Any time there is an inter-ethnic
misunderstanding in Nigeria, it serves as a god-sent opportunity for
bigots and tribalists to offload the bile in them. The recent crisis
over the “deportation” of some people from Lagos to Onitsha, Anambra
State was such an opportunity.
The social media has made it easy for
Nigerians to express their views promptly and freely. There are no fears
of such views being edited or moderated by any person. Such opinions
sometimes get overboard especially when commentators have the
opportunity to comment under false identity.
For those Igbo who always seek every
opportunity to rekindle the Igbo-Yoruba “cold war”, it was an
opportunity to take swipes at Governor Babatunde Fashola and the Yoruba
as “tribalists” and “Igbo-haters”, reminding them that if not for the
Igbo, the Yoruba would have all died of hunger and poverty. And for
those Yoruba that can barely tolerate the sight of the Igbo “on their
soil”, it was an opportunity to warn them that time has come to chase
them out of Yorubaland to the jungles and caves of Igboland where they
would die in squalour.
But if these people can be pardoned
because they are ordinary people that hold no high offices and have no
resonating names, what can one say when prominent figures get involved
in such low-road comments? One of such persons is Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, a
former Minister of Aviation. In the heat of that crisis, Fani-Kayode
decided that it was time to teach Nigerians the history of Lagos and the
truth about the Igbo.
In two articles filled with hate and
bigotry, entitled, “Lagos, the Igbo and the Servants of Truth,” and “The
Bitter Truth about the Igbo”, Fani-Kayode made serious efforts to
demonise the Igbo and project the Yoruba as the race after God’s heart.
It was disappointing that a graduate of Cambridge University and former
minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria would not be able to draw a
line between defending his viewpoint and denigrating an ethnic group
that is part of the country that offered him the highest position he has
held in his life.
One would have expected that if
Fani-Kayode disagreed with the view of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, whom he
mentioned in one of the articles, or any Igbo for that matter, he should
have addressed the person and punctured his view, rather than using
that as an opportunity to tar all Igbo with the same brush in a most
malicious way to draw the hate of other Nigerians upon them. Meanwhile,
the point that Fani-Kayode was labouring to prove was that Lagos was
developed to its present state solely by the Yoruba.
Only a person who loves self-deceit and
half-truths would say that Lagos is what it is because of the sole
efforts of the Yoruba. That Ibadan — the capital of Western Nigeria for
decades – or any of the Yoruba cities such as Akure, Abeokuta, Ife,
Osogbo and Ado-Ekiti are not comparable to Lagos is a testimony that the
claims of Fani-Kayode were a simple case of the ethnic supremacy and
chauvinism that he is known for. Lagos is what it is because it was a
former Federal Capital Territory. That made the Federal Government of
Nigeria to build Lagos with the resources of Nigeria, much of which was
sourced from the oil derived from the Niger Delta. Right from the
colonial days, the leadership situated the head of its railways, seaport
and airport in Lagos, which made it the preferred destination for many
Nigerians and visitors to Nigeria. Consequently, Nigerians from all over
the country, including Yoruba people who were not Lagosians, settled in
Lagos and invested massively in it.
Having attained an enviable height as
the capital of Nigeria, it was not affected when the federal capital
status was officially transferred to Abuja on December 12, 1991. The
companies and buildings established in Lagos could not be uprooted to
Abuja. Since Abuja assumed the status of the FCT, the same thing that
happened in Lagos has started happening there. Abuja was transformed
from a rural setting to a modern city mainly from resources from
petroleum. Today, a plot of land in some parts of Abuja and Lagos is
more expensive than in some parts of the United States or the United
Kingdom.
A fallout from the conceited comments of
people like Fani-Kayode is that other parts of Nigeria need to be
transformed by the Federal Government like it has done to Lagos and
Abuja. It has become clear that given the pseudo-unitary system Nigeria
is practising, it is only the Federal Government that has the capacity
to transform a city into an international status. Since Lagos lost its
FCT status, the dream of having the Fourth Mainland Bridge has remained a
campaign gimmick repeated every four years. If the Federal Government
had not constructed the Third Mainland Bridge in the early 1990s, Lagos
would have been in a deeper traffic rot today, as the Carter Bridge and
Eko Bridge would have been grossly inadequate to take care of the
traffic between the Mainland and the Island.
I therefore propose that the FCT should
be rotated from one zone to the other for a minimum period of 20 years.
This will help to develop the zones faster. The South-East and the
South-South, especially, should be made to host the FCT as soon as
possible.
But if rotating the FCT will cause some
confusion, there is another option. South Africa, for example, has
three capital cities: Pretoria (executive) Bloemfontein (judicial), Cape
Town (legislative). We can replicate that here. Nigeria enjoys running
monopolistic and monolithic systems. There is no reason for all the
Federal Government ministries and agencies to be domicilled in Abuja.
The congestion bug that hit Lagos decades ago has hit Abuja. If the
judiciary, the legislature and some of the ministries and agencies were
located in other zones outside Abuja, there would be less congestion in
Abuja and more development in other parts of Nigeria. There is no reason
for making Abuja the headquarters of ministries such as trade and
investment, science and technology, sports and youth development, works
and housing, agriculture, culture and tourism, and agencies like the
NAFDAC, SON, NAPTIP, NBC, etc.
This decentralisation would also make
some Nigerians to have a reason to live in other parts of Nigeria
outside their ethnic zones. The situation now is that there are so many
Nigerians that cannot live or invest in any other part of Nigeria
outside Lagos and Abuja because of their former and present status as
the FCT. To them, every other part of Nigeria outside Lagos and Abuja is
not “national” and safe enough. But if some other cities are designated
as the Federal Capital Territory in other zones, such mindset will
change. If these zones develop, they will attract investment. Nigerians
will stop travelling in droves to Lagos and Abuja.
But whether the FCT is rotated or
decentralised, the bigots who usually talk about Lagos or any other part
of Nigeria as their exclusive land should be told to desist from such.
Nigeria belongs to Nigerians no matter their state of origin. That is
what differentiates a Nigerian from a Nigerien. As long as Nigeria is
one nation, statements like “go back to your state” must not be allowed
to be uttered either in jest or in seriousness. In 1967, the former
Eastern Region broke away from Nigeria to protest the pogrom visited
upon it. Over a million people died via bullets and hunger in the effort
to get them back into Nigeria.
Therefore, nobody should tell any
Nigerian to go back to his state. Nigerians are in a marriage. And that
marriage may be tumultuous but not broken. Even if in future Nigeria
ceases to be one nation, as West Africans, citizens of the individual
countries will still travel freely within the new countries. If
Nigerians can live in the US, the UK, the United Arab Emirates, and
South Africa and own property there, I don’t see why compatriots cannot
live together in peace and own property in any part of the country
without harassment.
By Azuka Onwuka
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U hv succeded in saying rubbish! Fani kayode gave his own points with proofs but u are an ethnic jingoist go nd take d FCT t anambra odeeeee.
ReplyDeleteMr Azuka you have spoken well. Let our senators sposor a bill to that effect and let's see the reaction of those 'parasites' who will put aside the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible when dealing with matter of national interest like:census,land use act, election,voters register, revenue allocation and not revenue contribution.
ReplyDeleteIts nt abt owning a property, its abt claiming "rights" to another mans things!! Take it or leave it, Mr Kayode revealed all you have been hiding abt the coups n civil war. The can of worms have been open, so go bury urselves in shame!!
ReplyDeleteLet us live as one Nigeria (be your brothers keeper)
ReplyDeleteIGBOS,,, NEVER endanger we your fellows. Yoruba's of today were Nice and good to us. please forget this S/S man that asked you to go on politic and problems with mere deportations. they, the Yoruba equally deported Yorubas to ondo and osun states. so, why are we taking it different.
ReplyDeleteYou are a bias man Azuka,you are not a peace lover,Fani-kayode atticle is just a view-point of his,but yours is enguffed with tribal sentiment.dnt Fashola deported his fellow yorubas? Have you forgotten he deported ondo,osun people? Why I don't like to associate with most of the so called igbo's is because you always claim to be too wise.when he deported his fellow yoruba,there was no headline news ,but when other tribe is involve now issue began.you guys are so tribalistic and for you Azuka,you are a disgrace! Can any tribe be a market leader in your palce? But here in lagos many igbo's are market leaders.so what are you saying? Go and sit down jare! Brainless box.
ReplyDeleteI agree wf 9.48am dt Igbos only want to work wf Igbos. They are the most tribalistic sect in Nigeria. If there are threats of disunity, its all thanks to them. But notwithstanding, Azuka made a point there that FG parastatals and agencies should be decentralised to provide better employment opportunities to youths all over the country but to say Lagos belongs not to the Yoruba is an insult because the British colonialists were the ones who forced a federal entity on it and to claim Lagos is better equipped than other states in terms of infrastructure is arrant nonsense. Go to the outskirts of Lagos, the streets are not smiling but with the state government reforms at work, it will get there. So other states should emulate what Fashola is doing of turning Lagos into a megacity in their respective states so as to keep the unruly n rebellious Igbos at home. Shikena!
ReplyDeleteYorubas. Tufiakwa!!!! Azuka wrote a splendid write-up. He never claimed nor has any reasonable Igbo person claimed that Lagos is Igbo.
ReplyDeleteWhat Azuka said,which is FACT,is that LAGOS,and now ABUJA,were developed with NATIONAL RESOURCES,majority of which came from Niger-delta oil.
It is these huge federal infrastructure developments dat attracted the millions of people from all ethnic groups to Lagos and Abuja.
Interestingly,Ndi-igbo in their typical industry and fore-sight,were able to make monumental business and economic investments in Lagos and Abuja,bigger than any single ethnic group in Nigeria. Further developing the economies of these areas.
For a crank-head to come up and say that Yorubas alone "Developed" Lagos,is the same as saying "Gwaris alone developed abuja"!
Infact,if the fed govt invests 5% of what was put in Lagos or Abuja infrastructure into the south east,NDI-IGBO will use business and economic investments to turn south-east into Dubai-China-Sweden region.
But ALL Nigerian leaders from other tribes know this.Thats why they dont want to invest,using our collective national resources,in buiding infrastructure in Igbo land.
Azuka is soooo right! If the Yorubas built Lagos alone,how come the perennial Ibadan is still a rurban(rural-urban)?
All regions of Nigeria have tasted Federal capital Territory,except south East.
Calabar-SS
Lagos-SW
Abuja-North
If only the fear of Igbo entrepreneurship and economic sagacity,will wane;then Nigeria govt maybe willing to invest in SE infrastructure.
WHY is this ENVY of Ndi-igbo that pre-dates the formation of Nigeria,still persisting? ENVY is a socio-psychic phenomenon. If you think someone does what you cant do, effortlessly,u begin to resent them. Except u hav the true fear of God.
This is the Igbo conundrum in Nigeria. The first mass murder of ndi-igbo was about 7yrs bfo independence,in kano. It didn't start after the first military coup.
Lagos was NOT developed solely,or even mainly by Yorubas.QED.
Azuka is being selfish. He only talks about South East and South South. What about the North East, North West and North Central? Abuja is in neither of these regions. Though I may agree about the decentralization.
ReplyDelete