If there is anything you should never be, it is being “an average Nigerian.” They know everything yet know nothing. They discuss what they don’t know like they earned doctorates studying its ignorance. They can rationalize any idiocy and make the declaration of same sound like words from the Holy Scriptures. The average Nigerian starts an argument and ends it without learning any new thing. On social media, the average Nigerian could be a viral disaster. A lot of nonsense has been going on about Lagos and the relocation of certain persons of Anambra origin. But the daftest of the lot has to be the claim by yet another average Nigerian that Lagos was developed by Niger Delta’s oil. It is the most stupid thing ever said even by an “average Nigerian.”

I respect people from all places but no matter how hard I try I’d never get over my contempt for people who think their village or origin is the centre of the world. That before their people came to the world the world never existed and the world would cease to exist if their people deemed it surplus to necessity. I do not agree with Chief Femi Fani-Kayode that the Yoruba people alone developed Lagos. That does not fit into my understanding of the fact that a city cannot attain development without outside influence. The British for instance should get some credit for the development of Lagos. They will of course not get the whole credit because Lagos existed before them too. There was no Niger Delta oil in 1861 but there was Lagos long before it became a British Colony. Lagos was one of the biggest trade hubs on the continent and it has always been a melting pot of cultures and civilizations. Lagos has a political history that dates back into some five centuries.

It is like saying Niger Delta’s oil developed Kano. This is what an average Nigerian would say. Before there were rigs in Rivers, there were pyramids in Kano. Before the oil pipelines, there were irrigation lines in the farms and dams across Nigeria. Agro-allied industries thrived. When oil came, the money from agriculture was its seed investment. Nigeria had a budget before the oil boom, we had a national income and it was not dropping from heaven like the manna of the Israelites. People who cannot see beyond what they can see today are trapped in the darkness of time. They live in a trapped existence, a reality that fits them into one dimension, only existing in the present. They have no sense of yesterday and no imagination of tomorrow. As far as an average Nigerian goes “as it is right now, is what it was yesterday and so will it be when tomorrow comes.” Such pitiful primordial mentality.

Those who do not know should ask questions. That Lagos today generates record tax numbers is not something that just happened, it was borne out of necessity. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo denied Lagos its allocations because of his personal issues with then Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu. This necessitated a need for Lagos to swim or sink. Lagos thrived. Governor Tinubu looked within and Lagos discovered it could do without the stipends from the Nigerian centre. Many have distorted the history of the Tinubu Lagos years but none can deny he made sure Lagos was running when many states would have declared bankruptcy under the same circumstance.

If Nigeria’s oil dries up today as it certainly would someday, Lagos would be just fine. It was fine before the oil came, it was fine after the oil came and it was fine when President Obasanjo held its share of its mostly oil dependent allocation. If you need a prophet to tell you Lagos is on a city-state path to development and self sufficiency, then that darkness earlier mentioned is even thicker for you than for the other average Nigerians.

We need to get this right into our skulls: the world will not end because some people die; civilizations that existed before certain realities will exist after those realities are gone. I don’t know if the average Nigerian has the ability to upgrade into a multidimensional thinker. For those that can, it is time for us to come to terms with this reality; Nigeria will survive without a part of its whole and Nigeria is a product of the sum of its part. All of us are responsible for the prosperity that we see in Nigeria and the poverty that abounds. The next time I hear someone say “Lagos was developed by the oil from the Niger Delta,” I’d be made to wonder how the darkness in some lives would see the light if their sole understanding of light is PHCN.

http://metropole.ng/index.php/views/item/429-lagos-and-niger-delta%25E2%2580%2599s-oil

I respect people from all places but no matter how hard I try I’d never get over my contempt for people who think their village or origin is the centre of the world. That before their people came to the world the world never existed and the world would cease to exist if their people deemed it surplus to necessity.

kindabigg: Snide and subliminal attack on the jews on Nigeria.

Uyi Iredia: @ 9icest: The Edos at a point conqeured an annexed Lagos to their kingdom. Hence, they owned Lagos till the British became the new masters.

kindabigg:

shut up there. edos didn't conquer eko, edos were invited to protect eko from dahomey and they set up a war camp there. The eko in question isale eko and not lagos state.

Uyi Iredia: @ 9icest: The Edos at a point conqeured an annexed Lagos to their kingdom. Hence, they owned Lagos till the British became the new masters.

kindabigg:

shut up there. edos didn't conquer eko, edos were invited to protect eko from dahomey and they set up a war camp there. The eko in question isale eko and not lagos state.

Seunn11: Dear OP,

I appreciate the succinct manner with which you brought forth your argument. That is very excellent.

May I also add that the Okonkwos, prior to their mass exodus to the yorubaland, never developed any culture worthy of being proud of. Even way before the civil war. Their mode of existence is merely momentary, without vision and very selfish.
The Yoruba have always been at the top of situation. It is not by mere lack of better things to say that earlier European anthropologists concluded that the Yoruba race is the most sophisticated in this region of the world.

In order to ensure that our way of life is not destroyed by the primitive invaders, it is necessary to embark on some form of refined eugenics, if you will, that will get rid of the virus that seek the destruction of its host.

Sincerely yours,
Seunn11

IGBO-SON:


^^^Try and read outside your present Yorubacentric sphere of interest and you'd discover that the 'Okonkwos' developed a culture worthy of being proud of.....even long b/4 Nigeria was a thought, let alone a country!

As per your suggestion on checking the advance of 'the primitive invaders' (the window of opportunity you had but ignored in 1967 notwithstanding), and also checking the dilution of your 'pure' race; i suggest you read from Dr Mengeles script.......both of you share a lot in common and are kindred spirits!

kunlekunle: i think they should focus more on abuja where the have 80% occupation.
They are better off claiming it now than lagos.
in the next 10 years abuja would be the Dubai of Africa owned and developed solely by ibos.

Uyi Iredia: @ 9icest: The Edos at a point conqeured an annexed Lagos to their kingdom. Hence, they owned Lagos till the British became the new masters.

CyberG:

There is no RECORDED OBJECTIVE HISTORY at all of your phantom development as you mentioned otherwise present it, making unsubstantiated statements does not make them true or people buy it . All said and done, that you lost the 1967 was as you mentioned is not an excuse to think it means an invitation to be owners in our ancestral lands - that will NEVER happen! What it guarantees you is the ownership of your lands in the 5 states of Nigeria. You can do whatever you like with it and turn it to Dubai but leave our lands for we do not welcome you anymore as guests, ungrateful guests. In every square inch of our lands, our people will begin to raise their Yoruba nationalism ever higher and it is in your interest to leave for our patience, will not be forever. Other peoples of Nigeria are most certainly welcome, in the north and far east of Nigeria, middle belt, Edos, etc but not you people. Like Osuji warned, it is a matter of time before you provoke the northern treatment but it is better you leave now and keep developing the country right there in your lands!

CyberG:

There is no RECORDED OBJECTIVE HISTORY at all of your phantom development as you mentioned otherwise present it, making unsubstantiated statements does not make them true or people buy it . All said and done, that you lost the 1967 was as you mentioned is not an excuse to think it means an invitation to be owners in our ancestral lands - that will NEVER happen! What it guarantees you is the ownership of your lands in the 5 states of Nigeria. You can do whatever you like with it and turn it to Dubai but leave our lands for we do not welcome you anymore as guests, ungrateful guests. In every square inch of our lands, our people will begin to raise their Yoruba nationalism ever higher and it is in your interest to leave for our patience, will not be forever. Other peoples of Nigeria are most certainly welcome, in the north and far east of Nigeria, middle belt, Edos, etc but not you people. Like Osuji warned, it is a matter of time before you provoke the northern treatment but it is better you leave now and keep developing the country right there in your lands!