replace one “hegemonistic oppressor” with another. That is the
entire thrust of Oyeyemi’s constant rant against Ndigbo. One feels
compelled to ask Remi why the Yorubas cannot align themselves with
Ndigbo. Must it be the other way around? Why can’t the Yorubas
grab the hand of fellowship that Ndigbo are extending to them?
On a
personal note, it is the height of reckless folly for Remi who
accused me of treason because he believes I idolized Ibrahim
Babangida, to now commit treasonable felony by repudiating the
Federal Republic of Nigeria. See Oyeyemi’s OBASANJO AND
PDP TICKET: A REJOINDER, published on August 24, 2002, by
nigeriaworld.com.
Oyeyemi in his warped logic calls Nnamdi Azikiwe a tribalist for
refusing to pick a Yoruba person to sit as the Premier of Western
Region after the NCNC won the elections in the West. What a case of
putting the victim on trial. It was an act of unbridled ethnic
bigotry for Chiefs Adelabu and Akinloye to ask Zik to give up a seat
that was his by virtue of his position in the winning party and
surrender his mandate because he was not Yoruba. There was no
opposition when Zik went out and campaigned tirelessly for NCNC to
win the elections. When it was time to share the spoils of battle,
the Yorubas ran him out of town. And you have the temerity to ask
Ndigbo to forget that act of betrayal. That is the same argument
OPC and Oyeyemi are packaging against the “foreigners” in Lagos. It
is okay to pay taxes in Lagos. It is okay to contribute to the
economic, social, cultural and infrastructural improvement of
Lagos. But you cannot hold political offices in Lagos, whether or
not you have the votes, unless you are Yoruba. It does not even
matter that you were born and raised in Lagos and speak only English
and Yoruba. What arrant nonsense. Tell me how I can explain this
warped logic to my nephews and nieces that were born in Lagos and
have lived all their lives in Lagos. And Dr. Wumi Akintide
wants me to believe that his is “more fair and objective” than all
other tribes in Nigeria.
Oyeyemi claims that Ndigbo regard the Yorubas as cowards. The
Yorubas I know and associate with are not cowards and they are not
ethnic bigots either. The only cowards among the Yorubas are these
fire-breathing noise bags such as Oyeyemi and the OPC. They can
only make noise and issue gutless threats of Armageddon should the
entire nation not bend to their will. For those who constantly
preach war and destruction, Ndigbo has a saying that “oji oso
agbakwu ogu, amaghi na ogu bu onwu.” Only fools rush in where
angels fear to thread. Ndigbo dealt with ethnic purge in the north
and a genocidal civil war and survived it. OPC and Oyeyemi’s
constant threat of violence against other ethnic groups creates the
erroneous impression that the OPC and the Yoruba ethnic group has a
monopoly over violence. That is a grave mistake. The other ethnic
groups are not averse to the use of violence and are certainly not
scared of these thugs. When that confrontation goes down,
Yorubaland would be the theater and the OPC would be the janitors
that would clean up the carnage when it is over. Oyeyemi and the
OPC should be advised that war is not akin to beating up spear and
stick wielding Fulani herdsmen in Lagos. When and if their wishes
are upon them, I hope Remi and his OPC comrades would have the
courage to stay in Lagos and feel the heat. Ndigbo would never
again allow bigots to perpetrate pogrom on Ndigbo without adequate
retaliation. Ndigbo will not shy away from confrontation. We will
meet it head on. Ndigbo are prepared to run the gauntlet. I hope
OPC and Remi are too. Remi should go to Kano, Kaduna and Jos and
ask those who tried in the past few years to take on Ndigbo how they
faired. Remi should also talk to his Igbo friends so he may obtain
first hand information about the destructive nature of a civil war.
He was not in the east during the last war and that explains his
constant call for militant confrontation. When eventually he and
his OPC compeers taste the bitter pill of battle, they will learn.
Meanwhile, let them keep yapping because talk is cheap.
It is
appalling that Remi Oyeyemi would embark on his present
campaign to vilify Ndigbo after he claimed in his “Of Amnesia and
Myopia: The Igbos in Nigerian Politics” that:
“On the contrary, the Yorubas have always treated the Igbos are true
compatriots. The Yorubas have allowed the Igbos unfettered
freedom in their land to enable them (the Igbos) truly realize their
potentials without any socio-political inhibitions. The Yorubas
have always recognized and respected the sanctity of lives and
accorded the Igbos the same kind of protection, which their
daughters and sons enjoyed. The Yorubas enabled an engendering
atmosphere for prosperous commerce and permitted them to freely
practice their faith(s) without molestation of harassment.”
Emphasis supplied.
Oyeyemi is an Obasanjo apologist and an ethnic bigot who does not
have the guts to admit his bias. He refers to President Obasanjo as
a Northerner who was born in the west. However, he elects himself
as the defender of this “northerner” against impeachment “sponsored”
by his brother from the north. What a childish attempt to conceal
his bias. Oyeyemi believes that Nigerians regard Obasanjo’s failure
as the failure of the Yorubas and that explains his ridiculous
attempt to disclaim Obasanjo. Nobody blames the Yorubas for
Obasano’s inability to lead. The Oyeyemis of this world should
learn not to blow hot and cold at the same time. They cannot
disclaim Obasanjo in one breadth and in another breadth claim that
to impeach him is to deprive the Yorubas of their mandate. Their
doublespeak is pathetic.
Permit me to return to the main thrust of this piece. The question
of who occupies what position in Lagos or any other city in Nigeria
is not hinged on whether or not the indigenes of that city approve
of a candidate. It is an issue of who has the necessary votes to
win. No amount of threats and childish tantrum from Oyeyemi and the
OPC can prevent an Igboman or Bini man from being elected the
Governor of Lagos state if he has the votes to scale through. The
Constitution allows it and the voters have the final say. Remi
Oyeyemi is therefore wrong when he says in his “ATTEMPTS
TO NEO-COLONISE LAGOS: THE BITTER REALITY FOR THE YORUBAS,
published in nigeriaworld.com on 10/29/02, that:
“One shares the concern of Rudolf Okonkwo about the possible
outbreak of ethnic unrest in Lagos and possibly other parts of the
(sic) Yorubaland. But given the prevailing context, who is to
blame? Is it the Yorubas who are being threatened to give up their
heritage by the Igbos and their collaborators? Or is it the Ohaneze
who is engaged in a campaign of calumny and blackmail against the
Yorubas in Yorubaland? Who is provoking whom in this situation? If
you want something in or from my house, except you are armed
robbers, you do not threaten or blackmail me or connive with other
outsiders to snatch it.”
I am
afraid I cannot comprehend what the threat, blackmail or
collaboration Oyeyemi refers to is. Politics is a game of numbers.
Nobody can take your heritage from you because he aspires to a
political position. If they have the numbers, as Oyeyemi is sure
the indigenes do, why is he threatened because “foreigners” have
aspiration to rule Lagos state? Isn’t Oyeyemi’s real fear that
“foreigners” in Lagos are in the majority and that they can easily
put someone at Alausa. This circuitous argument that “foreigners”
should not aspire to political offices in Lagos because Yorubas have
no chance of doing so in Enugu, Sokoto or Calabar is just a
subterfuge to hide the real fears of Oyeyemi and OPC. As far as I
know, nobody has stopped any Yoruba person residing in Anambra State
from aspiring to be the Governor of Anambra State. Because Yorubas
prefer to stay within Yorubaland should not be a reason to penalize
other ethnic groups that are more open and more adventurous. By the
way, Senator Abdul-Razak Gwadabe is a scion of the famed Abdul-Razak
family in Kwara State and presumably Yoruba but that did not prevent
her from seating as a senator-representing Abuja. I have not heard
any northerner in Abuja complain that a Yoruba woman is their
Senator.
These
“Yorubas-Only” advocates for political leadership in Lagos also fail
to address two other important scenarios, to wit, female
“foreigners” who are married to either indigenes of Lagos or
non-indigenous Yorubas. Are these “Yorubas-by-marriage” qualified to
run for top political offices in Lagos? Conversely, what about
female indigenes and other non-indigenous Yorubas who are married to
male “foreigners”; are they excluded by the OPC/Oyeyemi edict from
running? Are these categories of Lagosians disqualified because they
have been tainted by their matrimonial contact with “foreigners”?
There
are numerous cases of non-indigenes holding prominent political
positions in their host towns. In the commercial city of Onitsha,
the indigenes have never produced a Chairperson of the local
government for the past two decades or so. The current Chairman is
Barrister Chuks Anah (the son of Senator N.N. Anah) and he is from
Adazi-Ani. He is on his second tour of duty. Before him was Chief
“Omata” Ohanugo from Ideato in Imo State. In the United States,
from where we borrowed our constitution, George Bush Senior was a
congressman from the east coast before he eventually became
President. His son (current President) was Governor of Texas in the
south. His brother Jeb Bush is current Governor of Florida. The
Kennedys of Massachusetts have members of their family holding
political offices in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Rhode Island
and Massachusetts. Former first lady Hilary Clinton is representing
New York in the Senate even though she was born in Illinois and
lived most of her adult life in Arkansas and Washington D.C. A
Yorubaman Dr. Abdul-Rahman Olalekan is on his way to possibly
securing a seat in the British Parliament. I do not see indigenous
Britons protesting his good fortune. Why can’t we stop being petty
and get real.
The
main qualification for running for a political office in any
constituency is residency and not ethnic origin of the candidate.
Every Nigerian is well within his/her constitutional rights to run
for any political office in any state irrespective of their ethnic
origin or place of birth. The only hurdle is that such a candidate
satisfies the requisite residential requirement. Moreso when such a
candidate is actually born and raised in the locality in question.
Three of my sisters live in Lagos with their spouses. They are
raising their children in Lagos. These children were born in Lagos
and have lived all their lives in Lagos. I respectfully submit that
my nieces and nephews have as much right as Bola Tinubu or any other
person in Lagos to aspire to be the Governor of Lagos. I have not
heard of any Yoruba man or woman who wanted to settle and work in
Owerri, Enugu of Port-Harcourt, but was chased out by the locals. If
the truth were told, there are several thousand Yorubas living and
working in the east without any problems from their hosts. Nobody
has restricted their right to aspire to any political office. I
challenge OPC and Oyeyemi to cite on example of such exclusion in
the east or the north..
Nobody is advocating the “appointment” of a non-Yoruba as Governor
of Lagos. Who becomes the Governor of Lagos under the present
democratic dispensation is a matter of politics, i.e, who has the
electoral votes. That decision cannot be made on the pages of
newspapers and it cannot be influenced by trading threats of
violence. Dr. Adebisi Obafemi in his “THE STATUS OF
LAGOS”, published on November 3, 2002 by nigeriaworld.com,
rightly stated that the issue of who becomes the Governor of Lagos
State would be decided by “the will of the people”. He however fell
into the same mistake that OPC and Oyeyemi are mired in. He could
not resist the urge to disparage other ethnic groups. He said:
“I realized that some ethnic groups are experiencing population
explosion and their states of origin may not be enough to
accommodate everybody; this may explain their morbid desire to
control groups and resources from other parts of the country.”
Emphasis supplied.
It is
apparent that Dr. Obafemi is oblivious of the fact that every Nigerian
enjoys freedom of movement in Nigeria. Nigerians do not need an entry
visa to enter Yorubaland neither do they need approval of Dr. Obafemi
to settle anywhere in Nigeria. Secondly, nobody in Lagos to my
knowledge seeks to control any other ethnic group. On the contrary, it
is some Yorubas such as the OPC, Oyeyemi and Dr. Obafemi, who are
seeking to control non-Yorubas in Lagos by restricting their
constitutional rights to run for political office. I do not know where
Dr. Obafemi derived his statistics to support his allegation of
population explosion in these fictional ethnic groups. Furthermore,
the good doctor must be made to understand that there is nothing
morbid about one aspiring to run for office where one resides. There
is also nothing morbid about one relocating to another part of the
nation. Perhaps Dr. Obafemi can tell us what informed his own morbid
desire to relocate to New Zealand. I suspect Dr. Obafemi practices
morbid anatomy and that explains his attachment to the word “morbid”
and his decision to use it in the context he did in his article.
People
are not insisting on running for political offices in Lagos on the
strength of the fact that Lagos was a sui generis entity, i.e,
a former federal capital. They are running because as Nigerians they
have a right guaranteed under our constitution to run for any elective
position in any part of the country, provided they satisfy the
requisite residential requirement.
As a
parting shot to Oyeyemi, OPC and all those who have developed a
penchant for fomenting subversive and diabolical drama, I respectfully
draw their attention to a passage in Ambassador Albert
Omotayo’s “BAKASSI: A REJOINDER TO UCHENNA ODOGWO’S ARTICLE”
published in nigeriaworld.com on October 30, 2002:
“Lastly, it is important to constantly remind ourselves that there is
always tomorrow, when all of our utterances and actions of today will
exert full weight upon our lives. Those who speak and live as if
there is no tomorrow are the most celebrated fools of time and
season. I am sure, and doubly sure, that you are not at all.
Unrestrained utterances and actions are seeds that will in future
produce fruits, albeit bitter fruits for the consumption of the
speaker and the actor alike.”
Those
who insistently fan the embers of ethnic hatred will eventually be at
the receiving end of the destructive violence that will follow their
preoccupation.
