Obi,
You have raised a number of issues in your post but the primary one is the ownership of Lagos. My idea of ownership of Lagos is not in consonant with yours and it requires a definitive clarification. Obi, ownership has lower and higher re-definitions. The former deals with a general conceptual belief that the Creator owns all things including the planet earth that you and I call our own.
Nigeria in this category is owned by all Nigerians.
The latter is the natural location in which each ethnic group who speaks the same language and have cultural affinity and identity resides.
In this case the Yoruba speaking people living in the Southwest including those in Kwara and Kogi States in Nigeria own their domains in Nigeria. In their cultural traditions the Obas have authority to govern according to the dictates of Orisha, ancestors and the people. They are called Igba Keji Orisha, second command to Orisha.
Since Lagos is in the Southwest and the dominant ethnicity is the Yoruba, the claim of ownership of Lagos by the Oba of Lagos is conceived in this higher re-definition.
The word "Oba" is originally and distinctively used by the Yoruba to describe their rulers from time immemorial.
Now let us separate contributions from ownership. For instance, all ethnic groups which have made huge contributions to the development of Lagos do so for economic and political reasons not because they are joint owners of Lagos in the higher re-definition of ownership as explained above. That is why when Christmas or Easter festival comes most Ibos and other nationalities in Lagos go home for celebration because that is the place they can rightfully claim to be their own.
Therefore, logically and pragmatically Lagos is not their home and so they don't own it. When there were political crises that led to killings in Lagos, the Ibos ran back to their states in the east because that is their own.
Obi, you have turned historical facts of its head and arrived at a distorted conclusion. The Owelle of Onisha, Nnamdi Azikwe met Lagos as an emerging economic and political capital of a dynamic nation. He was a beneficiary of the work laid down by Engineer Herbert Macaulay of blessed memory. He was a Yoruba man, an educationist, activist, politician and nationalist. Azikwe became a political apprentice under Macaulay.
You cannot compare Azikwe with Awolowo in all ramifications. The development of the defunct Western Region which extended to MidWestern Region in those days was unparalleled and that is what the Ibos living in those two regions benefited immensely because such was not found in their eastern region. Was there any free education in the east? Were there radio and television broadcasting stations in those days the east? Was there palm oil house like CocaHouse at Ibadan? Was there anything call Liberty Stadium in the east? How many kilometer roads were constructed in the east when Azikwe was their Premier? How many towns and cities in the east
with pipe borne water? Awolowo provided all these and more for his people. You may need to read more history books in all this and perhaps contact Prof. Toyin Falola the greatest African historian of our time for better understanding of History of Nigeria.
I know there are pockets of Yoruba in Iboland but you cannot compare their population with that of your people in Yorubaland.
The Ibos are commercial traders and primarily in those days engaged in secondhand clothing, stockfish, etcetera. Today they have added spare parts of all sorts including auto mobil, electronics and computers, building materials etc. These commercial activities do not add much value to Nigeria industrial development.
Go to Ikeja and see the industrial layout of Awolowo. It is industry that has economic values to the development of a nation.
With the services of social media one does not need to go to the east to know the rate of the development there. Tell me, are you happy with the streets in Onitsha, Aba , Enugu, etc that you see on AIT, Channels, and NTA international news? Why can't your people go home and develop their cities and towns and stop developing the ones in Lagos and other places in the Southwest? It does not add up to common sense for anyone to develop cities and towns that are not his own when where he comes from is begging for development. methinks.
Obi, I think some of the issues you raised have been adequately answered.
Ogun agbe yin o. Aase.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi
Segun Ogungbemi:--
The reality is (a) Nigeria is a work in progress. As a postcolonial/neo-colonial state it will contend with profound schisms before the perfection of its ultimate public spirit, (b) the current claim of who owns which Nigerian city is both moot and laughable because the city will remain a 100 years from now, and its character would have changed so much that those in the future of that city may, if they encounter some of the fierce statements in this forum, find it all quaint and amusing, (c) I do not know where you are a professor or of what kind, but I assume that you must have certain groundings to merit your chair: so, I will say this, conceive of all empires that have split or gone into decline. What happened to their populations? IF Nigeria breaks apart, that question is likely to be answered. There will be dramatic population shifts; new powerful territorial claims; enforcement of security boundaries that will splice once coherent communities into fragments, and perhaps contained into new territories. We can speculate but because the split in Nigeria will be accompanied by violent and possibly catastrophic events, the movement of 12 million people in Lagos alone will reshape the West African landscape. People who were once Yoruba will be absorbed into other places; people who were once Igbo may establish new identities, and the dynamic forces will determine the fate of Lagos.
By the way, there are huge numbers of Yoruba in Eastern Nigerian cities in Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Aba, Calabar, Onitsha, etc. I think you should travel a little more around Nigeria. Finally, let me make this statement as plainly as possible: the Igbo are not in Lagos on anyone's invitation, or goodwill; they are not in Lagos because there are no developments in Eastern Nigerian cities. Again, I'd advise you to travel a bit across Nigeria, and see for yourself. My favourite Nigerian city, and I have been to most, is Owerri because of its calm elegance. You should visit to see. The Igbo, like many other Nigerians are in places like Lagos, because THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO BE THERE. Lagos was built by the sweat, genius, and enterprise of these Nigerians, not just of the Igbo or Yoruba, and so on. Lagos was not built by the Yoruba alone. The Oba of Lagos has not contributed a farthing to the development of Lagos. He has of course collected rent. There have been many Igbo, Itshekiri, Urhobo, Hausa, Efik families, etc. who have been in Lagos long before many a Yoruba who now claim to be "Lagosians" left the Yoruba hinterland to come to Lagos. Azikiwe for instance was a Lagosian long before Awolowo took his first trip to Lagos in the 1930s. Azikiwe contributed more to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than Awolowo, for instance. There are many Lebanese and Greek families who have longer and firmer roots in Lagos than current Yoruba claimants of Lagos, and who made far more contribution to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than any living Yoruba. We need to respect these facts. And by the way, the day the Igbo leave Lagos, Lagos will stop being the Lagos as you know it. There is evidence of this during the Christmas when the Igbo leave in great numbers. Lagos looks deserted, and the East becomes enkindled with great human energy. Cities rise and decline. The day the Port policies change towards the expansion of activities in the ports at Calabar, Port-Harcourt, Warri and the new Onitsha port, perhaps the prayer of those who wish the Igbo to leave Lagos may be answered. Maybe that day is not too long in the future.
However, right now in Lagos, a great world city is emergent, and it is taking the fierce energy of Nigerians from everywhere. The Hausa supplier of meat to that city is as vital as the Egun woman who hawks that great soul food, Ewa Agoyin with that lovely peppery stew as only the Yoruba knows to make it; in Lagos today, I have heard many Yoruba speaking fluent Igbo without living in the East as a result of a very diffuse use of that language in the city; there are border crossings; marriages contracted across ethnic lines; Lagos is the great Nigerian watershed city where a new urban, cosmopolitan culture has taken roots. It refuses to be provincial, and only a particular kind of Yoruba provincialism continues to hold on to the fiction of Lagos as a distinct Yoruba city. But the cosmopolitan Yoruba and the cosmopolitan Igbo, among others, have met in this city which is the laboratory of a new Nigeria, in spite of the thinking of the Segun Ogungbemis of this world. And I should say, Nigeria is not breaking up soon. When it does, the boundaries will draw themselves. But until it does, every Nigerian is subject only to the constitution of the Federal republic which guarantees the citizenship of a Nigerian, where ever they reside in that republic. It is that guarantee which makes it possible for an Igbo to contest election in Lagos or Kano, and which gives the Yoruba the same rights, should they choose to establish residence, and seek for political office in Aba.
Obi Nwakanma
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon
From: seguno2013@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 19:17:53 -0500
CC: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comThat 's right. Let them be inventing history of falsehood. They have not shown any Ibo given a crown as Obi of Lagos. Why can't they turn their eastern cities to mega ones to attract the Yoruba there? How many different ethnicities are in Ibo land? Is Onitsha considered Federal Republic of Nigeria?You know what, if the country splits today and every ethnicity goes back to its region will the Ibo remain in Lagos as indigenes? Whenever there is crisis in Lagos why do the Ibos run back to their localities in the east?I have raised these questions to show that what these guys say here is nothing but an intellectual exercise. They know the reality.
Prof. Segun OgungbemiReferring to Oba of Lagos as baboon is provocative. The Igbo should realize that Lagos belongs to the Yoruba people and Akiolu remains the Oba of Lagos. Calling any Oba in Yorubaland a baboon is provocative.
'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.BikoOn Tuesday, 7 April 2015, 16:39, Segun Ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:
There is need for caution here. It is an aberration of the highest order to call or address an Oba a baboon. Whatever the merit of the argument, insulting one of the most highly respected Royal Fathers in Yorubaland and in Nigeria by anyone is despicable. 'Biko Agozino should first of all withdraw the description of His Royal Majesty the Oba of Lagos a baboon.This inflammatory description can cause mayhem if care is not taken. It is therefore demanded that Biko Agozino withdraws it with an apology.Prof. Segun Ogungbemi
On Apr 7, 2015, at 10:42 AM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:A baboon has threatened to drown masses of Igbo citizens of Nigeria in the lagoon if they do not vote for his preferred candidate for the governor of Lagos State. This is a leadership moment for President Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, to show leadership by repudiating such a brazen terroristic threat against model citizens who have ventured immensely to help build a modern nation and who have suffered unprovoked genocidal violence repeatedly in the history of Nigeria. Leaders should call for the arrest, dethronement and prosecution of the Oba of Lagos for this hate speech; apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs especially during the civil war when 3.1 million were estimated to have died with their young women abducted, their properties destroyed or seized, and their life-savings withheld. Propose a law against any denial of the Igbo genocide and against genocidal threats and establish the Igbo Reparations Fund along with the creation of the sixth state in the South East for the sake of geopolitical equity. Other Nigerian groups have been offered reparations for lesser wrongs and the continued denial of fair reparations to the Igbo who
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