I saw a very chilling video on Monday. In it, a man who did not bother to hide his identity threatened some people he did not name about this weekend’s governorship elections. He said that anyone voting in the election must vote for only one party and nothing else. He dared his audience to do otherwise.
Before this video, arguments have gone on about Igbo in Lagos and attempts to prove a point about their influence and joint “ownership” of the “centre of excellence.” Yoruba “activists” continue to denounce the effrontery with as much vigour as possible.
While this intervention will not delve into the history of the distrust between both ethnic nationalities, it is important to register the fact that they have held each other in mutual suspicion for the better part of the last 100 years.
This distrust came to a head during the Nigerian civil war. The war ended 52 years ago, but something happens now and then that reopens the wounds.
The most recent provoker is the Labour Party’s Peter Obi’s victory in last Saturday’s presidential elections. Since Obi is Igbo, and Igbo, people saw this as an opportunity to win Nigeria’s presidency for the first time. They went all the way for him.
The result is that for the first time since 1999, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who was on the ballot as candidate of the All Progressives Congress, lost an election in Lagos State. His supporters are angry with the Igbo and are determined to stop them from getting the better of the APC in this Saturday’s governorship elections. A legitimate aspiration if we do not resort to threats and underhanded tactics.
Directing this quest at only Igbo may also be a faulty premise. Without a doubt, the man in this video assumes that only Igbo voted on Obi on Saturday, but that is manifestly wrong!
There is a chance that Igbo are the majority of Obi endorsers in Lagos. And for good reasons. One is for loyalty to their kin, which shouldn’t be a problem in a healthy society. Two, as hard as it is to say, a constant reminder of their alien status in Lagos may have inspired a defiant streak to make a statement about their indispensability, even if self-perceived.
Regardless, many Yoruba people voted for Obi. Many activists’ youths made no secret of it, and that is their right! It is in the same breath that some of Tinubu’s most single-minded supporters and beneficiaries are Igbo. Think of men like Ben Akabueze and Joe Igbokwe, for instance. Don’t these men make the tyranny of generalisation obvious? There is, in fact, a more pertinent case study! Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, and Tinubu’s colleague as governor (1999-2007), lost his Peoples Democratic Party senatorial ticket on Wednesday! Why? Because he supported the APC candidate, in spite of his party! He is an Igbo man!
Then, we should consider the fact that Tinubu did not just lose in Lagos. He lost in three of the North-West’s big states: Kano, Kaduna, and Katsina, all of which currently have All Progressives Congress governors. Did Igbo also cause this? Rather than scaremongering, we should worry about how those we elect will pay attention to the Nigerian youths and all citizens. We should ponder why less than 19 per cent of the 6.2 million people who collected their voter cards came out on February 25.
Another pathetic thing about this matter is the motive. Discussions aren’t so much about good governance as they are about ethnic triumph. Now, how does that help a society’s future? Some narratives around this issue dispense much more hate than information that market candidates and their enviable credentials. Most of those who now claim to protect Yoruba interests have no agency. In reality, they do it for personal gain and the vanity of the bragging rights that come with access. Come on, we should do more for the future of this society. Elements of identity politics manifest in every human society, but discussions in every progressive society should be about the development of the people, not just the entitled sentiments of some people.
Is it okay for people to claim that they own the land anywhere? I guess so. Even though every human being migrated at some point, ancestry must count for something. That said, societies develop on the strength of a constellation of ideas, resources, and personalities. Lagos, for example, has assorted natural resources, but the city cannot be what it is today without the combination of the colours and tendencies of human beings that trot through the space. It is the same with Onitsha, Nnewi, Aba, Kano, Abuja, Jos, Sokoto, Maiduguri, and many other Nigerian cities with limitless but unharnessed potential.
What is important is that we treat each other fairly, equitably, and justly. We must first respect the humanity in others before we can expect deference, even from those we call “strangers.” That said, non-indigenes, for as long as state of origin remains a factor in the nation’s constitution, must also respect the sensibilities of the people in their places of residence.
Failing to respect each other and existing boundaries is why ethnicity remains one of Nigeria’s setbacks. It’s the reason Nigerians do not have a consensus about anything. We don’t even agree about the definition of corruption, which we all say is an existential problem.
When the government accuses someone of corruption in Nigeria, his “people” come around him. As Nigerians demand punishment commensurate with the alleged infractions, his or her clansmen organise protests, his ethnic group goes on the defensive, and they call what we all agree to be corruption another name: victimisation. Nepotism and such ethnic loyalty have therefore become a major undoing for this dear country called Nigeria. There is just nothing like Nigeria’s resolve to fight anything. We generate new standards for perceiving and addressing issues depending on which part of the country the person involved is from. This is the simple invitation to the perpetual stagnation of our development as a country.
Each time this type of conversation comes up, I remember the foresight of two of the 49 people appointed to the 1975 Constitutional Drafting Committee by the Gen. Murtala Muhammed military government. At the end of the assignment, Prof. Olusegun Osoba of the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman of the Ahmadu Bello University issued a minority report.
Specific fallings of the majority draft that they noted were: the non-creation of the right social and political environment where a reasonable amount of democracy can flourish; entrenchment of the concentration of power in the hands of a single person, cliques or single institution; perpetuation of a winner-takes-all style of politics; lack of a clear code of guidance binding public officials to commit to prioritising the welfare of the people; lack of proper criteria for the operation of political parties to build them into genuinely national parties; lack of concrete proposal to help the people overcome the elite-generated problem of ethnic, sectional and religious suspicion, rivalry and antagonism; lack of direction on how to free Nigerians from all forms of imperialist domination and exploitation and the verbosity of the draft constitution, which makes it impossible for all Nigerians to understand.”
One of the 157 provisions they saw as the “minimum agenda for change” is the eradication of “state citizenship.” They prescribed a situation where every Nigerian would be legally entitled to live and work in any community without let or hindrance. Unfortunately, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration rejected the minority report. And here we are today.
– Twitter@niranadedokun
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