Professor Dasylva,
Thank you so much for this piece. It has not only helped in placing the entire discourse in proper context and perspective, it has also come with its medicinal and historical implications.
This attempt at putting the overall record straight is soothing, and highly commendable.
Warm regards.
Mark Ighile, PhD (Ibadan)
National Secretary,
Nigerian Oral Literature Association &
Ag. Director, Academic Planning,
Benson Idahosa University,
P M B 1100 Benin City.
+234 (0) 802 344 5151, +234 (0) 803 495 9317.
www.biu.edu.ng/www.mark-ighile.blogspot.com
Those who feed others with the integrity of heart and guide them by the skilfulness of hands are the true leaders. Mark them. (Psa. 78:72).
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note on Airtel Mobile
On 10 Apr 2015 00:02, "Ademola Dasylva" <dasylvaus@gmail.com> wrote:
-- Where did this fella get his facts from? Why do desperate colleagues deliberately twist facts and stand the Truth on its head??? Find out how Western Region under Awolowo invested in Ikeja and Ilupeju to make them the regional industrial Estates for reasons of their proximity to the port of importation and exportation. It initiated Lagos commercial prominence and status which everyone now enjoys. Let somebody tell the comedian how Chief Henry Fajemirokun by the persuasion of his close friend, Chief Awolowo, and an appeal by the then Military governor, Brig. Mobolaji Johnson, built single-handedly the imposing Three Towers at VI, .etc, etc.People that matter, Igbo and non-Igbo, had condemned the Oba of Lagos for his misconduct and clueless utterance, metaphor or no metaphor, but that is no license for anybody to start jostling with history and sensitive facts.Mba, mba, if dis na yoke make you stop 'am.We should all do something positive about our unity, brotherliness, trust we just got to fix us. The politicians had done our national psyche an incalculable damage by their selfish campaigns of calumny, ethnicity, and divisive religious doctrines that further tear us apart. I think as compatriots we should not buy into this any more, it is sickening for those of us who were there before Independence, and still stand on our legs by the grace of Baba God.I remember, when I was growing up in the fifties up to mid-sixties, there were no ethnic borders, and no boundaries of religions did exist. On the Empire Day celebration on May 24 of every year, we all, school children, young and old, would line the streets and the chosen parade ground to celebrate together gleefully, no pretense, no subterfuge, united, jostling, together. Gone were the days when Zik would ride in his motorcade along major roads in the West, and the noise of Zeeek, Zeeek would rend the air; the same thing, Awooooo! Awoooo! Hogan Kid Basey! Dick Tiger! and Thunder Balogun! etc., etc. nobody cared where they came from. We loved them with passion, and our love and trust were genuine and innocent. This is not to suggest that I endorsed or enjoyed the evil that colonialism represented, but I am desirous of the return of the innocent and pure psychosocial and less sophisticated setting of the period. We used to have in our house some brotherly people from the East and Midwest who either worked on a neighbour's ground-father's farms, or were engaged as petty traders. As kids, none of us cared where they came from; we all integrated as a family, we children had milled around together, played "Hide and Seek" together, had queued to fetch water from the street taps, together; attended schools together, served as Alter boys together, had belonged to the same societies in the church, etc.Then came the blinding harmattan of bastards and politicians, closely followed by the military coup; then the civil war that broke the legs on which our united spirit had rested. Now we levitate on our fragile frame as a nation, and no legs to stand on. Our story has not changed going by the virtual "civil war" raging on this listserv; we are still being severed further and further apart by legacies of inherited hate and bitterness and distrust handed down by crafty politicians, and still being handed down by "divide and rule" politicians, also passed down by our parents, or respected relations, or read from some history books and celluloid documentaries. We are all witnesses the way all this came to the fore in the current democratic process. Now, it is left to our generation to stop the cancer of hate, expunge it completely from the already congested testaments of our spirit, our system; let us learn to forgive no matter how bitter we are or possibly could be, let us love and trust like never before, let us grant our souls requisite amnesty to make us fly like the eagles that is our national symbol, let us make both our national anthem and the national pledge real and realistic, or whatever we confess and practice as faith is a fake.The old love and trust must return, let us go out again on Saturday and vote, let us be guided by our conscience; let us all work towards a truly united and economically vibrant Nigeria. I do pray that the President-elect will steer away the nation's troubled ship from the inclement current of hate and divisiveness sweeping us off our divine course as a potentially great nation!The journey has already commenced on March 28, and may as well be perfected NOW as we go to the polls on Saturday. I am unavoidably in God's own country at the moment and, regrettably, I cannot exercise my franchise.Long live Nigeria!Ademola DasylvaOn Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Bode <ominira@gmail.com> wrote:--I am interested in this. Can you elaborate? I ask because I was just saying to my cousin who is visiting how much I wished Zik had become the first Premier of the Western Region, that ethnic relations in Nigeria would have been different especially between the West and East. His response was unexpected: what did Zik do for the East as Premier? UNN? But Awolowo is immortalized for what he was able to accomplish for the West, still without equal. So, you see why I am interested in Zik's contributions to Lagos?On 4/9/15, 12:22 AM, "Rex Marinus" <rexmarinus@hotmail.com> wrote:Azikiwe contributed more to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than Awolowo, for instance.Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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