Another approach to the same question- Allwell Okpi's "Who is a Lagosian?:Virtually everyone in Lagos regards themselves as a Lagosian but none is able to define who a Lagosian is".( 2010)

The contributions to which this post is responding are posted below this mail

A significant number of Nigerians are thick with primitive tribal celebration, from some Binis who champion myopic views on relations between Binis and non Binis by trying to address perceived Bini marginalisation in institutions in Benin not by insisting on transparency and rigour in institutional processes but simply on appointing a Bini person to head these institutions, some of these ethnic celebrators becoming vicious when those views are challenged, to some Yorubas who think that only Yorubas can be informed about Yoruba civilisation, and develop inablity to think clearly on the relevant issues, even as their knowledge of Yoruba civilisation is obviously based more on accidental, ill digested and incomplete knowedge than anything else, to the horrors of Jos where the indigene/settler dichotomy is at the heart of regular killing of scores of people, and those people in Northern Nigeria who stoned the President's convoy.

Its so horrible.

The fallout of the artificial creation of the country in which various ethnicities were yoked togethjer by force. But why are the politicians able to benefit themselves and each other within this artificial country while Nigerians continue to argue over ethnicity while feeding on crumbs from the tables of these politicians who are united in depriving Nigerians, with limited exceptions to this deprivation?

Its actually on these online fora I encouetred vicious tribal sentiments in action for the first time, not in all the years I lived in Nigeria, most of them in Benin, but also in Port Harcourt, Auchi, Lagos, Ughelli and Sabongida-Ora, with vists to other places. Some of the worst tribal foaming-at-the-mouth characters on these fora are people who dont even live in Nigeria. People who are well ensconced in the comfort of the West, people who are comfortable there beceause relatively open societies have been allowed to grow in those places since the primitive attitudes these Nigerians in exile counsel for their own people back home have been significatly defeated in the countries that give them refuge.

A recent manifestation of this sad mentality is the demand that a Yewa Awori must be governor of Ogun Sate. They are not forcefully demanding water, electricity, good roads. They just want a Yewa Awori to rule. As far as they are concerned, the indices of a modern civilised life are secondary to such a demand.

A valid answer to this confusion is to insist on improving the processes of institutions to produce the best candidates and ensure progress. Not to focus on ethnic selection. How far has ethnic selection taken Nigeria?

As for Nigerians abroad, some of the most vocal on these fora lack vision to transcend the ethnic rifts that define aspects of life in Nigeria even though their settling in the more civilised West gives them a chance to do so. In the era of the Jos horrors linked to the settler/indigene dichotomy, Adeniba Adepoyigi, who proudly describes himself as living in Australia, is arguing for so called indigene dominance in Lagos and stating that immigrants are liable at any time to having their citizenship withdrawn by so called indigenes.Chief Gemologist, a hard core chauvinistic Yoruba celebrator, descends even further into using the Yoruba denigrative reference to non Yorubas as yanmirin, excluding those who dont read in Yoruba by writing in Yoruba, in a discussion in English by people of different ethnicities in an argument on inter-ethnic relations involving Yorubas and non Yorubas, seeking thereby to create a sense of clannish identification.He adds that thugs-meaning Igbos-should be deported to the East. The older generation, a lot of the time, has failed Nigerians.

Meanwhile, Adeniba seems unaware of the contradiction of his presence in Australia, contradictions that demonstrate powerfully the limitations and perhaps shallowness of his argument. He shares the same skin colour with the Australian Aborigines, whose land was stolen by Caucasian immigrants amd the Aborigines relegated to second class status. The Australian Aboringines share the same fate as the Native Americans displaced by the Caucasian immigrants.In both cases, immigrants displaced the original owners of the land. Some historians describe the Brahmins in India as immigrants who proceeded to subjugate the indigenous people. So, the following argument from Adeniba is false and ingores global hisory,including the history of Australia, the country where Adeniba is living:


"Yes, the Nigerian Constitution confers rights and privileges on Nigerians but those rights and privileges, in reference to land rights, will never be equal to the rights of the owners of a land or territory. That is the issue. There is no where in the world in which such rights are equal"

By the time we factor in the changing fortunes represeted by the ability of colonisers not only to seize rights from indigenous people but to even create new political geographies out of these people's lands, leading to countries like Nigeria, the one time vesting of land ownership in the nobles in feudal England in which others were tenants, the fact that African-Americans were compelled to live as sharecroppers after the abolition of slavery, working the land in payment for a share in the crops they harvested, it becomes clearer that in the history of nations, relative rights of various groups of people undergo change through political arrangements. Such rights are not given by nature. They are not automatic.

To adapt Joe Ikunna , if we were to examine the contributions of non-Yorubas to Lagos we could see that without them Lagos would cease to be Lagos, the economic centre of Nigeria and its principal gateway to the world.

In contrast to this chest beating on indigene rights over those of settlers or immigrants, I understand that in Canada a person who was not born there can become Prime Minister. Is that true?

If it is true, it would demonstrate another example of moving forward from base tribal sentiments. I seem to have read Obama is a child born to parents who were committing a crime against US law by conceiving him. Their crime-the cohabiting of a Black man and a Caucasian woman. But today he is US President.

Nigerians should develop forward moving vision. Not continue to entrench and consolidate the old ideas that are not working for us.

Like US has made sigficant progress in, full rights, including rights to enter any elective office, should be granted anyone who lives for a certain length of time in any place.Such measures will help to break the stranglehold of those members of the Nigerian political class who rely on ethnicity as one of their weapons.

We need a way out of this situation in which even drinking water or electricity are not certain and yet people insist on rights of indigenes as opposed to those immigrants, and immigrants from within their own country for that matter, within a colony made up of exploited people, from North and South.

So who from NL wrote that article


We Lagosians know ourselves,


Let no one tell us who we are

Eko o ni baje ooooo

Yanmirin is now a yoruba word?

tpiah!:

Yanmirin Inyamiri is now a yoruba word?

^^^ corrected

Inyamiri is derived from the root word yem-miri which can be translated to as 'give me water', during the civil war the igbos are known to used that to demand for drinking water in the north.

Dan Inyamiri=Dan yem-miri. tu capito tutti??.

Rhino.5dm:

^^^ corrected

Inyamiri is derived from the root word yem-miri which can be translated to as 'give me water', during the civil war the igbos are known to used that to demand for drinking water in the north.

Dan Inyamiri=Dan yem-miri. tu capito tutti??.

so when did it become a yoruba word?