We have severally on this space drawn attention to the wave of anti-Igbo sentiments in some parts of the country. Lagos, hitherto, home for all, is unfortunately taking the lead in the odious campaign, currently. But it did not start today. Back in 2015, a top traditional ruler in the state had according to reports, threatened the Igbo in the state to vote the then All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode or be prepared to get drowned in the lagoon. That seemed the commencement of the onslaughts on the people.
On Friday, 24 March 2023, we ran a piece, titled; 2023 elections, ethnic bigots and the rest of us, in which we exposed the antics of bigoted APC henchmen in the state in unleashing their attack dogs on the Igbo and their businesses, for the singular offence of taking part in the electoral process of the year.
The assaults were in continuation of the vengeance of 25 February, when the participation of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the election, became a reason for the Igbo to be vilified. As if that was not enough, at the governorship election on 18 March three weeks after, the LP candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV), became another reason to attack the Igbo in the state because his mother and wife, were Igbo.
Other Nigerians that looked like Igbo were not spared. A certain Yoruba lady was prevented from voting at Awoyaya axis of the state, because she was thought to be Igbo.
Even after the elections, the hate vendors were not done. Bayo Onanuga, then, the director of media and publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, kept prancing about, mocking the Igbo. He scoffed: “Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business.
“I hope the Obidients and their LP have now realized that Lagos is not ‘no man’s land’. The state has indigenous owners and today they emphatically made the statement loud and clear”.
Nothing, of course was done to upbraid or rein him in. He was rather offered appointment by the president, thus, got further emboldened. On Friday, 26 July under the headline; Bayo Onanuga’s frightening gamble with Kigali, we raised alarm on the uncertain dimensions of his unguarded utterances and likely consequences on the corporate existence of the country. In obvious mischief aimed at setting the Igbo on the slab, Onanuga had without proof, accused Obi and his kinsmen of being the brains behind the just ended #EndBadGovernance protests that ran though the country between 1 and 10 August. Perhaps, what saved the Igbo from attacks by hoodlums in Lagos, wrath of the federal and state government, was their staying away from street protests. But then, as they say, the chickens have come home to roost. Like the axiomatic wild fire, the anti-Igbo agenda has caught up and spreading at worrisome speed.
It all became manifest with an X (formerly Twitter) handle @Lagospedia, a page claiming to be proclaiming the virtues of Lagos. The promoters of the contraption gave Igbo living and doing business in Lagos and other Southwest states 30 days to vacate the region.
The post read: “Lagosians and every Southwest stakeholder should prepare for the massive protest of #IgboMustGo on the 20th – 30th of August. They have one month from now to leave and relocate their business from all southwest states. We urge all Yorubas living in the southeast to return home”. The timing of the campaign was inauspicious, coming few days ahead of the hardship protests. Elsewhere, the security agencies would have moved against the brains behind the xenophobic agenda. Nothing of such has been noticed so far.
It is all the same, heartwarming that Nigerians of good-will promptly rose against the promoters of the hideous group. The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Lagos State government, South East National Assembly Caucus, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023, Atiku Abubakar and his LP counterpart, Peter Obi, were unsparing in calling out those behind the hate vending. In tow, President Bola Tinubu, had in his Sunday, 4 August nationwide #Endbadgovernance speech, made veiled reference to the campaign, stating that there is no place for ethnic bigotry in Nigeria.
But that is just scratching the surface. The animosity against the Igbo by disgruntled elements has eaten very deep. It only takes a minor incident in any part of the country for the people and their property to become targets of attacks. Some time back, a mere cartoon in a daily newspaper, was all that it took for Igbo businesses in some parts of the North, especially Kano, to be looted or set ablaze. Similar mob action was exhibited in the aftermaths of the 2011 presidential election when Muhammadu Buhari lost to then President Goodluck Jonathan. As in Kano, the Igbo were visited with violence in Bauchi and other Northern states.
It is the same script that seems to be playing out in Lagos. Bayo Onanuga and Lagospedia are not the only hideous characters spewing hate against the Igbo. Recent allusions by a certain Barrister Oladosu Oladipo captured the extent of the corrugated mindsets of these shadowy goons. Oladipo had insinuated that while the 2020 EndSars Protest swept through Lagos and saw multibillion Naira manufacturing industries, factories and businesses destroyed by hired ‘idiots’ the ‘Computer Village’ was spared, not ‘touched’”. He added; “while BRT buses at Ojota and Ebute Metta were burnt, none of the ‘luxurious buses’ at Yaba and Jibowu, traveling to the Eastern region was ‘destroyed’”.
The references in his remarks, are nasty but instructive. Computer Village is an Information and Communications Technology setting in Ikeja, mostly operated by Igbo businessmen and women. Equally, the buses in Yaba and Jibowu are largely owned by Igbo transport operators. The emphasis on those business concerns largely owned and managed by the Igbo, should bother any critical mind. They are pointers to further plots against a people that have regularly been made scapegoats at any time Nigeria finds herself at the crossroads.
So, it is not enough for Tinubu and Lagos State Government to condemn the ethnic chauvinists trying to cause confusion in the land. The authorities should go further in apprehending and prosecuting the hate mongers.
Asking the Igbo to leave Lagos, is uncalled for and utterly irresponsible. Events of this nature happened in the North before and shortly after independence and triggered the massive pogroms that ended up in the 1967-1970 civil war, which the country is yet to recover from.
The Igbo do not deserve to be threatened in any part of the federation. Such unwarranted tendencies are among the factors fueling the agitations for a separate state of Biafra by the youths from the South East.
We have seen countries erupt in flames of crises because of the indiscretions of irredentist groups like the mischievous Igbo must leave Lagos campaigners. The Rwanda genocide of 1994 is a ready instance. May we not travel that path!
