COMMENT: The sad, unending cry of Lagos indigenes

By KEMI KASUMU

Seventy-two hours after newly re-elected Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Mr. Mudashir Ajayi Obasa, said in his acceptance speech that the Assembly would make laws to protect indigenes of the state, a two-paragraph message titled, ‘Letter to Obasa’, has shown the cry for justice is yet to subside.

The owners and indigenes of Lagos State believe that since the now President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the Afenifere-backed ticket of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and subsequently got elected Governor of Lagos State in 1999, they have been shortchanged and pushed out of participation in the administration of their own constitutionally granted state’s affairs.

Heavier arguments continue to prove the non-indigeneship of Tinubu as he has been more agreed to be true indigene of Iragbiji, near Ikirun in Osun State, and has continued to influence the process of who gets what in the state’s politics since then.

Records show that asides Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), Tinubu has ensured that no indigene became governor, deputy or speaker and that the current Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (Ijebu Ogun State), Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat (Egba Ogun State) and Speaker (Ijebu Ogun State) are not an exemption.

The indigenes, especially the prominent ones among them, ad infinitum beef that the Tinubu-led plot of other South West Yoruba states has deprived them of being able to hold offices as they keep losing the three top positions of governor, deputy governor and speaker in a state that was created, like done to other five Yoruba states of the region, to bring governance closer to Lagosians and Lagosians alone and on their own land.

In his acceptance speech on Tuesday, Obasa had faulted the idea of Lagos as no-man’s land but was, in turn, faulted for trying to prove the state as property that belongs to all Yoruba states’ indigenes rather than making it clear in his speech as a state that is unambiguously owned by people who are not only indigenes but solidly connected to the ancestral history and culture of their respective Divisions of Lagos Island, Ikorodu, Epe, Ikeja and Badagry (The Ibiles) in the state of the aquatic splendour.

The sad side of the Lagos indigenes’ story is that, there exists this divide-and-rule tactics that sees some of them ready to take up fight against others in the agitation for Lagosians’ rights because they are concerned about their immediate gains of today, which they have never been able to get, either. For refusing to stop the cry of marginalisation, some of the agitators have suffered stigma by their own for whose good and children’s future they are fighting.

The opposition within are, however, not without their cogent but untenable reasons. They say non-indigenes from Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun, even Kogi and Kwara states, who have occupied political offices either as councilor, state legislator, local government chairman, governor, senator, house of representatives member for over 24 years now, have amassed so much money and have pulled lots of resources in terms of weapons for thugs and wield so much economic powers to silence the crying owners. With these, no court’s judge has been bold enough to give justice to Lagos indigenes who have approached the lawful means of seeking redress on their marginalisation in court as they most times either drag or fail to call the case for hearing.

Part of this problem was why Omoeko Pataki objected review of Lagos State Chieftaincy Law as proposed by Obasa House of Assembly in recent times because, a grapevine thrived that Alhaji Musuliu Akinsanya a.k.a. MC Olu-Omo was being plotted by the same non-indigenous hegemony to emerge as king of Oshodi, the location in Ikeja Division that is historically known to be farmland of Oshodi of Lagos Island, thereby negatively demystifying the cultural heritage of Lagos State.

The young among the opposition within believe the approach of marginalisation criers will not be realised as power is not demanded but taken through playing along. However, since those that chose that path of “joining them if you cannot beat them” started, their case has been that of “catch them in and bench to make them inactive”. Some of them have their mouths individually shut with either money or temporary slot of either councilor or state legislator that will soon also be withdrawn from them and they are silenced permanently. Examples abound.  Their playing along under Tinubu’s hegemony has made no progress in the actualisation of Lagos indigenes aims and aspirations to recover their rightful place in the administration of the state.

This group of the opposing young ones cites many incidences where, in the past, lives of those that attempted to oppose what some indigenes of Awori stuff describe as the ‘Atohunrinwa’ hegemony had been put on the line. They cite Funso Williams and a Lagos rights advocate, Bola Disu, who was gunned down in circumstances continuously ascribed to police stray bullet in a protest wherein rightful indigenes were asking to be allowed their right to enjoy the benefit of their land.

The emergence of AbdulAzeez Adeniran, also known as Jandor, and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour as governorship candidates of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), respectively, was clearly in effort for Lagos owners to recover their state from “usurpers”, who came from other South West states and do to Lagos indigenes what no, even, Ekiti man can do to Ondo or Osun people on their own land in matter of political office occupancy.

Indigenes of Ekiti will not even dare to pick Expression of Interest Forms to contest for any primary in Ondo or Osun talkless that they can be governor, deputy governor, speaker, legislator therein. Yes, Lagos indigenes speak Yoruba, some Egun, Awori and so on but what belong to them of statehood is for them and them alone and that cannot, under any thought of cosmopolitanism, be altered by any manipulation.

To the chagrin of many, even there came up some Lagos indigenes who joined in the activities to deprive any of those two – Jandor and Rhodes-Vivour – to have his way. One of the plot was to compromise Jandor and blunt his eyes from seeing the undermining that was ongoing so he would not listen to the voice of elders when he needed to step down and join his forces with those of Rhodes-Vivour, who had chances of being bride of March 18, 2023 governorship electioneering game.

Where Jandor was, therefore, believed to be working to destabilise his own indigenous Lagos’ mission of thwarting the continued dominance of non-indigenes and had failed to have support of the indigenes, Rhodes-Vivour, whose father, Wale Rhodes-Vivour and Justices’ family linage of Popo Aguda of Lagos, is not in doubt as bonafide indigene, was thrown away by brainwashed indigenes.

It was those brainwashed indigenes, who sold the idea of Igbo takeover of Lagos, ringing aloud on top of their voices slogans of “Lagos is not no-man’s land”, “Lagos is Yoruba Land”, with the rightful owners of the state failing to see the hypocrisy of the non-indigenous Yoruba in the slogans they only for their ethnic profiling against the Igbo doing business and have contributed hugely to the economy of Lagos.

It was on good record that Lagos owners knew that, in truth, Igbo cannot take over their Lagos and that Rhodes-Vivour, against their touted slogans, is bonafide son of the land. Those who choose to malign a Lagos son because he was given to his indigenous Lagos father by an Igbo woman will also have their date waiting for them in the future, Lagos indigenes believe this natural fact and that using the Biafra’s advancement towards Lagos through Ore during the Civil War as one of their points remains untenable because, that advancement at the time was not to take over indigeneship of Lagos but take over the administration of Nigeria under General Yakubu Gowon.

If the Igbo had succeeded in their advancement to Lagos, they could probably had changed the name of Nigeria to Republic of Biafra but not to replace Lagos indigeneship with that of Igbo speakers.  As it failed then, it cannot even happen now again, Lagos indigenes knew those claims of other South West states’ indigenes were merely in the imagination of their own fictions and lies.

The more undoing of them is in the fact that whereas indigenes of other Yoruba states, who came to hustle and have made enough money in Lagos, have states of their own to run back to, Lagos indigenes, who have been plunged into perpetual poverty by their marginalization and disenfranchisement from their own state authority and benefits have no other place to fall back on except to jump into the Lagoon or the Atlantic Ocean. What an injustice that Yoruba people can do to their fellow Yoruba!

Kano is as cosmopolitan as Lagos, Kaduna, Borno, Rivers and Enugu. No Sokoto or Kaduna or Zamfara or Jigawa indigene can go to vie for political office in Kano talk less of dominating and maginalising Kano indigenes and will remain to say it again. They are in the same North West geopolitical zone. No Cross River man can do so in Rivers or Akwa Ibom. They are in the same South South. It will not happen by any Yobe person to seek such political office let alone dominance in Borno State political landscape. Yet, indigenes from across those respective states go to those cities to do their businesses, they are guaranteed by the law, but when it comes to determination of political powers, they go back to their respective states to the shut and so there has been peace between indigenous people of Kano, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Uyo, others and those from other states who come to live or do businesses in their land.

But it is happening conveniently in the South West only to Lagos indigenes and other South West states’ indigenes pretend not to see the evils that are entailed in that. They have made enough money in the likes of Isiaka Adegboyega Oyetola, Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Solomon Olamilekan Adeola Abiola, also known as Omo Yayi (Ogun), James Faleke (Kogi), Lai Mohammed (Kwara) and others, and now, one after another, they have been retiring to their using the United Nations funds, Federal allocation and state Internally General Revenues that should have circulated among Lagos indigenes for the economic advancement of the land and the people to develop their own states and built a godfatherism status for themselves in those places. While that happens, they live poverty behind for the people of Lagos and so, lives become continuously difficult daily in the supposedly Nigeria’s economic nerve centre.

An investigation of the situation got to the extent that it was seen that sons and daughters of Lagos indigenes cannot conveniently seek appointment into Lagos State Civil Service or to represent their state at the Federal level and get appointed. The case of Segun Aganga as Minister in Abuja on the slot of Lagos and that of Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University still remain fresh in the memory of many of the agitators. The topmost contestant for the position of LASU VC, because he is a known Lagos indigene, was refused approval by Governor Sanwo-Olu to head the Alhaji Lateef Jakande-established LASU. Sanwo-Olu is from Ogun State, his deputy is Ogun State and the number three citizen position of speaker is Ogun State. It is that appalling.

However, with the reigns of criticisms firing from the Omoeko Pataki leaders namely Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George, former Military Governor of Old Ondo State; Major General Tajudeen Adeniyi Olanrewaju (Rtd), former Minister of Communications; and Mr. Gbadebo Dallas, former Managing Director, Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB now Bank of Industry – BOI), that best performer in the VC exam that was deprived to head LASU was eventually appointed by the governor as pioneer Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUSTECH), Ikorodu.

General Olanrewaju particularly rang it clear during the week, citing a quote by a prominent scholar saying, “A man could become the next victim of the evil he celebrates today… Don’t defend evil because it favours you now. It could work against you the next minute!”

Although Speaker Obasa has spoken to the concerns of the Lagos State indigenes, the short “Letter to Obasa” in circulation by an author simply named as ‘Concern Indigene’ said:

“An Ondo Yoruba who offers nothing to Lagos is a bonafide Lagosian. An Ekiti Yoruba who is a nuisance to Lagos is a Lagosian. An Osun Yoruba who steals from Lagos is a Lagosian. An Ogun Yoruba who sits idly but eat big in Lagos is a Lagosian. But an Igbo man who does his business, with handsome capital, pays his tax consistently & contribute immensely to the international commercialization of Lagos, isn’t a Lagosian.

“You shall be consumed by your own flame/stake of tribal hate,” the author stated.