I think that all parties need to be on a stock-taking mode at this time, carefully cataloging who said what, who incited who, and who did what because the situation at hand (that is, the organized and bloody electoral violence that compromised the governorship and state assembly election in Lagos state as an epicenter) might eventually get into the hands of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In fact, given the seeming impotence of the Nigerian state on this vexatious matter, an intervention of the International Criminal Court is warranted. I'm reminded of the fact that the International Criminal Court eventually waded into a bloody post-election violence in Kenya following the 2007-2008 General Elections there. As I have noticed, since then, ICC's intervention did appear to have exerted a salutary impact on the conduct of Kenya's elite society on election matters: it seems to have significantly and perceptibly reduced what used to be Kenyan's elite class's antecedent proclivity towards mob incitement for electoral gains or electoral vengeance. It appears that Kenya's ruling elite did learn a restraining lesson from ICC's intervention. As I read some comments that fall within a realm of reckless abandon (comments that sound like "I don't care; I can do whatever I wish; no one can call me to order; no law can restrain me; I got all the power; we control the police, the army, etc.; you are powerless; and so, there's nothing you can do about it"), I say to myself that Nigeria is overdue, long overdue for the intervention of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Some segments of Nigeria's ruling elite have lost it; they need help; they need a decisive ICC intervention in order to help Nigeria grow, in order that Nigeria can be assisted to learn to effectively police itself. So far, it has failed in this national duty.
Let us never forget or ignore the fact that ethnic communities have, for centuries, lived together in peace and harmony in Lagos. The eyesores that we witnessed with a sense of horror at given polling stations and on given streets of Lagos on March 18, 2023 were tantamount to what I call a manufactured conflict, a conflict manufactured by a group of desperate, self-centered and apathetic powers-that-be who engaged in a despicable act of turning the Obedient movement on its head, poisoning the minds of our kids, misleading our kids, arming our kids to march out onto the streets with matchets and other weapons in order to brutalize, kill or maim fellow citizens whose only crime was their desire to exercise a fundamental right of citizenship to cast their ballots for whomever they deemed fit. In this orgy, we seemed to forget who our real enemies are: the well-connected multi-ethnic cabal that has been bleeding Nigeria dry. At the very least, we all should rise up, rise above the fray and condemn those instigated centrifugal and unpatriotic acts of barbarism.
Defending the indefensible is never a worthy attribute of a person who considers himself or herself "learned." What really does it mean to be learned if we can't demonstrate moral wisdom when an occasion warrants it? Does being learned also entail a capacity for moral wisdom? Does the acquisition of a Western Ph.D. or multiple Western PhDs, along with a library full of publications necessarily equip us with a capacity for moral wisdom? From time to time, I shake my head in frustration and pity when I notice how, sometimes, some of us who are so materially and academically accomplished can, in almost a twinkle of an eye, descend from that Olympian height to the bottom of primordial tribal and illogical reasoning. I can't help asking: when we attend our village or clan meetings, can we be counted upon to stand up and say, "wrong is wrong, and right is right?"
Look, neither election violence, nor ethnic slurs, nor ethnic bigotry is peculiar to Nigeria. But in societies where they have succeeded in containing those human frailties, it tends to be the case that such societies have built up a sufficient cadre of elite members who, by orientation and habit of mind, subscribe to a shared political culture, a shared set of political cultural values, that sets and upholds boundaries of acceptable or unacceptable political conduct, regardless of their racial, ethnic, linguistic or religious affiliations. They are able to rise up in defense of the national interest when threatened by centrifugal special interests. May God help us to eventually attain that level of political maturity! We may need the International Criminal Court to get us there—someday,
Let the silent majority rise up and speak up against an evil that has arisen in the land, in our shared common space, an evil that threatens our collective peace and wellbeing. Never defend the indefensible!
--Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
The result of the Presidential election in Lagos State gave Peter Obi, of the Labour Party, 582, 457 votes while Bola Ahmed Tinubu won 572, 611 votes. Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State in the South East won the presidential election in Lagos State over its former Governor with 9,846 votes. Since over 70% of the population of Lagos is Yoruba, Peter Obi could not have won if the electorates were tribally inclined, that is to say if Yoruba had voted for Yoruba and non-Yoruba had voted for Igbo. Following the declaration of the result of presidential election in Lagos, non-indigenes of Lagos went out not only to celebrate Obi's victory over Tinubu but also triumphantly chanted "Lagos is no man's land." It was even reported that some flew and waved "IPOB flag' at Alausa, the seat of Lagos State Government to demonstrate that Lagos has been captured.
Femi Fani-Kayode must have read or watched on TV about the demonstrating ethnic triumphalist in Lagos since he resides in Abuja. Naturally, Fani-Kayode reacted by correctly pointing out that Lagos, and its present day extension including part of the old Western Region, from time immemorial is a Yoruba land and not a no man's land. Fani-Kayode regarded the demonstration of Igbo political triumphalist in Lagos as conspiracy and revolt of Igbo immigrants against their hosts and he pleaded to the Yoruba to vote for Sanwo-Olu in the governorship election. At no time did Fani-Kayode incite the Yoruba to attack Igbo or destroy their properties because of the outcome of Presidential election. Remember that it was only in the Southwest of Nigeria that the Igbo recovered their houses after the civil war and rents collected and kept in escrow were paid back to their rightful owners. In Lagos, rents collected from the properties of the father of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (OTL) had accumulated to N12 million when he returned from exile in 1982 and which he quietly collected without telling Nigerians, who got to know of it when one of his siblings, Lotanna Ojukwu filed a case in court to demand his own share of their father's heritage. In Rivers State, we have had Odili, Amechi and now Wike, all of who are Ikwere Igbo governors of the State after the civil war, yet up till date Igbo who fled as a result of the war have had their houses confiscated as abandoned properties.
You will recall that the annulment of June 12, 1993, Presidential election was preceded by midnight Court injunction granted to one Arthur Nzeribe that counting of votes should stop. When the election was annulled all Igbos in the Southwest fled to their ancestral home in the Southeast believing that war would breakout in the Southwest including Lagos. Chinua Achebe described that Igbo behaviour in his 'No Longer at Ease' as follows, "We are strangers in this land, when calamities befall the owners of the land, we return home leaving the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods." Indeed, the Igbo in Lagos in the aftermath of the June 12, 1993 annulment thought calamity would befall the Southwest and they fled en masse and after the Yoruba had appeased their gods, Igbo people returned. Fani-Kayode has not, and he could never have, demonized the Igbo because it is neither in the genes or culture of the Yoruba people to be anti-human. At best, what Femi Fani-Kayode said about the presidential election vis-á vis the impending gubernatorial election in Lagos is in tandem with what Chinua Achebe made Okonkwo to say in his 'Things Fall Apart,' that if a person comes to defecate in your compound, get a big stick to break his head. I cannot say what belongs to Mr. Adepoju is ours and what belongs to me is mine only. And should Mr. Adepoju object to my expropriation of his belongings, I would accuse him of demonizing me and being unfriendly.S. Kadiri
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: 22 March 2023 15:00
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: The Self Destructiveness of APC Anti-Igbo Strategy in Lagos State as Led by Femi Fani-Kayode
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
As you may or may not have gathered from the posting about Things to avoid during Ramadan, calumny, backbiting, dissension, and civil strife, are some of the things that pious Muslims are advised to not engage in during the holy month of Ramadan.
In my humble opinion that should be the praxis for the rest of humanity too, including you and me, the year round.
I'm not equally sure about this measure: Lashon HaRa against the Wicked - or that we should desist from speaking out against evil and by default, thereby silently acquiesce and allow evil to triumph in our midst, in any of God's kingdoms down here on mother earth.
Cosmopolitanism may be, where some of us are coming from and that probably explains why when I checked the latest news about this righteous soul Femi Fani-Kayode I could find none of the nonsense being attributed to him by his desperate adversaries in the post-election era in which instead of stoking new ethnic fires, we should all be promoting peace and unity, peace and love, beginning with peace and reconciliation between the winners and the losers in the just concluded presidential elections
In the Nigerian context, whatever extensions may be derived from Femi Fani-Kayode asserting that Nigeria's former capital city, the still most cosmopolitan city in all of Nigeria and the undisputed economic hub of the nation "Lagos is NOT no-man's land." - is juridically and legally speaking, correct ( just ask the Oba of Lagos) just as Enugu or Umuahia or indeed Jerusalem or Stockholm or Ground Zero, Greenwich Street in multiethnic New York, or Bangkok the capital of Thailand cannot be said to be a " no man's land"
I suppose that the crux of the newfangled "no man's land" awareness is the wishful thinking that accompanied Peter Obi supposedly polling more votes than President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos, his own home turf. This of course could have made some of his Igbo supporters who voted for Obi there, giddy or delirious with their new national anthem " No Man's land"
Next stop in the name of Igbophobia, another no man's land, the Oyo Empire is really Igbo?
Resurrect the Sokoto Caliphate and baptize it Igbo?
You come tramping into my dining room and tell me, "This is no man's Land"?
Surely, these are not genius philosophical or poetic questions?
Next stop another Final Solution ( like Hitler's Jews telling him that Germany is " No Man's land" or Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich saying "there's no such thing as Palestinian people
"To see the townsfolk suffer so, From vermin, was a pity."
and, so, like the rats following the flute of the Pied Piper of Hamelin
they all get drowned in the Lagos Lagoon?
Listen up: Christopher Columbus
--On Tuesday, 21 March 2023 at 22:40:17 UTC+1 Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:
The Self Destructiveness of APC Anti-Igbo Strategy in Lagos State as Led by Femi Fani-KayodeVery, very sad.Ethnic politics in its inhuman baseness.These people dont know what time of day it is.Was it Igbos who massacred the EndSars protesters?Is it Igbos who have enabled a rapacious culture of thuggery in Lagos?Many people, including Yorubas, are tired of this kind of politics and voted against APC and PDP in the Presidential elections, a move that some APC short sighted people are struggling to paint as an effort to take Lagos from Yoruba people.These people, insisting on threatening Igbos in the name of political power, stoking the murder of Igbos as happened in the last election, are trying to start war.Igbos live in Lagos legitimately and earn their living legally as Nigerians.Trying to demonize them as the bigot and political prostitute Femi Fani-Kayode is doing is an invitation to war.This madman should be stopped by his party APC in the interests of all.Trying to destroy the economic strongholds associated with Igbos in Lagos, such as Computer Village, as FFK and others like him are projecting, is one of the most foolish things anyone can do, trying to destroy the central and perhaps only concentration of information technology and computing expertise in Nigeria in the name of ethnic supremacy.
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