"Ever since the news about the deportation of some "destitutes, drug addicts and mentally challenged" persons of Igbo origin broke out, both the traditional and social media platforms have been thrown into frenzy polarizing debates regarding the propriety or otherwise of the action taken by the Babatunde Raji Fashola-led Lagos State Government (LASG). Debunking the deportation claims, the LASG counter-claimed that they "rehabilitated" the deportees and "reunited" them with their families. The Lagos State Task Force had on July 24, 2013, dumped about 70 Igbos at Upper Iweka overhead bridge in Onitsha, Anambra State at 3 a.m.
Deportation, believed to be a longstanding population decongestion strategy of the LASG has been roundly condemned by a broad spectrum of Nigerians. Aka Ikenga, a Think Tank group of the Igbo people described as the deportation as 'inhuman just as veteran politicians like Chief Ebenezer Babatope considered it "very embarrassing and unconstitutional".
As the controversy deepened, nothing stoked the flame with alarming rapidity than the way the LASG continued to top up its defences and counter-defences like MTN recharge cards. At first, LASG denied the deportation claims. Thanks to the robust investigative journalism that is gradually gaining grounds in Nigeria, that denial quickly fell flat on its face. To save face, certain Igbo politicians such as the Joe Igbokwes and Nwabuezes were for obvious reasons, puppetly deployed to tongue lash and bad-mouth their fellow Igbo kinsmen. History is replete with men and women of Igbokwe's caliber; infamous personalities savvy in the game of "my-stomach-first politics", which is orchestrated by masterfully putting their own belly considerations far above public good and collective well-being. In 1963, it was Gerard Ludi, a South African, that was sinisterly used by the white apartheid government to gain privileged information about the location of the Umkhonto we Sizwe MK headquarters in Lilliesleaf as well as the underground activities of the African National Congress (ANC), the primary force in opposition to the apartheid regime. Similarly, Ukpabi Asika a pro-federal Igbo intellectual and former administrator of the eastern region, popularly called "Lord Haw Haw" strayed away from his people when it mattered most, indulging in the self-rewarding game of bad-mouthing his kith and kin during and after the Biafran civil war."||
- "victoriaohaeri"
- Ikhide
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