THE
year was 1965. I was an innocent starry-eyed 13 year-old and Nigeria
was in turmoil. It was the era of the “wetie,” when the houses of
politicians and key public-figures were burnt down in the brouhaha that
was then Western Nigeria.
We lived in Oke-Ado in Ibadan and our
next-door neighbour was Chief Ogundiran, a minister in the government of
Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region. (Ogundiran was
famous for only wearing white.) In the spirit of the times, a mob came
early one morning and burnt down his house. He jumped out of the
window and managed to escape.
Fani-Power: I was
having private lessons in Mathematics at the home of a colleague, Enitan
Abiodun, when we heard the noise of a crowd outside. We rushed to the
veranda to see Chief Remi Fani-Kayode (alias Fani-Power), then Deputy
Governor of the Western Region, standing on the seat of a moving
convertible. He was surrounded by a mob, which was shouting and hailing
him. On hearing the noise, Enitan’s mother rushed to the veranda
shouting “Awo!” only to discover that the people outside were not
supporters of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, but those of his arch-enemies.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/towards-an-igbo-governor-of-lagos-state/#sthash.QhZk6TdR.dpuf
THE year was 1965. I was an
innocent starry-eyed 13 year-old and Nigeria was in turmoil. It was the
era of the “wetie,” when the houses of politicians and key public-figures were
burnt down in the brouhaha that was then Western Nigeria.
We lived in Oke-Ado in Ibadan and
our next-door neighbour was Chief Ogundiran, a minister in the government of
Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region. (Ogundiran was
famous for only wearing white.) In the spirit of the times, a mob came early
one morning and burnt down his house. He jumped out of the window and
managed to escape.
Fani-Power: I was having private lessons in Mathematics at the home of a
colleague, Enitan Abiodun, when we heard the noise of a crowd outside. We
rushed to the veranda to see Chief Remi Fani-Kayode (alias Fani-Power), then
Deputy Governor of the Western Region, standing on the seat of a moving
convertible. He was surrounded by a mob, which was shouting and hailing
him. On hearing the noise, Enitan’s mother rushed to the veranda shouting
“Awo!” only to discover that the people outside were not supporters of Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, but those of his arch-enemies.
The shout of “Awo!” by Mrs. Abiodun
brought the procession to a screeching halt. “Who said that? Who
said that?” demanded the mob, enraged. “Fani-Power” turned and looked up
at us. His eyes were the usual blood-shot red. At the time, many
claimed it was because he regularly smoked Indian-hemp. Fani-Kayode
pointed to our building and identified to his thugs that the offending shout
came from our direction. We did not know that the floor of the
convertible he was standing in was loaded with empty bottles. His thugs
reached for the bottles and rained them down on us as we all scrambled back
inside the house for dear life.
Like father, like son: That was 48 years ago. Today, Femi Fani-Kayode, the
53-year-old son of “Fani-Power,” continues in the mischievous tradition of his
father: throwing dangerous missiles at the innocent. He recently wrote an
incendiary article entitled: “The Bitter Truth About the Igbo,” in which he
maligned the Igbos and virtually told them to get out of Lagos and leave Lagos
for the Yorubas.
What is peculiar about the article
is that Femi Fani-Kayode himself is no more Lagosian than the Ibos he
berates. The Fani-Kayodes are not from Lagos. They are from Ile-Ife
in OsunState. Femi Fani-Kayode’s only legitimate claim to Lagos is that
he was born there.
But then so were many Igbos who are,
therefore, Lagosians. Moreover, Igbo-Lagosians have one up on Femi
Fani-Kayode. They live in Lagos. Femi Fani-Kayode does not.
Igbo-Lagosians work in Lagos and pay taxes to the LagosState government.
Femi Fani-Kayode does not. Therefore, what right does he have to write
his diatribe against them? What right does he have to maintain Lagos does
not belong to Igbo-Lagosians?
Train-wreck: Having thrown these bottles maliciously, Femi Fani-Kayode
decided to throw a few more. He wrote another invective entitled: “A Word
For Those Who Say I Am A Tribalist.” In order to demonstrate that he was
not anti-Igbo, he presented the cliché that some of his best friends are Igbos.
As proof, he detailed three Ibo women (some now happily-married) he claims to
have had affairs with in the past. Only God knows how this shows he is
not biased against the Igbos. Slave-traders slept with their slaves. Is
that proof they were not racist?
The jury is out already. Femi
Fani-Kayode is a bigoted tribalist. Only a tribalist can say he is not
anti-Ibo and then say this about the Igbos: “(They are) collectively
unlettered, uncouth, uncultured, unrestrained and crude in all their
ways.” “They have no restraining factors because money and the
acquisition of wealth is their sole objective and purpose in life.”
Clearly, Femi Fani-Kayode is out of control. He has become something of a
train-wreck. He was President Obasanjo’s agent-provocateur for so long,
where he maligned elder-statesmen like Yakubu Gowon; he no longer knows how to
speak with decorum.
The American model: I am Yoruba. Nevertheless, I repeat; the Igbos of
Lagos are Lagosians. They are Lagosians whether ethnic jingoists like
Femi Fani-Kayode like it or not. The Lagos branch of the old Action
Congress of Nigeria acknowledged that no less than 45% of the population of
Lagos is Igbo.
That is a fact that cannot be
ignored or simply wished-away. It is not improbable that, in a few years
time, the majority of people living in Lagos will be Igbos. Short of
changing the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that tells me an
Igbo man can rightfully become the future Governor of Lagos State. That
should give some food-for-thought to the Fani-Kayodes.
The system of government in Nigeria
is modeled after that of the United States. In the U.S., Hilary Clinton
is a native of Illinois. Nevertheless, in 2000 she contested for election as
Senator in New York and won. She was eligible to run for the seat simply
because she and her husband moved to New York and lived there for only one
year. Similarly, some Ibos have been in Lagos for 50 years.
That should make them eligible to
run for office. If they vote the ethnic card, as Yorubas often do, Femi Fani-Kayode
might have a heart-attack. An Igbo man might conceivably become the
Governor of Lagos State. That is what democracy is all about.
The growing political muscle of
Igbo-Lagosians has been obscured by electoral malpractices. That cannot
last forever. Sooner than later, Igbo-Lagosians will start to pull their
political weight in Lagos. True indigenes of Lagos, as opposed to
carpet-baggers like the Fani-Kayodes, have traditionally been open-minded about
Igbos and non-indigenes. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a Nigerian nationalist who
happened to be Igbo, once won an election in Lagos, before Awolowo appealed to
tribal politics to truncate it.
Grudging acknowledgement of the
growing political clout of the Igbos led to the appointment of a token Ibo man,
Pastor Ben Akabueze, as Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget in Lagos
by Governor Babatunde Fashola; a post he has held for six years.
Femi Fani-Kayode should have gone to
court to challenge that appointment. Soon, such tokenism will just not
cut it. Igbo-Lagosians will demand a more proportionate share of the
local political power. If they play their cards right, they will get
it. Igbo-Lagosians vote in Lagos. Therefore, they can be voted for
in Lagos. No constitutional amendment is required to bring this about.
New multi-culture: Given his educational background, one would have expected
Fani-Kayode to be more enlightened. A Nigerian cannot be an alien in
Nigeria. An Igbo man cannot be an alien in Lagos. Igbos are not
illegal aliens in Lagos. They are at home. In Nigeria, a Nigerian
is entitled to live wherever he wants. If the resources of the
Niger-Delta can be Nigerianised to the benefit of Yoruba-Lagosians, then Lagos
cannot be the exclusive preserve of Yoruba-Lagosians.
Since Nigeria belongs to all
Nigerians, then Lagos belongs to all Nigerians. During the census
enumeration, some of us insisted that Igbos must stay and be counted in Lagos
for that very reason. Since Igbo-Lagosians are a significant part of the
local population who contribute immensely to key sectors of the economy, the
national census must reflect the fact that they live and work in Lagos.
I recently visited London after a
ten-year absence. What I saw was a highly cosmopolitan city with people
of different nationalities, including Nigerians. London is no longer a
town of the English. It is now a megalopolis in the true sense of the
word. On several occasions, I overheard people speaking Yoruba in the streets
of London. On one occasion, I could not resist the urge to interject,
even though uninvited.
Nigerians are everywhere. On a
visit in May 2013 to WashingtonD.C., United States for the Nigerian Development
and Finance Forum, under the auspices of Financial Nigeria Limited, I was
informed by the Deputy Ambassador of Nigeria to the United States that there
are currently five million Nigerians in the U.S. There are even more
Nigerians in Sudan; over eight million.
Nigerians constitute a significant
percentage of the population of Cote d’Ivoire. There are more Nigerians
in Equatorial Guinea than Equatorial-Guineans. There is no country on
planet earth where you will not find a sizeable population of Nigerians.
U.N. projections predict that Nigeria will soon be the fourth largest country
in the world, surpassed by only China, India and the United States. Under
such circumstances, a Nigerian like Femi Fani-Kayode should not be hankering
after a small real-estate called Lagos. Nigerians must become citizens of
the world.
Signs of the times
Joseph was a Jewish slave in
Egypt. Nevertheless, he rose to become the Egyptian Prime-Minister.
That happened in biblical days, and not twenty-first century Egypt. More
recently in 2008, Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, became president of the
United States. In 2010, John Abraham Godson, a Nigerian-born Polish
citizen became a Member of Parliament in Poland. In April, 2013, Cecile
Kyenge, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, became the Minister of
Integration of the Republic of Italy. Surely, Femi Fani-Kayode cannot discern
these signs of the times.
New Nigeria: Back home, M.K.O. Abiola, a Yoruba man, won his famous
presidential election in 1993 by relying on Hausa, Fulani, Ibo and other
votes. He was not just elected by Yorubas. Yorubas did not even
vote for Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. He became President by relying on
northern, eastern and south-south votes. Goodluck Jonathan became
president in 2011 by forging a coalition that stretched across the Niger and
the Benue to all parts of Nigeria.
When Odumegwu Ojukwu died, the
entire nation of Nigeria consoled the Igbos. Collectively, we declared
with one voice that the civil war is truly over. We must not allow the
Femi Fani-Kayodes to turn back the clock. Next time Femi Fani-Kayode
wants to tell us “the bitter truth,” he should tell us about N19.5 billion
Aviation Fund mismanaged under his watch as Minister of Aviation under the
Obasanjo administration. That is the bitter truth we need to hear from
him right now.