₦airaland Forum

"You praise your Ojukwu while cursing Gowon. What should Gowon have done when Ojukwu illegally declared a republic within a state"

3 Qs

1) What basis do you refer Ojukwu's Biafra as illegally declared Republic?

2) Who determines the illegality and on what authority? 

3) What is ur ethnic nationality?

aremubabs:
Some people are actually very selfish and hilarious at it.



You praise your Ojukwu while cursing Gowon. What should Gowon have done when Ojukwu illegally declared a republic within a state? You expect Gowon to have simply folded his hands and looked away?






So, Ojukwu is a saint and Gowon an evil one? The same Ojukwu who led millions of souls to grave only to escape with his own more precious life to Abidjan? He could not die for Biafra but sent millions of people, especially women and children to their doom.





It was said that at a point Ojukwu had run out of resources but he stubbornly continued to send his fellow men to their graves instead of surrendering. At the end, he cowardly escaped to Abidjan dressed like a woman, and no, it is Gowon you all blame year in year out.





May God heal una because it is obvious many of you will go into your graves holding grudges against a man who has lived a fulfilled life, reaching the pinnacle of his military career, and even seeing old age.

What Biafra soldiers did has no correlation with Gowon's war

Mvnster:
When your biafra soldeirs went about killing leaders of other regions except your region, you expected the northerners to path on your back for a job well done? Gowon is a big clown definitely but you should accept responsibility for the result of your actions.

Gbam!

Longinyamapucci:
I'm happy he is alive to see his people buried in mass Graves what he wanted in biafraland South South and south East combined.

May your deed hunt you to the grave.

Why did he end in prison under Abacha regime?

Yoruba political & moral cowardice, treachery, deceitfulness made it possible for Abacha to arrest and incarcerate Abiola

Emperormartin:
I thought his dad died in prison during abacha's regime...

How did Yoruba killed him and shared his meat?

Indeed, another Ewedu Yoruba speaking!

Varunpulyani:
Another Ewedu weakling

OLODO RABATA!

Obiedun:
Then let him be the president of Agulu town union.

Fake story!

DeadCountry:
What is wrong with these people? Why can't they abolish this culture of skill mining? We are not in the 15th century. This is 2023 for Christ's sake. And you expect me to continue to share a country with these set of barbaric people? Tufiakwa!!

Totally agree with u? But does just 5 years of Jonathan admin really…really explain the deliberate neglect, mismanagement underdevelopment since the end of Biafra War by successive govt via NIGERIAN PORTS AUTHORITY?




&

Basic123:
What happened to non SW ports when GEJ was the president, ANYIM PIUS ANYIM was the SGF,OKONJO IWEALA was the coordinating minister of the economy ALLYSON MADUEKE was the minister of petroleum,STELLA ODUAH was minister of Aviation,EMEFIELE was the CBN Governor, ARUMA OTEH was the chairman SEC,PETER OBI was later the chairman of SEC ,IKE EKWEREMADU was the deputy senate president, EMEKA IHEDIOHA was the deputy speaker..all for 5years 2010 to 2015!
Some will never take responsibility for their life but blame others

The president operates under a constitution that controls his prerogative, right?

Saao:
anywhere Belle face. You're doing well

That u are Obedient does not make u immune from weak analysis.

Bunnatex:
For me it does not matter who heads the Anti-Graft agency. However, what matters is that they do their work with dedication and utmost sincerity.

For tribal persons, ask yourself what you stand to gain if it was a person from your region? Nothing. Its just the benefit of the appointee, his friends and family.

Your state governor, 3 Senators and House of Representative members are all from your region, what have they done for you? Nothing. We should not allow tribal sentiments to prevent us from seeking for the right dividend of democracy.


Mind you before you call me names, I am an Obedient and will Vote Peter Obi again should there be a rerun but however, I am a Nigerian and want to see it work for all

Totally agree with u — just like Buhari fixed it

Toluwanise247:
Tinubu will fix it … bad belle people claim down
Assuming obi is the president by now, every family go done chop the firstborn

Totally agre with u!

nigeriafilm:
APC don't think you are idiots. APC know you are idiots. APC knows all their followers are idiots.
But the mistake they make is,they think all Nigerians are their followers

"I support Nigeria dissolution by any means possible, so that people can come together and build their new country how best they know"

Me too!

dejol88:
The truth is that no sensible human with brains we pray for continuation of the entity Nigeria. A country where most have never tasted a good life? The worst part is that many may never experience it .

What surprises me the most is that those who have visited/lived in functional countries still want Nigeria to continue,like are you mad? A country people die and nobody cares not even the so called president showing concerns. Those calling for continuity of the Union ,pls can you state with facts your reasons? I will like to hear from you.

I support Nigeria dissolution by any means possible, so that people can come together and build their new country how best they know

OLODO RABATA!

T9ksy:
IMHO, Igbos are still in nigeria presently all because of Ojukwu's inordinate ambition which he had no qualms gambling with

the lives of thousands of his kinsmen, to actualised. he did not seek alliances but sought to subjugate his immediate neighbours, to boot.

Totally agree with you. Why don't u ignore the messenger and focus on the message? Dispute what he said about the Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Ndigbo?

creativehubb:
Slave mentality, how can you take what a man that came to subjugate, loot and plunder you serious?

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.

I totally agree with you that PDP wasted 24 years of Abia State life — but not 24 years that Abia would have become Dubai. Obviously, u don’t know the foundational reason why Dubai became a global success. Even Lagos with all the monopoly it enjoys relative to other states cannot become like Dubai.

orohbirodeysmel:
Otti is the man a swear. PDP wasted 24years that Abia State would have used and become Dubai...if no be PDP rigging wetin concern Ikpeazụ with governance...a crude, shameless tout.

Welcome to the New Abia State...Aba is now the cleanest city in Nigeria go there and see for yourself.

Otti abeg do fast fast make you come become governor of Oyo State. We need you badly, brown roofs 🟤🤎 want choke us to death, come help us develop Oyo State 😎

Interesting!

maxsiollun:
Fajuyi did not give his life for Ironsi. It seems he was a target of the northern mutineers all along and would have been killed with Ironsi regardless. It was the Western Region publication "Fajuyi The Great" that started the myth that Fajuyi "chose to die with Ironsi". The myth was later embellished in subsequent publications. One of the most ridiculous of which was Fajuyi: The Martyred soldier, by Sanmi Ajiki. Ajiki claimed that Fajuyi told Ironsi: "I make bold to declare to you that, I am with you soul, spirit and body. And mark my words, whatever happens to you today, happens to me. I am your true friend, dear J.U.T like the dove to the pigeon, and by the grace of our good God, so will I humbly yet proudly remain till the very end." [/i]According to Ajiki, Ironsi replied [i]"Yes! Francis, I retain my absolute confidence in you. I have never for once doubted your integrity." That might sound nice and heroic for their family members, but the accounts given by the soldiers that were present suggest that no such fluffy dialogue took place.

William Walbe (one of the officers that led Fajuyi and Ironsi to their death in Ibadan) publicly confirmed in an interview that Fajuyi was destined to share Ironsi's fate and that they (the northern mutineers) wanted Fajuyi dead because they were convinced he was an ally of the Janaury 1966 Majors and helped them plan their coup. The interview is quoted in Gowon's biography entitled "Gowon: Biogrpahy of a Soldier Statesman".

Lt-Gen Danjuma later corroborated Walbe's account in an interview with a Nigerian army civil war historical team. Danjuma went even further than Walbe and said that the soldiers that killed Ironsi and Fajuyi could not stand Fajuyi. They felt he deserved to die even more than Ironsi.

Agree with u!

Dede1:
As a seasoned soldier, the antics of Brigadier Ogundipe and many other rank and file of Yoruba stock in Nigeria army were not only display of cowardice but lack of vision. If the political actions of Yoruba and the ethnic minorities of southern Nigerian baring the Ibibio, Atama, Annang, Ogoni, Kalabari and Ijo of Bayelsa State were tactical, than it manifested into today’s Nigeria, a complete cesspit. I think the Yoruba sold out for the development of Lagos and few economic leftovers while the ethnic minorities go stadia for their bidding.

U said it Al!

Did you remember the Yoruba braggart, Benjamin Adekunle a.k.a the Black Scorpion? During the 1967-70 civil war, Adekunle mocked the pope, Red Cross, Caritas, world council of churches, UN etc, and boasted of his killing spree on the Igbos.
And how did his life end on earth?

He died a miserable contractor, he was literary begging for contracts just to feed.
This is a man that ranked higher than IBB, Danjuma, Obasanjo in his hay days in the military. 
The Hausa-Fulanis used him to prosecute the unholy war on Igbos, and they dumped him after mission accomplished. 

The bloody general was stripped off his military title; he was discharged dishonourably without his benefits, till he died he never received a single pension from the Nigerian State. 
The Scorpion ate his own excrement, begging Igbos to pay his medical bill to ease his pains until he chose death in 2014.
What a miserable life!

But before his death Adekunle apologised to the Biafrans for his atrocities.

On the other hand the hero, Odumegwu Ojukwu, lived his life in opulence and venerability. Ojukwu was respected and paid his pension by the Nigerian state.

A new generation of Ojukwu is now poised to kick your behind relentlessly and utterly. If you doubt it enter the streets of Lagos and test your capabilities putting you online reckless rantings to test and see if your entire generation will not go for it. This is no threat but a promise...

I repeat, if you doubt it and you're worth your useless rantings while hiding behind the keyboard, venture into the streets of Lagos and prove yourselves. Just this once...

Totally agree with u!

zendy:
[b] I want to start by saying that hiring mercenaries in times of war is normal. There are foreign soldiers who are trained in special combat situations such as jungle warfare,amphibious fighting and gurreilla tactics which the local army may not have knowledge of. Ojukwu and Gowon both hired mercenaries. A lot of ignorant people blame Ojukwu for the war as if he started it. Some even say he should have stayed back to be slaughtered and that he was a coward for fleeing. It's just unfortunate that the present generation do not know the history of Nigeria or the war. The first coup in Nigeria was called an 'Igbo coup' but it was not. People like Ojukwu and Ironsi were the ones who fought to put that coup down. Six months later, the northerners did their own coup and killed over 300 eastern Soldiers. As if that was not enough, they now went on to kill over 50,000 eastern civilians,men,women,children,babies. Children drowned in wells,pregnant women's bellies ripped open, men beheaded, young girls raped. It is easy for people to chant "one Nigeria" if these things are happening to other people and not them. When all of this happend, Ojukwu had a moral obligation to protect his people from death. Northerners conducted a bloody coup under Murtala, did anyone kill 50,000 of their people? No. Middle belters conducted a bloody coup under Dimka, did anyone kill 50,000 of their people? No. The SS did a bloody coup under major Orkah, did anyone kill 50,000 SS people? No. But when it comes to Igbos, that's when every body feels like going on a killing spree. Ojukwu was justified in fighting to protect his people. It was the Government of Nigeria that killed those two million people all because they wanted oil. That's the real reason the war was fought, it had nothing to do with keeping Nigeria one as it had with not allowing Ojukwu go with the oil. Finally, on matter of Ojukwu fleeing. I often ask people, what would have been the point of Ojukwu killing himself or staying back to be killed over a war he had already lost? What would this have achieved? Nobody has been able to answer me to this day. All that would have happened would have been that Ojukwus body would have been paraded publicly and made a jest of and the same people who now call Ojukwu a coward for fleeing at the end of the war would have been calling him a fool for staying back to be killed like a Chicken. We Igbos love Ojukwu for fighting for our liberation and freedom. He was the only one till date who fearlessly stood to Northern domination when all others succumbed. He was a great man who stood by his people in difficult times. He was the greatest Igbo man I will ever seee in my life time [/b]

OLODO RABATA!

magicminister:
personally i feel ojukwu should have killed himself after the war instead of running away.
Guess what, Shagari invited him back to Nigeria, restored all his properties and he lived well till he died BUT millions of igbos lost their lives.
The ones that survived were reduced to 20 pounds regardless of how many billions or millions or thousands they had in their accounts.
Their lands and properties were seized.

Ojukwu had it fairly easy and i don't think he is a hero on any account.
A hero rescues his people but ojukwu made the igbos worse-off.

What u What think is immaterial.

Alchemy528:
Netherland?
I don't think so

OLODO RABATA!

Rostikol:
2027?

More like 2057 with the way Igbos have made themselves outcasts of Nigeria. I don’t see anyone trusting them with power anytime soon. Go on social media platforms and see how they abuse Nigeria on a daily basis.

Igbos don cast for Nigeria, bro.

They’re done.

Forget them.

Why are u shocked? They are amoral & morally dead. Election 2023 revealed their true nature

whatisthetruth:
No matter the evidence you provide to them, like graduating in 1970 from a school that started in 1974, or the fact that the registrar denounced Tinubus certificate, or....

They don't care.

They are now in full support of forgery and criminality and might even push for laws to make forgery in Nigeria legal.

Never knew a time would come when I'd see people so openly defend a clear forgery. Even other societies might disagree along political lines, but when obvious malfeasance is detected, like stealing on camera for instance, all sides come out to condemn it at once, but not Nigeria of today.

In Nigeria of today, you denounce forgery and you are termed a wailer.

This is the Nigeria some are building for their children, the next generation.

In future Nigeria, hard work will count for very little. Why should your son or daughter study and study, when their mates can just print out "third-party" certificates and leapfrog them.

They will say "daddy/mommy" is a fool for asking me to study, when I can just forge everything.

Sad time for Nigeria, and yes, I am wailing, but as always, I pray to God to wipe away the tears of Nigerians that have and are fighting and fighting to see a better country in their lifetime and for their children and the next gen.

God sees our hearts, even though the evil voices may ring louder in public, but I know God will shield and protect us from harm, economic burdens and lead us to a great future in Jesus name, amen.

Do not despair, those of you that want a land of justice.

Indeed wetin concern me.

Treasure17:
Wetin concern me

So which 3rd vendor do the certificate? Why didn’t he say so from the outset? Why was he blocking the release in the first place?

AntiChristian:
Open thread - Tinubu!

Close thread - Tinubu!

Na you go get high BP!

Supreme court will be a walk in the park!
Na so you go spend Una live till death calls!

Person wey go school graduate with distinction and honours they say he forged certificate!

The settings is even the US! And the registrar don give am context!

Third party vendors dey do certificate!

Ain't they clowns?

They'll open another thread tomorrow from another faculty student from NC or SW!

The same Supreme Court will embarrass itself.

Racoon:
Forgery undermines the integrity of educational qualifications, and it's imperative to maintain the sanctity of academic records. Tinubu nah ogbologbo for oluwoleism. Fear the man.He can forge a human being if possible.
Let’s see how the Supreme Court of technicalities and corruption will spurn another narrative with this messy scandal. Karma is a bitch. It does not forgives or forgets.

So what is it?

opamoses1:
CSU never called forgery a Nigerian thing neither did CSU say Tinubu forged anything.

That's how you people misled the KOWA Prof with fake news.

And Yoruba disgrace!

OBTOREPA:
National disgrace

What is the business of IPOB in this matter?

Raskimonojendor:
Like Obiamuju Udeh (real name: DJ switch) like Chinedu Gbarebo. Both are IPOBs social media wing chapter members that love to insult people as old as their grandpas.

TRASH!

jason123:
Three fashionable fallacies lie at the root of prevailing Igbo outlook to Lagos, the former federal capital. The first is that Lagos is a no-man’s land with no indigenous population.

The second is that Federal Government money was used to build Lagos into the huge metropolis that it has now become. This argument goes further to claim that since the “federal money” allegedly belonged to all Nigerians, the political control of Lagos should, willy-nilly, be open to just about anyone and everyone who claims to be a Nigerian.

The third fallacy is that Lagos is a hunting ground, a jungle city where all being “joiners”, the predatory instinct must rule. By this pernicious thesis, Lagos is a place in which regardless of one’s roots – or the lack of it – one can seize the trophy. It is an el-Dorado where anything goes and in which everything, including political authority, is up for grabs since the place does not belong to anyone anyway!

FASHOLA-IGBOS

These are erroneous claims, now being given new life in the current debate on Igbo participation and representation in the politics and governance of Lagos. Granted, the continued perpetration of these fallacies is not restricted to Igbo elements. Others, including some Yoruba (especially those that Lagosians refer to as ara oke– upland people), are equally guilty of the first if not all of these fallacies.

But the current debate marks the first time that an institutional claim to the governance of Lagos would be made by a non-Yoruba group. The commentators, Joe Igbokwe and Uchenna Nwankwo, among others, have done well in marshalling the arguments from the Igbo perspective. Spokesmen of Eko Pioneers, a group of Lagosians, have answered back from the other side. It is a debate that should be encouraged rather than stifled.

The fallacies are, of course, easily dismissed. The Yoruba identity of Lagos is not in doubt, regardless of its ethnically mixed composition. If the “no-man’s-land” claim were to be true, then Lagos must be the only metropolis anywhere in the world without an indigenous population.

Concerning the use of “federal money” to develop Lagos, four points need to be made. First, Lagos was a thriving metropolis even before the British created Nigeria, its prosperity being due more to its strategic location rather than its administrative designation.

Second, it is doubtful that the people of Lagos were consulted before their city was made the Nigerian capital, or that they were forewarned that being conferred with such a status would mean that they would lose their city to stranger elements.

Third, rather than invoke the “federal money” argument to dilute a people’s right to control their land, the rest of Nigeria, and, in particular, the Igbo, should be grateful to the people of Lagos for availing them of a conducive environment in which lives and property are relatively safe and in which the throats of settlers are not routinely slashed by sponsored zealots as happens elsewhere in Nigeria.

Fourth, and perhaps most tellingly, only a fraction of what is now Lagos State was ever under the central government. Strictly speaking, only four of the present twenty local government areas in Lagos State – Lagos Island, Eti Osa, Lagos Mainland and Surulere – were in the then Colony of Lagos.

The rest belonged, first to the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and subsequently to the Western Region, before the state creation exercise of 1967. Lagos was also not the only city on which federal money was spent. (Calabar was once the capital and so should also qualify as a recipient of “federal money”.)

As for Lagos being a hunting ground, the self-defeating logic of this argument is clearly brought home to all of us – aborigine and settler alike – by the frightening crime statistics in the state.

Perhaps before I go further it is appropriate that I state my qualifications for pronouncing on this matter, aside of course from my rights as a citizen of Nigeria. From my father’s side, I am a Yoruba of Awori descent with strong Egba links. My mother however happens to be Igbo from Owerri in Imo State.

Based on these affiliations, I can claim a fair measure of familiarity with the issues in the current debate on both sides. I understand the feelings of Lagosians on this matter. I am also fully apprised of the passions and pressures that drive Igbo into internal economic exile and which impel their push for a place in Lagos.

While I empathize with the Igbo condition, I share the interest of all trueborn Yoruba people in maintaining and possibly deepening the Yoruba character of Lagos. And no one should have to feel apologetic about that.

The Igbo, perhaps more than any other Nigerian group, are in a vantage position to appreciate a people’s attachment to their soil and the unbreakable linkage between a people and their land and language.

A critical aspect of that linkage is the exercise of cultural and political authority over a land space to which one has aboriginal claim. More than any other group in Nigeria, save perhaps the Fulani Bororo, the Igbo move around the country a lot for considerations of geography and economics.

Unlike the Fulani, however, the Igbo often become sedentary in large clusters in the lands they move into, including Lagos. This naturally raises an interest in participation in the public affairs of their places of domicile. Yet, a legitimate interest in participation cannot translate into a contest for control, which is the way the current claims are being canvassed and construed.

Pan Nigerianism

Advocates of the Igbo claim to Lagos often refer to the putatively halcyon era of pan-Nigerianism spanning the 1930s to the 1950s. It was a time, we are told, when all Nigerians lived as one and when it did appear that all ascriptive barriers had dissolved in the ferment of nationalist politics. This period has become a favourite reference point for people with all kinds of agenda. But was the reality not indeed less glamorous? There was, no doubt, a fortuitous convergence in those times. An emergent commercial and educated elite needed to come together in the nationalist struggle to send the British away and so the city of Lagos, which was the hub of that struggle, seemed to have become a melting pot overnight.

Yet, the hometown unions remained strong and affectations to unity were soon exposed as only skin-deep as the struggle to ensure the departure of the British transitioned into the struggle over who would succeed the departing oligarchy. This is the reality that we continue to live with to date. And it would be asking a lot to expect that Lagos should offer itself as the guinea-pig for experimenting with the possibility of a new pan-Nigerian vision. Especially since there is as yet nothing on ground to suggest or guarantee that such a gesture would be reciprocated.

As things now stand, the Igbo in Lagos must decide what they really want from the state: participation, or representation, or control. Currently, their spokespersons seem to be using the three terms interchangeably, raising the spectre of a hostile take-over. This approach is bound to be resisted by a people barely recovering from the debacle of the June 12 annulment and the devastations of the Abacha persecution in which they saw the Igbo – with some admirable exceptions – as having played a less than salutary role.

The attitude and outlook of a majority of Igbo political elite and indeed common people to the June 12 crisis was mercenary if not malevolent. Many Igbo seemed to have approached the crisis with a revanchist agenda borne of deep-seated animosity and ill-will. How so?

Civil war

It is a well-known fact that some Igbo still blame the Yoruba for having “pushed” the Eastern Region into the civil war only to back out at the last minute. This line of argument further raised and reinforced the unfounded stereotype of Yoruba people as unreliable. It has been peddled for so long that many have come to believe it. As Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda once famously said, tell a lie persistently over a long time and people start to believe it to be the truth. Anyway, hostile interests within and outside Nigeria that have reason to fear the rise of a southern solidarity of the type that was emerging with the UPGA party of the 1960s have also invested strenuously in promoting and perpetuating this lie.

Yet, without seeking to diminish the harrowing and often heroic sacrifice that the war entailed on the Biafran side, the truth is that the Nigerian Civil War was largely the consequence of a North and East alliance of brinkmanship whose cardinal objective and principle was the isolation of the West. It is said that the falling out of friends is often the most vicious. So, Igbo political elite are in no position to seek to build a cult of victimhood around themselves or to sermonize about the politics of bad faith that led to the war.

Beginning with the NCNC-NPC coalition, through the Action Group crisis, to the declaration of a state of emergency in Western Nigeria, the creation of the Mid-West Region, all through to the treasonable felony trial, many Igbo political leaders of the time seemed to have deliberately lent a hand or at least acquiesced in stoking the northern brazenness that eventually resulted in the pogroms and the war. Nor should it be forgotten the games that were played with the status of Lagos, with the establishment of a Federal Ministry of Lagos Affairs under northern headship but with copious NCNC concurrence.

Similar treatment

But not to digress. With the defeat of Biafra, many Igbo in secret (and sometimes not too secretly) wished that the Yoruba too should receive a similar treatment someday soon. That day seemed to have arrived with the June 12 annulment and the crisis it unleashed. For some, the June 12 crisis appeared to have presented the Igbo with a perfect opportunity to get back at the Yoruba and permanently cut them down to size.

In executing their now famous exodus from Lagos at the time, many Igbo had said that they feared (hoped?) that another war was afoot, this time with Yorubaland as the theatre. Igbo political elite seemed to have offered themselves all too eagerly to bringing about such a confrontation. The role played by the likes of Sam Ikoku, Uche Chukwumerije, Walter Ofonagoro and Clement Akpamgbo, to mention a few, in adding fuel to the fires of the crisis would for a long time be remembered in the annals of infamy.

No doubt, the annulment and the ensuing crisis sorely tested the political maturity of Yoruba people and their elite. Fortunately, the Yoruba refused to bite the bait and managed to come out of the annulment crisis without a shooting war. There were, of course, several battles and notable casualties along the way. But, in the end, there was no war of the scale that had been feared – or hoped! How this was accomplished remains a tribute to the leaders of the pro-democracy struggle, a struggle that is yet to come to an end and of which Lagos remains the epicenter.

Igbo in governance

Feelings still run deep and memories of what many saw as malevolent undercutting could remain for long. It is partly in this context that many Lagosians situate current calls for expanded Igbo presence in the governance of Lagos. Many will shudder to contemplate the fate of the June 12 struggle if during that struggle political power in any part of the South-West had been in the hands of people hostile to Yoruba interests. What extent of damage would Chukwumerije have wrought if he had just one kinsman as an ally sitting in a sensitive local government chairmanship or governor’s office in the South-West in those terrible days?

Still, the work of building a united Nigeria must continue as we cannot afford to dwell for too long on past injuries and grievances. The Igbo input into this great work can be both positive and progressive, but not necessarily involving their ruling Lagos. Indeed, I think they have their work cut out for them. My view is that the Igbo are barking up the wrong tree in this whole matter over who rules Lagos. What do I mean by this?

The Igbo are such a leading and (hopefully) enduring part of the commercial landscape of Lagos. At this point in time, what they should be doing is lending their voice and energy to advocating for a reversal of what appears like a deliberate federal abandonment of the former capital, which has made doing business in Lagos all the more difficult.

The movement of the seat of the Federal Government to Abuja was ostensibly meant to un-clutter the environment of governance and deepen our country’s unity by giving everyone a sense of belonging in the nation’s capital.

But the move soon fell victim to elements whose knack it is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in every good policy. The movement has been implemented as a punishment for the Yoruba and possibly as a reprisal for the central role that Lagos played as the seat of the pro-democracy opposition. Against this background, the attitude of many Lagosians to the Igbo quest for control is that they should commence it in Abuja and its area councils. After all, they say, Abuja is the only Federal Capital Territory that we have.

Federal presence

But speaking seriously, Igbo claims to an expanded role in the governance of Lagos cannot be pursued in an atmosphere of intentional federal abandonment of Lagos. Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos State has been making a case for renewed federal investment in Lagos, given the peculiar heavy demands on the state and its role as home to all. Rather than fantasizing about taking over the Alausa seat of government or occupying commissionership positions, the Igbo in Lagos should lend their weight to the push for special federal recognition for the needs of Lagos, to further enable the state continue to play its role as a safe, liberal and prosperous home for all.

Samuel, a former columnist with Vanguard, had caused this article to be published (in two parts) in Vanguard of 3 May 3 and May 10, 2002.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/igbo-and-the-governance-of-lagos/#sthash.FXfvmPIE.dpuf

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/igbo-and-the-governance-of-lagos/