Afrigather On reflection, one ought to have anticipated that the ethnic assaults that blow up in Lagos State round election seasons can be intense this time spherical. First, this election was the primary time since 1999 that one other occasion got here near blowing the lid off the All Progressives Congress’ much-vaunted “construction.” From the standard rulers to thugs, the Lagos ruling class went all out to guard their sources of privilege. Second, it couldn’t have been arduous to recruit foot troopers for this trigger. Folks have been so ethically and systematically diminished by the dysfunctionality of the current regime that punching down on their neighbours couldn’t however give some which means to their emptied lives.
United States President Lyndon B. Johnson as soon as noticed, “When you can persuade the bottom white man he’s higher than the perfect colored man, he gained’t discover you’re choosing his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Nigerians aren’t any completely different on this respect. Simply set Igbo and Yoruba—or Muslims and Christians—towards one another, and other people will combat to guard the leaders who eat their kids’s future.
Whereas the bitter exchanges raged, one barely heard from our leaders who ought to have used their ethical authority to douse the tensions. So, it was shocking that Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s victory speech condemned the “hateful and hurtful ethnic profiling,” and claimed such was “completely misplaced for us as Lagosians, the proud residents of West Africa’s pre-eminent melting pot.” If Sanwo-Olu actually believed that, he ought to have demonstrated it by condemning the ethnic baiting and profiling earlier than his victory, not after he profited from its proceeds.
The place was he when some conventional rulers determined to stage Oro to intimidate folks? Why did he not ask them to defer their rites till after the election since their intentions have been suspect? The place was he when thugs made the folks daring sufficient to go to the polls declare whether or not they have been Yoruba or not simply in order that they may very well be allowed to vote in their very own nation? How most of the aides that publicly participated within the hate marketing campaign have Sanwo-Olu (or the APC) publicly cautioned? Have they disengaged their providers? On the finish of the day, some thugs shall be arrested and paraded as Sanwo-Olu promised, however the palms that rock the cradle of concern and hate will keep on to launch the identical marketing campaign in 2027 (and presumably 2031).
Sanwo-Olu might be an excellent man at coronary heart, however he’s additionally a sensible politician. To talk up on the problems of ethnic rigidity that roiled Lagos for the time being it raged was to danger attenuating the keenness of his supporters who imagined they have been combating in service of some greater Yoruba nationalist trigger. Now that the victory is safely in his palms, Sanwo-Olu thinks ethnic profiling is condemnable.
For many who nonetheless miss the purpose, right here is it: the problems that went down in Lagos aren’t merely about whether or not folks of a sure ethnic inventory—whether or not Yoruba or Igbo or every other tribe—have been going to vote like a herd for his or her respective selection candidates. Nearly any election anyplace finally boils all the way down to the politics of id. What was at stake within the case of Lagos—and sure, add each different location the place violence erupted—was that some commandeered official energy and bureaucratic sources to disclaim others the same privilege of selecting their very own candidate too. Each different factor that adopted—from the ethnic slurring, the bitter exchanges on social media, to the bodily violence their thugs visited on some folks—was an inevitable consequence of the machinations of our leaders. If the management had acted in another way, it might have gone a great distance in altering the feel of relations through the elections.
Let me additionally level out that, Sanwo-Olu’s belated condemnation of what transpired on his behalf isn’t any completely different from the person elected president, Bola Tinubu. On Tuesday, he additionally issued a press release that mentioned, “I’m notably pained by circumstances of ethnic slurs, that are able to creating unnecessary mis-characterisation reported in some areas. My enchantment is for us to rise above our variations, which, in actuality, are fewer than the valued strings that bind us collectively as a folks no matter the circumstances of our births.” There are another finely-stated sentiments in Tinubu’s press launch for those who can abdomen studying it. However phrases are low-cost, particularly when they’re written by a salaried speech author.
If there was anybody who ought to have intervened within the marketing campaign of bigotry that characterised the Lagos election, it was Tinubu himself. He may have used himself as a private instance of a Nigerian risk: that folks might be leaders in any a part of the nation no matter their origin. Although not a Lagos indigene, he has held the state by the jugular for 23 unbroken years. Even his spouse, Remi, served as a senator in Lagos for 12 years. This girl, who didn’t even qualify to be a Lagos senator both by state of origin or marriage, went so far as saying that she would select her successor. You’ll suppose the couple who loved such munificence would need it for others, however hardly. They watched as their errand boys and numerous media propaganda retailers dished out some horrible vitriol to stir folks’s worst impulses towards one another.
Till even the US authorities needed to difficulty a press release condemning the bigotry that attended the Lagos election, these folks didn’t react. They let the hounds that they had unleashed on town run their course satisfactorily. Now, over the smoldering ashes of a battle fought for his sake, Tinubu reads a ready speech that claims, “We should champion the therapeutic course of…” If he wants therapeutic, he ought to think about tuning in to the NSPPD tomorrow morning. What God can not do doesn’t exist.
No due to the wiles of the leaders and alleged elders who wish to milk the beneficial properties of the state’s inhabitants variety with out sharing the means to entry these sources, primordial politics have turn out to be commonplace fare for Lagos politicians. The individuals who typify the cosmopolitanism of Lagos and who’ve managed to calibrate many variations to dwell collectively each day instantly began saying the worst issues to one another. Those that share enterprise and private relationships, whose lungs endure the fumes of the numerous pollution that waft via town’s air, who collectively agonise via the derelict infrastructure of the place, and who—regardless of all of the shortcomings—give town its throbbing essence, buried rational judgment and resorted to venomous assaults.
Regardless that you haven’t heard any Igbo particular person (of consequence, no less than) declare Lagos as “no man’s land,” in recallable reminiscence, some Yoruba are caught on that narrative just like the final track the deaf heard earlier than shedding using their auditory nerves. Folks hold dredging up the assertion simply to justify unnecessary antagonism. Ask them for proof of anybody nonetheless insisting that Lagos is a no man’s land, and so they don’t have any definitive reply. There must be a greater technique to persuade your self that the individuals who have been consuming you out of home and residential for the previous 23 years may also be those to guard you from these you have got branded as rampaging invaders.
Going ahead, Sanwo-Olu ought to ask himself what the variety of Lagos actually means to him. Does he see the folks as mere numbers to use for financial and political beneficial properties or as a composition of dwelling respiratory people whose dignity have to be assured? Hopefully, it isn’t too late for him to rise above the murky ethos inaugurated by the political bandits and the jagudas who made him what he’s in the present day.
