ON THE DEPORTATION OF IGBOS BY THE LAGOS STATE GOVERNMENT;

I am firstly an Igbo before claiming Nigerian. That understood, I have taken time to view the ongoing squabble and crisis between the governments of Lagos state on the one hand and the government of Anambra state and the entire Igbos on the other hand. I wanted to get the facts clear firstly and then research on the position of the constitution and the extant laws of the federation on the same subject matter before talking. As a custodian of public opinion [to an extent], I think the Lagos state government operated within the ambits of the law.

1. The constitution is silent on living in any part of Nigeria and being removed from that part of Nigeria. {I stand to be corrected though]

2. There has been a precedence going by the correspondence between the Lagos state government and the Akwa Ibom state government.

3 Other records have shown that the government of Anambra state has also removed people from Anambra state.

4. There was a correspondence as we have seen about this recent removal of Igbos between Obi and Fashola and the former did not take concrete steps to systemize his own people who were destitute in Lagos. The state of New York in America at some points had removed Americans from New York to their own states.

Now if Fashola wants to clean Lagos and is ready to take care of sick Lagosians sleeping under the bridge, why wouldn’t their Igbo counterparts also try to clean their states and take care of their brethrens sleeping everywhere but homes. These people are vulnerable to rapists and ritualists and constituted nuisances in Lagos too. What could we do? Sanitize our own places should be the question.

Is Lagos anti Igbo? No! Our son is a commissioner there and other Igbos hold sensitive positions and from records, no Yoruba man holds any sensitive political post in the whole of Igbo land. Lagos state government called it reuniting destitutes with their families; you call it deportation. If Obi had followed up the correspondences, maybe they wouldn’t have dropped them at the middle of the night at Head bridge. I can’t agree more with LASG. So let all the hullaballoo stop