Igbo and the governance of Lagos

Three fashionable fallacies lie at the root of prevailing Igbo outlook
to Lagos, the former federal capital. The first is that Lagos is a
no-man's land with no indigenous population.
The second is that Federal Government money was used to build Lagos
into the huge metropolis that it has now become. This argument goes
further to claim that since the "federal money" allegedly belonged to
all Nigerians, the political control of Lagos should, willy-nilly, be
open to justabout anyone and everyone who claims to be a Nigerian.
The third fallacy is that Lagos is a hunting ground, a jungle city
where all being "joiners", the predatory instinct must rule. By this
pernicious thesis, Lagos is a place in which regardless of one's roots
– or the lack ofit – one can seize the trophy. It is an el-Dorado
where anything goes and in which everything, including political
authority, is up for grabs since theplace does not belong to anyone
anyway!
These are erroneous claims, now being given new life in the current
debate on Igbo participation and representation in the politics and
governance of Lagos. Granted, the continued perpetration of these
fallacies is not restricted to Igbo elements. Others, including some
Yoruba(especially those that Lagosians refer to asara oke– upland
people), are equally guilty of the first if not all of these
fallacies.
But the current debate marks the first time that an institutional
claim to the governance of Lagos would be made by a non-Yoruba group.
The commentators, Joe Igbokwe and Uchenna Nwankwo, among others, have
done well in marshalling the arguments from the Igbo perspective.
Spokesmen of Eko Pioneers, a group of Lagosians, have answered back
from the other side. It is a debate that should be encouraged rather
than stifled.
The fallacies are, of course, easily dismissed. The Yoruba identity of
Lagos is not in doubt, regardless of its ethnically mixed composition.
If the "no-man's-land" claim were to be true, then Lagos must be the
only metropolis anywhere in the world without an indigenous
population.
Concerning the use of "federal money" to develop Lagos, four points
need to be made. First, Lagos was a thriving metropolis even before
the British created Nigeria, its prosperity being due more to its
strategic location rather than its administrative designation.
Second, it is doubtful that the people of Lagos were consulted before
theircity was made the Nigerian capital, or that they were forewarned
that being conferred with such a status would mean that they would
lose their city to stranger elements.
Third, rather than invoke the "federal money" argument to dilute a
people's right to control their land, the rest of Nigeria, and, in
particular, the Igbo, should be grateful to the people of Lagos for
availing them of a conducive environment in which lives and property
are relatively safe and in which the throats of settlers are not
routinely slashed by sponsored zealots as happens elsewhere in
Nigeria.
Fourth, and perhaps most tellingly, only a fraction of what is now
Lagos State was ever under the central government. Strictly speaking,
only four of the present twenty local government areas in Lagos State
– Lagos Island, Eti Osa, Lagos Mainland and Surulere – were in the
then Colony of Lagos.
The rest belonged, first to the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and
subsequently to the Western Region, before the state creation exercise
of 1967. Lagos was also not the only city on which federal money was
spent. (Calabar was once the capital and so should also qualify as a
recipient of "federal money".)
As for Lagos being a hunting ground, the self-defeating logic of this
argument is clearly brought home to all of us – aborigine and settler
alike– by the frightening crime statistics in the state.
Perhaps before I go further it is appropriate that I state my
qualificationsfor pronouncing on this matter, aside of course from my
rights as a citizenof Nigeria. From my father's side, I am a Yoruba of
Awori descent with strong Egba links. My mother however happens to be
Igbo from Owerri in Imo State.
Based on these affiliations, I can claim a fair measure of familiarity
with the issues in the current debate on both sides. I understand the
feelings of Lagosians on this matter. I am also fully apprised of the
passions and pressures that drive Igbo into internal economic exile
and which impel their push for a place in Lagos.
While I empathize with the Igbo condition, I share the interest of all
trueborn Yoruba people in maintaining and possibly deepening the
Yoruba character of Lagos. And no one should have to feel apologetic
about that.
The Igbo, perhaps more than any other Nigerian group, are in a vantage
position to appreciate a people's attachment to their soil and the
unbreakable linkage between a people and their land and language.
A critical aspect of that linkage is the exercise of cultural and
political authority over a land space to which one has aboriginal
claim. More than any other group in Nigeria, save perhaps the
FulaniBororo, the Igbo movearound the country a lot for considerations
of geography and economics.
Unlike the Fulani, however, the Igbo often become sedentary in large
clusters in the lands they move into, including Lagos. This naturally
raises an interest in participation in the public affairs of their
places of domicile. Yet, a legitimate interest in participation cannot
translate into a contest for control, which is the way the current
claims are being canvassed and construed.
Pan Nigerianism
Advocates of the Igbo claim to Lagos often refer to the putatively
halcyonera of pan-Nigerianism spanning the 1930s to the 1950s. It was
a time,we are told, when all Nigerians lived as one and when it did
appear that all ascriptive barriers had dissolved in the ferment of
nationalist politics. This period has become a favourite reference
point for people with all kinds of agenda. But was the reality not
indeed less glamorous? There was, no doubt, a fortuitous convergence
in those times. An emergent commercial and educated elite needed to
come together in the nationalist struggle to send the British away and
so the city of Lagos, which was thehub of that struggle, seemed to
have become a melting pot overnight.
Yet, the hometown unions remained strong and affectations to unity
were soon exposed as only skin-deep as the struggle to ensure the
departure ofthe British transitioned into the struggle over who would
succeed the departing oligarchy. This is the reality that we continue
to live with to date. And it would be asking a lot to expect that
Lagos should offer itself as the guinea-pig for experimenting with the
possibility of a new pan-Nigerian vision. Especially since there is as
yet nothing on ground tosuggest or guarantee that such a gesture would
be reciprocated.
As things now stand, the Igbo in Lagos must decide what they really
wantfrom the state: participation, or representation, or control.
Currently, their spokespersons seem to be using the three terms
interchangeably, raising the spectre of a hostile take-over. This
approach is bound to be resisted by a people barely recovering from
the debacle of the June 12 annulment and the devastations of the
Abacha persecution in which they saw the Igbo – with some admirable
exceptions – as having played a less than salutary role.
The attitude and outlook of a majority of Igbo political elite and
indeed common people to the June 12 crisis was mercenary if not
malevolent. Many Igbo seemed to have approached the crisis with a
revanchist agenda borne of deep-seated animosity and ill-will. How so?
Civil war
It is a well-known fact that some Igbo still blame the Yoruba for
having "pushed" the Eastern Region into the civil war only to back out
at the last minute. This line of argument further raised and
reinforced the unfounded stereotype of Yoruba people as unreliable. It
has been peddledfor so long that many have come to believe it. As
Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda once famously
said, tell a lie persistentlyover a long time and people start to
believe it to be the truth. Anyway, hostile interests within and
outside Nigeria that have reason to fear the rise of a southern
solidarity of the type that was emerging with the UPGA party of the
1960s have also invested strenuously in promoting and perpetuating
this lie.
Yet, without seeking to diminish the harrowing and often heroic
sacrifice that the war entailed on the Biafran side, the truth is that
the Nigerian Civil War was largely the consequence of a North and East
alliance of brinkmanship whose cardinal objective and principle was
the isolation of the West. It is said that the falling out of friends
is often the most vicious. So, Igbo political elite are in no position
to seek to build a cult of victimhood around themselves or to
sermonize about the politics of bad faith that led to the war.
Beginning with the NCNC-NPC coalition, through the Action Group
crisis, to the declaration of a state of emergency in Western Nigeria,
the creation of the Mid-West Region, all through to the treasonable
felony trial, many Igbo political leaders of the time seemed to have
deliberately lent a hand or at least acquiesced in stoking the
northern brazenness thateventually resulted in the pogroms and the
war. Nor should it be forgottenthe games that were played with the
status of Lagos, with the establishment of a Federal Ministry of Lagos
Affairs under northern headship but with copious NCNC concurrence.
Similar treatment
But not to digress. With the defeat of Biafra, many Igbo in secret
(and sometimes not too secretly) wished that the Yoruba too should
receive a similar treatment someday soon. That day seemed to have
arrived with theJune 12 annulment and the crisis it unleashed. For
some, the June 12 crisis appeared to have presented the Igbo with a
perfect opportunity to get back at the Yoruba and permanently cut them
down to size.
In executing their now famous exodus from Lagos at the time, many Igbo
had said that they feared (hoped?) that another war was afoot, this
time with Yorubaland as the theatre. Igbo political elite seemed to
have offeredthemselves all too eagerly to bringing about such a
confrontation. The role played by the likes of Sam Ikoku, Uche
Chukwumerije, Walter Ofonagoro and Clement Akpamgbo, to mention a few,
in adding fuel to the fires of the crisis would for a long time be
remembered in the annals of infamy.
No doubt, the annulment and the ensuing crisis sorely tested the
political maturity of Yoruba people and their elite. Fortunately, the
Yoruba refusedto bite the bait and managed to come out of the
annulment crisis without a shooting war. There were, of course,
several battles and notable casualties along the way. But, in the end,
there was no war of the scale that had been feared – or hoped! How
this was accomplished remains a tribute to the leaders of the
pro-democracy struggle, a struggle that is yetto come to an end and of
which Lagos remains the epicenter.
Igbo in governance
Feelings still run deep and memories of what many saw as malevolent
undercutting could remain for long. It is partly in this context that
many Lagosians situate current calls for expanded Igbo presence in the
governance of Lagos. Many will shudder to contemplate the fate of the
June 12 struggle if during that struggle political power in any part
of theSouth-West had been in the hands of people hostile to Yoruba
interests. What extent of damage would Chukwumerije have wrought if he
had just one kinsman as an ally sitting in a sensitive local
government chairmanship or governor's office in the South-West in
those terrible days?
Still, the work of building a united Nigeria must continue as we
cannot afford to dwell for too long on past injuries and grievances.
The Igbo input into this great work can be both positive and
progressive, but not necessarily involving their ruling Lagos. Indeed,
I think they have their work cut out for them. My view is that the
Igbo are barking up the wrong tree in this whole matter over who rules
Lagos. What do I mean by this?
The Igbo are such a leading and (hopefully) enduring part of the
commercial landscape of Lagos. At this point in time, what they should
bedoing is lending their voice and energy to advocating for a reversal
of what appears like a deliberate federal abandonment of the former
capital, which has made doing business in Lagos all the more
difficult.
The movement of the seat of the Federal Government to Abuja was
ostensibly meant to un-clutter the environment of governance and
deepen our country's unity by giving everyone a sense of belonging in
the nation'scapital.
But the move soon fell victim to elements whose knack it is to snatch
defeat from the jaws of victory in every good policy. The movement has
been implemented as a punishment for the Yoruba and possibly as a
reprisal for the central role that Lagos played as the seat of the
pro-democracy opposition. Against this background, the attitude of
many Lagosians to the Igbo quest for control is that they should
commence it inAbuja and its area councils. After all, they say, Abuja
is the only Federal Capital Territory that we have.
Federal presence
But speaking seriously, Igbo claims to an expanded role in the
governance of Lagos cannot be pursued in an atmosphere of intentional
federal abandonment of Lagos. Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos
State has been making a case for renewed federal investment in Lagos,
given the peculiar heavy demands on the state and its role as home to
all.Rather than fantasizing about taking over the Alausa seat of
government or occupying commissionership positions, the Igbo in Lagos
should lend their weight to the push for special federal recognition
for the needs of Lagos, to further enable the state continue to play
its role as a safe, liberal and prosperous home for all.
Samuel, a former columnist with Vanguard, had caused this article to
be published (in two parts) inVanguardof 3 May 3 and May 10, 2002.