THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT FEMI FANI-KAYODE By Obi Nwakanma

I read with a lot of amusement the piece of clap-trap circulated through the Nigerian blogosphere last week titled ‘The Bitter truth about the Igbo” authored by Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode.

I thought for a minute: but they said the guy went to Cambridge! Then again, take a scallywag to Cambridge, he merely becomes a Cambridge-trained scallywag. There were many things Kings College Lagos and Cambridge University could have taught, and might have failed to teach Mr. Fani-kayode.

One of such things is felicity with truth. He does write about “bitter truths” and about the “Igbo” and his submissions were in fact more bitter than true about the Igbo. For one, Femi Fani-Kayode who claims to be “half-Lagosian” has not quite explained what that “half” means after the genomic mathematics that also locates and divides the Fani-Kayodes of Ife in another instance into “part Fulani” in the general scheme of things in Nigeria. I will not dwell on Fani-Kayode’s identity politics. I’m yet to understand it.

It will require one to be quite high on something to tease it all out, and so I leave that part to Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode. But I suspect that in situating himself to be “half-Lagosian” he means that part of his ancestry may be found among the “owners” of Lagos, that is, the indigenous settlers of Lagos.

For purposes of context, let me summarize Femi Fani-Kayode’s argument rendered in two parts, starting with the first titled “Lagos, the Igbo and the Servants of Truth”: to him the Igbo have basically no claim on Lagos and have made hardly a contribution to its development.

According to Fani-Kayode“The Igbo had little to do with the development of Lagos between 1890 till today and that is a fact. Other than Ajegunle, Computer Town, Alaba and buying up a few market stalls in Isale Eko where is their input? Meanwhile the Yoruba and Lagos were very gracious to them and not only allowed them to return after the civil war to claim their properties and jobs but we welcomed them with open arms and allowed them to flourish in our land. This is something that they have never done for our people in the east.

Now some of them have the effontry (sic) to call our land and the land of our forefathers (I am half Lagosian and was brought up in Lagos) ”no-man’s land” and others have the nerve to assert that up to 50 per cent of the development in Lagos came as a consequence of the input of the Igbo. This is utter rubbish.”

These are the very words of Femi, hot under his collars because Igbo Lagosians are staking their own claims to a part of the Nigerian commonwealth to which they have made enormous contributions both in material and in blood.

Fani-Kayode may deny it, but Lagos is nothing if not the result of an agglomeration of forces; a diversity of people from across the world and across the modern nation gathering at the epicenter and the margins of the metropolis in what Homi Bhabha calls “dissemination.”

But Mr. Fani-Kayode is still hung up on sterile nativism of the sort that makes it impossible for him to think clearly or rationally; he chooses to levitate on the illusory baloney that inspires him to declare Lagos to be the “patrimony of the Yoruba.” No. Lagos is the patrimony of every Nigerian who steps in it.

Lagos belongs as much to the ethnic Igbo as to the Yoruba, Ijaw, Hausa, Fulani, Efik, Idoma, Urhobo, Itshekiri, Edo, and so on who live in it, pay tax, identify with it, and settles in it. That compact was made the moment Nigeria became a single nation, and a successor power to the old principalities who were subdued and who ceded their sovereignty for the new commonwealth of Nigeria.

The Igbo did not beg to be Nigerians. First they fought for its freedom. When the Nigerian kitchen became too hot, they chose to leave. But a war was levied on the Igbo that forced them back to Nigeria. That war was fought to preserve “One Nigeria” even if the Igbo had had enough of “one Nigeria.” That war ended in 1970. The Igbo returned, and their return to Lagos and other parts of Nigeria was neither an act of charity nor kindness.

It was pragmatic. The Igbo had the skill and the industry, and Lagos was the seat of the Federal government of Nigeria and its major port. The Igbo have lived in Lagos since the 15th century when the Aro and other Igbo first settled in good number in a place we now call “Oyingbo” in the era of Benin and the Portuguese trade.

Igbo have been in Lagos, in other words, long before the first Fani-Kayode knew the road to Ilesha. So, when Femi Fani-Kayode writes that the Yoruba were “kind” to the Igbo because, in his words, “we allowed them to return to Lagos” after the civil war, he is not being a servant of truth. In any case, about kindness, he might wish to talk to the likes of Eze Okpoko N’Oba, whose property in Lagos was appropriated to this day by a prominent Yoruba as “abandoned property” after the war.

I do not wish to insult the intelligence and regard of the many honorable Yoruba people I know who do not buy into Mr. Fani-Kayode’s views, and so I will keep this simple: nobody, even of average intelligence, can deny the impact and contribution of the Igbo in the political, cultural, and economic development of Lagos as a great Nigerian city; the greatest of them in fact, in the modern era.

The arrival of Azikiwe to Lagos in 1937 from Accra after his studies in the United States, stimulated the political and cultural environment of Lagos as no other has before or after him. Zik literally resurrected the wizard of Kirsten hall from political death. Zik represented Lagos in the western house. The NCNC was the power in Lagos, and not the Action Group. The Igbo were prominent in the governance of Lagos in the Lagos City Hall.

The institutional development of Lagos – the railways, the ports and ship yards; the education and research facilities; the Banking and Commodities Exchange, the development of towns like Yaba, Surulere, Ebutta-Metta, Festac Town, Victoria Island, and now Increasing the Ajah-Lekki axis, and of course, the ghettoes along the Orile-Badagry axis, have profound Igbo imprimatur.

The circulation of the image of Lagos is to date best reflected in the cosmopolitan Igbo imagination of one of the greatest African writers of the 20th century, Cyprian Ekwensi, a thorough Lagosian if there was any. Igbo have built industries in Lagos and have been drivers of commerce and exchange.

Side by side with their Yoruba, Efik, Itshekiri, Urhobo, etc. neighbors, they have continued to negotiate the complex evolution of this city. The development had not much to do with the Western government; even then, Mr. Fani Kayode often forgets that the Igbo were part of the Western Region when it extended, until 1963, to the bridgehead at Asaba. Lagos is not the patrimony of the Yoruba.

If any should make such a vicarious claim, it might be the Oba of Benin, to whom Lagos paid tributes up until its annexation and colonization in 1861. Fani Kayode should read more and be driven less by sophomoric enthusiasm and braggadocio

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.

booked...make I go read first
I finished reading and forgot what was said.

Yea, Bitter truth! Pls, swallow it and go back to your business(shop) or else.... deporta...

Nice one Obi Nwakanma.

It was pragmatic. The Igbo had the skill and the industry, and Lagos was the seat of the Federal government of Nigeria and its major port. The Igbo have lived in Lagos since the 15th century when the Aro and other Igbo first settled in good number in a place we now call “Oyingbo” in the era of Benin and the Portuguese trade.Igbo have been in Lagos, in other words, long before the first Fani-Kayode knew the road to Ilesha. So, when Femi Fani-Kayode writes that the Yoruba were “kind” to the Igbo because, in his words, “we allowed them to return to Lagos” after the civil war, he is not being a servant of truth. In any case, about kindness, he might wish to talk to the likes of Eze Okpoko N’Oba, whose property in Lagos was appropriated to this day by a prominent Yoruba as “abandoned property” after the war.

The igbo cam to eko when it was under the Kingdom of Benin colony, the contribution of igbo to the gdp of lagos , in the transport sectors, manufacturing, trading, banking , media,entertainment, sports can not taken for granted by anyone.
They igbos were forced back to Nigeria and lagos against their will.

All these ignorant internet writers are just falling all over to display the most ignorant and dumbest writer. I've never seen a group of people with so much delusions and warped sense of judgement and history.

At the end of the day when Lagos reverts back to the SW and Abuja back to the North, what are you going to do? Re-draw the map and link both places with iboland or keep swimming in the same delusions and ignorance?

the question the op shld be asking himself is y develop other ppls land.
i wouldnt do it.

Igbo women are better than others- Femi Fani-Kayode

I do not mean any offence to Nigerian women by asking the question that I am about to ask or by making the assertions that I am about to make in this note. However this is an important question that I have not been able to answer myself for a number of years even though I have tried my best to do so. And the question is as follows. What precisely is it about igbo women that has made them excel in public office, business, politics, the arts, the sciences, religion, leadership and social activism in just the last 12 years when compared to their counterparts from other parts of our country?



There are, of course, some equally notable and brilliant non-igbo women in our country as well who are doing, and have done, a great job in both our private and public sectors and who have also done great things in their local communities and in our nation. However when I ponder on this issue and I consider the names that are on my list of distinguished Nigerian women that have been outstanding in their various fields of endeavour over the last few years, the overwhelming majority of them are igbos. A few names will serve as an illustration of what I am trying to say and let me assure you that I have had the distinct honour and privilage of either knowing most of them quite well or working closely with at least a few, so I am speaking from an informed position. They are all well-educated, forceful, strong-willed, focused, creative, disciplined, passionate and decisive characters who are almost ''German-like'' in their work ethic and in their pursuit of excellence and perfection.



They really don't take any prisoners when it comes to their work or calling and they all do their jobs, or whatever it is that they are doing, with an almost ''messianic'' zeal. I am talking about people like Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala (the former Minister of Finance and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria who is now the Managing Director of the World Bank), Obi Ezekwezile (the former Minister of Solid Minerals and former Minister of Education of Nigeria who is now the National Vice Charman of the World Bank), Dora Akinluyi (the former Director- General of NAFDAC and the former Minister of Information for Nigeria), Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke (the former Director- General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the person that was credited with buliding it up literally from scratch), Roz Ben-Okagbue (a leading pro-democracy activist in Nigeria and one of the conveners and leaders of the Save Nigeria Group), Violet Yough (a successful, wealthy and well-respected industrialist and business woman of many years standing),



Stella Chinyelu Okoli (the Chief Executive and founder of Emzor Pharmaceutical, the most successful and largest indigenous pharmaceutical company in Nigeria), Irene Iroche (the Chief Executive of Finbank), the late Genevieve Onyuike (one of the most versatile and brilliant lawyers in Nigeria and the former President of the Oxford and Cambridge Club of Nigeria), Joy Ogwu (the former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nigeria and presently the Nigerian Ambassador to the United Nations), Evelyn Oputu (the Chief Executive Officer of the Industrial Bank), Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (a well respected and notable writer of international standing and repute and the author of the international best-seller titled ''Half A Yellow Sun''), the late Flora Nwapa (the poet, writer and essayist who was the author of the Nigerian bestseller titled ''Efuru''), Akachi Ezeigbo (a highly respected Professor of African Literature of international standing and repute) , Stella Oduah Ogiemwonyi (the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sea Petroleum and Gas Group of Companies and who is one of the biggest players in the Nigerian oil and gas industry), Genevieve Nnaji (a leading Nigerian actress), Amaka Igwe (the respected film producer and director and a key figure in the Nigerian movie industry which is known as ''Nollywood'), Bishop Peace Okonkwo (the wife of Bishop Mike Okonkwo and the co-founder of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission TREM, one of the largest and most respected Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria), Arunma Oteh (the Director General of the Securities Exchange Commision) and so many others.


However in the last 12 years the igbos seem to have taken over in this respect and are now well-ahead of the rest of Nigeria. Just a few years and look at what they have achieved. It really is quite remarkable. Can anyone tell me their secret or why this is so? What could be responsible for their doggedness, their natural drive, their tremendous energy and their great strength of character? What is it about these strong-willed eastern women of bantu and igbo extraction that now and all of a sudden sets them so far apart?

https://www.nairaland.com/965707/between-igboyoruba-other-women-femi

Pls who is Obi Nwakanma?

plaindealer: All these ignorant internet writers are just falling all over to display the most ignorant and dumbest writer. I've never seen a group of people with so much delusions and warped sense of judgement and history.

At the end of the day when Lagos reverts back to the SW and Abuja back to the North, what are you going to do? Re-draw the map and link both places with iboland or keep swimming in the same delusions and ignorance?

u're wrong, ur fore-fathers fought for one nigeria bt u, a pampers age toddler is talking abt lagos n abuja reverting to whr. U're nt even frm lagos n u wnt to talk history.

susku mayaya: Pls who is Obi Nwakanma?

Obi Nwakanma is a writer/social commentator and has been a columnist with the Vanguard newspaper for about 15 years

plaindealer: All these ignorant internet writers are just falling all over to display the most ignorant and dumbest writer. I've never seen a group of people with so much delusions and warped sense of judgement and history.

At the end of the day when Lagos reverts back to the SW and Abuja back to the North, what are you going to do? Re-draw the map and link both places with iboland or keep swimming in the same delusions and ignorance?

You must share the same dealer with Fani Kayode. Same rudderless gibberish. Go chop two cups of garri make ya eye clear.

"When lagos reverts to the SW" - Where is lagos now? North west?

One good thing about debate is that it brings out the bitter truth, resolves perennial conflicts without shedding of blood and provides a sustainable part to peace and security.

Let keep them coming, it's good for posterity.

Yorubest:

Apart from trading, I don't see a lot if Igbos owning industries and factories in Lagos

However, before the influx of Igbos, people of the SW and Nigeria were used to authentic merchandise through the likes of Adebowale Electrinics and co

The Igbos introduced substandard items and mostly profit from deception in trade. Offering less for more[/b]

If I start listing the igbo pioneers in Lagos I will be here all day. Let us just touch IT. The man who brought the IBM franchise to Nigeria in the 1970s Chief G. Eneli to the first manufacturer of computers in Nigeria Zinox Computers owned by Leo Stan Ekeh. The small fish who don't have capital to manufacture, concentrate their operations in hubs such as the billion naira industry that is known as computer village.

susku mayaya: Pls who is Obi Nwakanma?

Since I made google my friend, I stopped asking silly questions.

Sunnynwa: Since I made google my friend, I stopped asking silly questions.

Sunny_bobo a.k.a nwabobo, you have been banned again or what? I saw you just opened a new moniker.

Do you close your chemist on Sundays?

payless:


Sunny_bobo a.k.a nwabobo, you have been banned again or what? I saw you just opened a new moniker.

Do you close your chemist on Sundays?

Sir I am new here. I just registered today and I no selling chemist. How can I make a new topic here sir?