Sina,
I have not raised the question of the "ownership" of Lagos in this response, but since you have now raised it, and defined the terms, I should say this: ownership of a territory within a nation-space is defined nationally. A nation is an agglomeration of all the interests that inhere within, and is protected or secured by it. That is why it is a contradiction in terms to talk about the exclusive ownership of a territory within a nation-state that is inclusive. So, the logic is quite simple: the formation and formalization of Nigeria under a democratic and Republican constitution renders the title of the Oba of Lagos irrelevant, and at best, honorary. It carries no force of law. It is a performance. They may have been "Igba keji" under the Oyo Empire. But the Oyo empire is at best today, a historical artifact, in that it ceased to exist, and it disappeared under the natural, historical evolution of states. Nigeria is not a successor entity to the Oyo Empire. Nigeria is a supra-national state that absorbed all kinds of Empires and nations, and states - the Igbo territorial federations, the Oyo Empire, the Hausa states; the Kanem Bornu Empire; the Sultanate of Sokoto; the fragments of the Kwararafa, the Empire of Benin, and so on and so forth. It took a defeat of these entities to create Nigeria, and unless these entities specifically rise to reassert their antique independence and reformalize themselves, they no longer can claim unique territorial ownership. To reassert themselves, they have to fight a war and defeat Nigeria. The Igbo tried to fight and reassert unique territorial control and independence from Nigeria and were soundly defeated in that enterprise. The only territory now is the territory of the federation of Nigeria. So, the specific territorial claim you make of Lagos is false. Besides, the Oba of Lagos is traditionally not even a Yoruba Oba. He is traditionally a duke of the old Empire of Benin, which itself has disappeared under the new national order. In any case, the Oba of Lagos in ceding his authority over Lagos in 1861, became just another tenant of Lagos, and another citizen subject to the municipal administration of the old Colony of Lagos which established itself as a multi-ethnic, transnational space. In the final negotiations towards political independence during the London conferences of 1957, every part of Nigeria was given the option of going it alone and reasserting the boundaries existing before the colonial treaties, or going together into independence as a single nation, and thus ceding every territorial claim to the federation of Nigeria. Everyone one chose to be granted independence as the federation of Nigeria.
I understand your desire to romanticize your traditional past. But what we need all to understand is that the Yoruba Obas no longer govern. They may have symbolic appeal to your conservative instincts, but they mean nothing to me as a democrat convinced on the liberties of republicanism. Besides, Lagos has no fixed territorial character. It is a city, and life within a city is far more complex than its geography or territorial location. In other words the population of Lagos continues to shift, and has ceased to be overwhelming Yoruba. I get to Lagos, for instance, and I see people conducting their affairs in the Igbo language. It is increasingly the language on the street because trading is the foundation of civic culture. The Igbo are traders, certainly, and much more. They are technicians and artisans too. They are industrialists and they are professionals in all fields. Now, let me excerpt specifically, the following statements in your response:
"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"
It is clear to me that you did not read, and if you did, you may have not comprehended the detail of my mail to which you offered this response. Because if you did, you would at least understand that I said asked you this by implication: given the Eastern Regional investment in the construction of the vast Onitsha modern Market, basically at its time the biggest mall in all Africa, and the Western Regional government's investment in Cocoa House, a skyscraper in Ibadan, what would you realisticaly choose with the benefit of hindsight? I personally will go with the Onitsha modern market because it has more than justified its investment. Given the choice between an ultra-modern Liberty Stadium and an ultra-modern network of City and rural libraries, and mobile libraries, a non-pareil even till date in the continent, I will choose the modern library system over the Liberty stadium. Why? Because the investment has more than justified itself. I grew up in Ibadan up till 1975, I never went to the Liberty Stadium. But one f my most memorable days growing up was spending time in the beautifully appointed and well-stocked Children's library of the Umuahia modern Library on Library Avenue in Umuahia. Sometimes, on Saturdays, my father will take us. He would spend time in the beautiful reading rooms upstairs in the Library reading journals, while I and my siblings would be immersed in the Children's library downstairs. Many of the lawyers I knew in that beautiful town spent time in the Umuahia library as did the doctors at Queens. It was from that Library that I first borrowed and read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Nicholas Nickleby, and William Conton's The African and many more, round about primary five. Later my father would entertain us occasionally to lunch at the library's restaurant, or next door at the Ridge Club. These treats were often an incentive to do my share of housework on the weekends before 10:00 when the library opened for the weekend. Every child I knew in Umuahia in primary school had a library card. It was the same for kids I believe in Aba, Owerri, Umuahia, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Ikot-Ekpene, Calabar; wherever the Eastern government had built beautiful modern library facilities with cross regional lending programs, and rural access through the Mobile Library system. It is a matter of values. And yes, there was the Enugu Modern Stadium, which was later expanded and redeveloped as the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium today in Uwani. And yes, there was the Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and the Eastern Nigerian TV. In fact, WNTV began on October 1, 1959. ENTV began on October 1, 1960. I thought I made that clear. I also thought I made clear the range of industrial infrastructure in the East before and even after the war, the result of Azikiwe's economic policies. But you pay attention only to the things you have been primed to believe.
The whole question of Azikiwe's accomplishment began in the propaganda between 1977 and 1979 in the period leading to the transition towards politics in the 2nd republic by Awo's propagandists. Azikiwe himself answered that propaganda with his own well articulated monograph titled, "Matchless Past Performance: My Reply to Chief Awolowo's Challenge." Again, I will advise that you red it and broaden your knowledge of Nigeria and Nigerian affairs, beyond the provincialism that clearly marks your sense of Nigeria. I can discern that you have never been to the East of Nigeria, otherwise, you would not ask some of what I think are questions beneath you as a professor! There is not a single city in the west for instance that has the quality of roads and street networks, and a drainage system that can compare to say Owerri or Umuahia. I do not exaggerate, but I offer this as a challenge to you. Go and visit these cities, and then speak from an empirical position. Ironically, the West of Nigeria had the least number of cities of all Nigerian regions prior to 1976: Abeokuta was a one-track railways town, even till the 1990s; Ondo was no more than a rural cocoa market, Oyo remains the same, as Ife, basically rural. In fact, the only city of worth in the West was the Western Regional capital, Ibadan, and to some extent Benin city, until he creation of the midwest. You could not say the same about the North with Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Ilorin, etc, or the East with well developed urban centers even prior to the war like Aba, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Enugu, Calabar, Owerri, Umuahia. Speaking holistically, these cities are still by far better appointed than anything you can throw at them from your presumptuous perch in the West! That is why I suspect you cling madly to Lagos, built with a fiercer energy than you have given it credit.
Finally, all this talk about "free education" in the West is distracting. I do not see any disadvantage suffered by the East in that period or after. Indeed, every data shows that the East of Nigeria had the highest number of schools and hospitals up at least to 1967, and I'm not sure the statistics has changed. The East had the highest number of children registered in schools in the entire federation, and this fact continues to reflect contemporary reality. So, what's the point of your "free education?" In any case, the East under Azikiwe tried it in 1957, and it was shot down by opposition from the Catholic church, and of course, budget constaints. However, the East established the Eastern Regional Scholarship program, and there was no damage done to the development of public education under Azikiwe and Okpara. From one of the top private schools, Omolewa, in Ibadan in 1975, I went to spend a term of primary school in my village public school, and was blown away by the advanced curriculum to which I was introduced, and the competitive quality of students even in that rural school in 975. I had nothing above them, and I was quite good, even if I should say so myself. In any case, and you may not understand this, Azikiwe's greatest legacy in the East was the creation of a democratic municipal local government system. It gave full autonomy to the people. The East was governed from Town Councils to Municipal Councils. The effect was quite simple: Azikiwe's government introduced governance in the East as a partnership between the people and their government, not a top-down pyramidal system. Communities partnered in the development of their towns. Town Unions raised money and were matched with government grants to build their schools, their markets, their health centers, and their water projects, etc. That was how the East developed, through that kind of "self-help" partnership, in which people determined their greatest needs, levied poll taxes, and the Eastern government provided matching grants. That was how the various Community Grammar Schools were built all over the East from 1954, up till in fact, the 1980s. Now, I'd like to emphasize this point: I defend Azikiwe, not because he was Igbo, but in spite of that fact. I defend his ideas and his position on a Nigerian state that encompasses all Nigeria, and that respects the humanity and fundamental rights of individual citizens, as well as the broad vision of a pan-African and indeed pan-human fraternity. I do not subscribe to Awo's brand of nationalism and its fascist roots and implications, and it has nothing o do with his ethnicity. And for you, I suggest that you rise from your provincial cocoon and travel around Nigeria a bit, and read more broadly, and think more laterally and horizontally. On a final note: I do respect Toyin Falola, but even he will look at you with suspicion if you describe him as "the greatest historian of our time." Only time can make such a claim, and would certainly let Falola's work speak for itself. But again, Sina, you love hyperbole.
Obi Nwakanma
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon
From: seguno2013@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 00:21:54 -0500
CC: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
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I have not raised the question of the "ownership" of Lagos in this response, but since you have now raised it, and defined the terms, I should say this: ownership of a territory within a nation-space is defined nationally. A nation is an agglomeration of all the interests that inhere within, and is protected or secured by it. That is why it is a contradiction in terms to talk about the exclusive ownership of a territory within a nation-state that is inclusive. So, the logic is quite simple: the formation and formalization of Nigeria under a democratic and Republican constitution renders the title of the Oba of Lagos irrelevant, and at best, honorary. It carries no force of law. It is a performance. They may have been "Igba keji" under the Oyo Empire. But the Oyo empire is at best today, a historical artifact, in that it ceased to exist, and it disappeared under the natural, historical evolution of states. Nigeria is not a successor entity to the Oyo Empire. Nigeria is a supra-national state that absorbed all kinds of Empires and nations, and states - the Igbo territorial federations, the Oyo Empire, the Hausa states; the Kanem Bornu Empire; the Sultanate of Sokoto; the fragments of the Kwararafa, the Empire of Benin, and so on and so forth. It took a defeat of these entities to create Nigeria, and unless these entities specifically rise to reassert their antique independence and reformalize themselves, they no longer can claim unique territorial ownership. To reassert themselves, they have to fight a war and defeat Nigeria. The Igbo tried to fight and reassert unique territorial control and independence from Nigeria and were soundly defeated in that enterprise. The only territory now is the territory of the federation of Nigeria. So, the specific territorial claim you make of Lagos is false. Besides, the Oba of Lagos is traditionally not even a Yoruba Oba. He is traditionally a duke of the old Empire of Benin, which itself has disappeared under the new national order. In any case, the Oba of Lagos in ceding his authority over Lagos in 1861, became just another tenant of Lagos, and another citizen subject to the municipal administration of the old Colony of Lagos which established itself as a multi-ethnic, transnational space. In the final negotiations towards political independence during the London conferences of 1957, every part of Nigeria was given the option of going it alone and reasserting the boundaries existing before the colonial treaties, or going together into independence as a single nation, and thus ceding every territorial claim to the federation of Nigeria. Everyone one chose to be granted independence as the federation of Nigeria.
I understand your desire to romanticize your traditional past. But what we need all to understand is that the Yoruba Obas no longer govern. They may have symbolic appeal to your conservative instincts, but they mean nothing to me as a democrat convinced on the liberties of republicanism. Besides, Lagos has no fixed territorial character. It is a city, and life within a city is far more complex than its geography or territorial location. In other words the population of Lagos continues to shift, and has ceased to be overwhelming Yoruba. I get to Lagos, for instance, and I see people conducting their affairs in the Igbo language. It is increasingly the language on the street because trading is the foundation of civic culture. The Igbo are traders, certainly, and much more. They are technicians and artisans too. They are industrialists and they are professionals in all fields. Now, let me excerpt specifically, the following statements in your response:
"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"
It is clear to me that you did not read, and if you did, you may have not comprehended the detail of my mail to which you offered this response. Because if you did, you would at least understand that I said asked you this by implication: given the Eastern Regional investment in the construction of the vast Onitsha modern Market, basically at its time the biggest mall in all Africa, and the Western Regional government's investment in Cocoa House, a skyscraper in Ibadan, what would you realisticaly choose with the benefit of hindsight? I personally will go with the Onitsha modern market because it has more than justified its investment. Given the choice between an ultra-modern Liberty Stadium and an ultra-modern network of City and rural libraries, and mobile libraries, a non-pareil even till date in the continent, I will choose the modern library system over the Liberty stadium. Why? Because the investment has more than justified itself. I grew up in Ibadan up till 1975, I never went to the Liberty Stadium. But one f my most memorable days growing up was spending time in the beautifully appointed and well-stocked Children's library of the Umuahia modern Library on Library Avenue in Umuahia. Sometimes, on Saturdays, my father will take us. He would spend time in the beautiful reading rooms upstairs in the Library reading journals, while I and my siblings would be immersed in the Children's library downstairs. Many of the lawyers I knew in that beautiful town spent time in the Umuahia library as did the doctors at Queens. It was from that Library that I first borrowed and read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Nicholas Nickleby, and William Conton's The African and many more, round about primary five. Later my father would entertain us occasionally to lunch at the library's restaurant, or next door at the Ridge Club. These treats were often an incentive to do my share of housework on the weekends before 10:00 when the library opened for the weekend. Every child I knew in Umuahia in primary school had a library card. It was the same for kids I believe in Aba, Owerri, Umuahia, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Ikot-Ekpene, Calabar; wherever the Eastern government had built beautiful modern library facilities with cross regional lending programs, and rural access through the Mobile Library system. It is a matter of values. And yes, there was the Enugu Modern Stadium, which was later expanded and redeveloped as the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium today in Uwani. And yes, there was the Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and the Eastern Nigerian TV. In fact, WNTV began on October 1, 1959. ENTV began on October 1, 1960. I thought I made that clear. I also thought I made clear the range of industrial infrastructure in the East before and even after the war, the result of Azikiwe's economic policies. But you pay attention only to the things you have been primed to believe.
The whole question of Azikiwe's accomplishment began in the propaganda between 1977 and 1979 in the period leading to the transition towards politics in the 2nd republic by Awo's propagandists. Azikiwe himself answered that propaganda with his own well articulated monograph titled, "Matchless Past Performance: My Reply to Chief Awolowo's Challenge." Again, I will advise that you red it and broaden your knowledge of Nigeria and Nigerian affairs, beyond the provincialism that clearly marks your sense of Nigeria. I can discern that you have never been to the East of Nigeria, otherwise, you would not ask some of what I think are questions beneath you as a professor! There is not a single city in the west for instance that has the quality of roads and street networks, and a drainage system that can compare to say Owerri or Umuahia. I do not exaggerate, but I offer this as a challenge to you. Go and visit these cities, and then speak from an empirical position. Ironically, the West of Nigeria had the least number of cities of all Nigerian regions prior to 1976: Abeokuta was a one-track railways town, even till the 1990s; Ondo was no more than a rural cocoa market, Oyo remains the same, as Ife, basically rural. In fact, the only city of worth in the West was the Western Regional capital, Ibadan, and to some extent Benin city, until he creation of the midwest. You could not say the same about the North with Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Ilorin, etc, or the East with well developed urban centers even prior to the war like Aba, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Enugu, Calabar, Owerri, Umuahia. Speaking holistically, these cities are still by far better appointed than anything you can throw at them from your presumptuous perch in the West! That is why I suspect you cling madly to Lagos, built with a fiercer energy than you have given it credit.
Finally, all this talk about "free education" in the West is distracting. I do not see any disadvantage suffered by the East in that period or after. Indeed, every data shows that the East of Nigeria had the highest number of schools and hospitals up at least to 1967, and I'm not sure the statistics has changed. The East had the highest number of children registered in schools in the entire federation, and this fact continues to reflect contemporary reality. So, what's the point of your "free education?" In any case, the East under Azikiwe tried it in 1957, and it was shot down by opposition from the Catholic church, and of course, budget constaints. However, the East established the Eastern Regional Scholarship program, and there was no damage done to the development of public education under Azikiwe and Okpara. From one of the top private schools, Omolewa, in Ibadan in 1975, I went to spend a term of primary school in my village public school, and was blown away by the advanced curriculum to which I was introduced, and the competitive quality of students even in that rural school in 975. I had nothing above them, and I was quite good, even if I should say so myself. In any case, and you may not understand this, Azikiwe's greatest legacy in the East was the creation of a democratic municipal local government system. It gave full autonomy to the people. The East was governed from Town Councils to Municipal Councils. The effect was quite simple: Azikiwe's government introduced governance in the East as a partnership between the people and their government, not a top-down pyramidal system. Communities partnered in the development of their towns. Town Unions raised money and were matched with government grants to build their schools, their markets, their health centers, and their water projects, etc. That was how the East developed, through that kind of "self-help" partnership, in which people determined their greatest needs, levied poll taxes, and the Eastern government provided matching grants. That was how the various Community Grammar Schools were built all over the East from 1954, up till in fact, the 1980s. Now, I'd like to emphasize this point: I defend Azikiwe, not because he was Igbo, but in spite of that fact. I defend his ideas and his position on a Nigerian state that encompasses all Nigeria, and that respects the humanity and fundamental rights of individual citizens, as well as the broad vision of a pan-African and indeed pan-human fraternity. I do not subscribe to Awo's brand of nationalism and its fascist roots and implications, and it has nothing o do with his ethnicity. And for you, I suggest that you rise from your provincial cocoon and travel around Nigeria a bit, and read more broadly, and think more laterally and horizontally. On a final note: I do respect Toyin Falola, but even he will look at you with suspicion if you describe him as "the greatest historian of our time." Only time can make such a claim, and would certainly let Falola's work speak for itself. But again, Sina, you love hyperbole.
Obi Nwakanma
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon
From: seguno2013@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 00:21:54 -0500
CC: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
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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