“Omo Ibo go….go home. Omo…. Ibo go home. If you go home garri go cheap for lagos”.
The pogrom was on in the north and Igbos were being hounded and slaughtered indiscriminately . Many of the Yoruba elite read opportunity into the disturbances.. And Lagos, home to many Igbos, convulsed with hatred for the Igbo. Prominent Lagos Igbos went into hiding and pondered their fate. Hunted like rabbits by death squads , they soon relinquished the idea of waiting out the storm in their holes and had to sneak out of Lagos in darkness. Ordinary Igbos, free to flee, had thronged the motor parks and taken the boos and jeers in their hurried steps.
Those who booed and jeered included not only excited and ignorant motor park touts but also shrewd covetous and perhaps envious civil servants and lecturers who had eyes on positions occupied by fleeing Igbos . A cocktail of sadism, opportunism and delirium.
The Igbos in Lagos and Yourba land were perhaps fortunate . The north , seized by their own sense of vengeance, was a literal killing field. Let’s leave the details to belong to our history.
Igbos may have fled Lagos in 1966-67 but their participation in Lagos politics had effectively ended in 1951. Nnamdi Azikiwe, otherwise a Lagosian, prevented by corrupted ethnic passions from becoming premier of the west , left for the east . And the implications and ramifications of that dislocation have impaired socio political cohesion in Nigeria till today.
So when Igbos fled home in 1966 any doubts about an ordinary law abiding Igbo Lagos resident having same political rights and status as the ‘indigene’ were settled. For Igbos then , Lagos was not , after all, home. You can live in Lagos but do not forget that you belong somewhere else and it wouldn’t matter if you have lived in Lagos or port Harcourt all your life. Once law and order break down, ‘settlers’ fret.
The civil war ended , Igbos with their 20 pounds, poured out of the villages and many returned to Lagos. And Lagos welcomed them. And before long , Igbos , by sheer industry, came to dominate street commerce in ‘Lagos and as their businesses flourished, their numbers grew. The Igbos’ preferred trade apprenticeship system meant that as Igbo entrepreneurs grew they brought in family and friends from the east as apprentices. And apprentices imbued with the “young shall grow” mentality soon became business owners and brought in more apprentices. So unsurprisingly Igbos would dominate whole trade lines likes the motor spare parts and electronics business and all dealings in imported goods. Naturally , they would dominate market complexes like ‘Alaba’, and ‘Aspamda’ and ‘Trade fair’ and ‘Balogun’. And that meant that they would dominate areas like Ajeromi Ifelodun, and Amuwo odofin and Oshodi isolo and Ojo , residential areas around major markets.
Preoccupied with commerce, wary of politics, mindful of the war and their residency status, Igbos helped build and develop Lagos but played only at the fringes politically. The ambitious trader aspired to be the president of the market union or the Eze ndi Igbo Lagos for vain glory but could not wrap his mind around being a member of the house of assembly and didn’t want to take political risks. Igbo professionals didn’t get involved either
And despite the pervasive high level of political consciousness of Lagos and despite the intensity of media coverage of Lagos and despite the claim to progressivism by the dominant party of Lagos , Igbos who constitute a significant ethnic minority were kept out of elective positions.
There is something glaringly anomalous about a system in which citizens can live all their lives in a city , raise children , pay taxes , have constitutionally protected rights to vote and be voted for but are somehow not expected to occupy elective positions. For indigenes, politically ambitious “settlers” are ungrateful usurpers . And this is a national malaise .
Prevalent high degree of urban migration means that many have no other home towns besides where they reside. And how are they supposed to lead fulfilling lives if they can’t seek elective offices?
Some are residents/ settlers and some are indigenes. Yet all are citizens. And minorities everywhere have been similarly afflicted whether it be Muslims in Birmingham or Latinos in Florida or Igbos in Sabon Gari kano or the Arewa in Hausa quarters in Aba.
Lagos has remained the most cosmopolitan city in Nigeria and the Yorubas have remained one of the most sophisticated and accommodating groups in Nigeria. And nothing in this article discredits the Yorubas particularly. The culture of exclusivity in Lagos politics existed in spite of the fact that Lagos is the most accommodating of all cites in Nigeria to non indigenes. But since Lagos is the leading light in commerce , politics and tolerance, any attempt to cure this national affliction must start from Lagos. Besides morality, the stake of non indigenes in the state is proportionately too high to countenance their exclusion from effective representation in the governance of the state.
The AC/APC in a rather tokenistic appreciation of the electoral weight of the Igbos appointed an Igbo technocrat , to the Lagos cabinet . And such tokens must be appreciated. However any thoughts that that gesture by Tinubu 10 years ago would lead to greater inclusiveness of the minorities in Lagos affairs has been conclusively disconfirmed by the failure of Lagos APC to allow Igbos represent communities where Igbos predominate. It’s even more absurd because we know that the APC has a way of drawing up lists of candidates.
The APC was rejected by Igbos in the last polls for less than objective reasons. That reflexive rejection borne of bigotry may have, however , yielded unintended positive collateral effects in Lagos. The electoral prowess of the Igbos in Lagos has been confirmed beyond refutation. The APC lost comprehensively in Igbo dominated areas . Hitherto , many treated claims of Igbos’ electoral importance in Lagos as exaggerated.
It is otherwise perhaps inexplicable that the politically astute Lagos AC/APC, that has a reputation for foresightedness and inclusiveness, perennially failed to attach adequate importance to the touted numerical strength and wealth of the Igbos and allocated no tickets to Igbos in Lagos. How did they cede this glory to the PDP?
While Azikiwe’s ambition to lead the Western region may be seen as grotesque in today’s Nigeria because he , an Igbo, sought to lead the Yoruba nation. Any ambition by a qualified Igbo woman to pick up APC ticket and represent Amuwo Odofin cannot be an outsized ambition because she seeks to represent a political space in which she is by no means an interloping minority. The idea that those who are in majority in the state or who are indigenes must decide for inhabitants who would rule over every street and ward is not only undemocratic but immoral. Let’s face it , you can’t sell Amuwo Odofin to Igbos, collect billions for those rural lands, have marsh lands transformed to magnificent estates and yet seek to preclude them from representing Amuwo Odofin in the local and federal assemblies.
The sentiment that settlers should not dominate indigenes may not be totally irrational. From Florida to Birmingham , from Paris to Jos north, settlers /indigenes dichotomy has led to social unrest. It is however more plausible to countenance the partial cultural exclusion of minority populations than to condone an attempt to preclude a population from freely choosing their representatives especially if that means settlers taking up elective positions in small localities where they constitute a relative majority. It should be a democratic given.
There is therefore no feasible democratic argument to explain a Lagos house of assembly without Igbos or minorities. While one may sympathize with the Yorubas when , with perhaps innocently felt moral indignation , they ask , rhetorically , if a Yoruba can be a member of Abia house of assembly? Abia state has not even cared to have an Imo commissioner.
The present governor , T . A Orji sacked civil servants of Imo state origin when he assumed office. Internecine squabbles in the east have meant that Igbos cannot have successful government careers in states other than their home states. Let’s not even discuss Rivers state. Lagos has an Igbo commissioner but Rivers cannot even contemplate that despite the population of Igbos in Port Harcourt. The civil war left many ugly legacies. But since Gov Amaechi has publicly , during the campaigns, claimed he is Igbo, we hope that some pre civil war brotherliness would one day return. South East Igbos are by no means any less guilty.
It is sad that Igbos fighting for political Justice in Lagos haven’t established such standards of justice in the east amongst themselves. The general political environment in the east and everywhere else in Nigeria is hostile to political representation by non indigenes. And I must concede that Lagos and the political tendency that constitutes the south west APC is being held to higher moral standards. Lagos sets the pace, if Lagos initiates the practice it would have a great national normative force.
The reality many argue is that Nigeria isn’t sufficiently politically mature and sophisticated to tolerate such representation by non indigenes as the polity is rife with inter ethnic and regional rivalry . And that our sense of nationhood is subservient to ethnic allegiance and other parochial identities. Others condemn emphasis on ethnic politics. When freedom and sufficient cohesion are achieved ethnic cleavages will disappear. Ohaneze and Arewa forum and Afenifere if conscientiously run will benefit the nation building.
An inescapable reality is that when a minority group legally settles in a locality and achieves significant numbers they cannot be ignored and must be allowed full political participation in the overall interest of the society. This is the right moral and democratic position. Whether it is in Jos north or Sabon Gari Kano, every human being must be treated with equal moral concern and should be accorded human dignity. The irreducible minimum is to allow full active political participation. It’s all the more imperative now , in this age, when many no longer have “ancestral homes” and belong wherever they legally reside.
This piece had been written before the sickening pronouncements made by the Oba of Lagos went public. He exuded scorn, contempt and hate. Igbos should forgive the Oba or ignore him. But he should not be spared collective opprobrium and sanctions so that others similarly afflicted are deterred. Igbos do not owe their continued stay in Lagos to anyone’s magnanimity.
Igbos like other groups, must with clear headed , reflective sobriety, pragmatically organize themselves politically to make their numbers and wealth and versatility count, protect their interests, promote local and national unity , and help enthrone good governance and excellence in Lagos. And every where else. All who are possessed by bigotry and conceit will in time come to reason. Igbos have been back to Lagos politics but they announced their return on March 28. For many Igbos now, Lagos must be home.
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