All Nigerians are united in the condemnation of the xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa. Our countrymen and women residing in South Africa have also closed ranks in the face of common threats to their lives and wellbeing. No one is talking about Igbo, Yoruba or what have you. Back home, everybody is enraged at the victimisation of our people in a country which we fought to secure the freedom of the Black population from Apartheid.
We unanimously denounce the Zulu king, Godswill Zwelithini, whose anti-foreigners speech was seen as the spark that lit the dry leaves to explode into this xenophobic conflagration. But we are pointing one finger at the South Africans, ignoring the fact that three of our own fingers are pointing back at us. We are complaining about the speck in the South African eyes, overlooking the timber in ours. When it comes to hypocrisy, the talent of Nigerians cannot be equalled by the nationals of any other country in the world.
Apart from, perhaps Sudan, there is no other country in Africa where ethnic and sectional hatred is the main defining feature of national cohabitation than Nigeria. The enduring power of ethnicity is responsible for the fact that, 101 years after amalgamation, nearly 55 years of independence and 45 years after a civil war “to keep Nigeria One”, Nigeria might experience a tragic breakdown of sanity in Lagos unless great care is taken.
When we were going to the polls, fears were being entertained of imminent outbreak of violence if the results of the presidential election did not meet the expectations of people in the North. Usually when such happens, non-Muslims and Southerners are targeted. They got what they wanted, and the nation is at peace. But in the Lagos area, danger is brewing, albeit silently for now. Some people are seriously peeved that non-indigenes won elections in Lagos State.
In the National Assembly elections, the Peoples Democratic Party won six seats in the House of Representatives. Out of those, three went to non-Yorubas: Rita Orji (Ajeromi/Ifelodun), Tony Nwaulu (Oshodi/Isolo) and Oghene Egboh (Amuwo Odofin) Federal Constituencies. These results and the trend of voting of non-Yorubas in Lagos, probably prompted Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos to threaten that unless Igbos voted for his choice candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode, they would end up in the Lagos Lagoon within seven days.
Negative reactions to the election results, added to the Oba’s utterances, have created an unhealthy atmosphere many never knew was still possible in Lagos. The unfortunate words that people are freely using in various discussion circles and on Internet forums are very frightening. Unless urgent efforts are made to arrest the situation, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa could pale into child’s play.
I do not even want to glorify these rabble-rousing agents of darkness by reproducing some of the things they have been saying to one another. The hardliners are still very much a vocal minority, but then, so are the South African xenophobists when compared to the vast majority of their countrymen who are firmly against the attacks. It is usually a dangerous minority that starts trouble, and before you know it, it becomes a problem for everyone. Already, one of the House of Reps members-elect, Egboh, reportedly narrowly missed being assassinated in Mile Two penultimate weekend!
The angst of those who are displeased with the idea of non-indigenes winning elections in Lagos, is that people from other parts of the country cannot come to Lagos to represent the indigenes of Lagos. They are accusing non-indigenes of “arrogance”, “throwing their weights around” and contesting elections “in other people’s lands”.
There is obvious ignorance of what being part of “One Nigeria” is all about. It is either that these people do not know, or they have conveniently forgotten that all Nigerian citizens have the right to settle peacefully and lawfully in any part of the country; that no Nigerian can be discriminated against based on ethnic, religious or other considerations in the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, which includes the right to vote and be voted for. On these constitutional guarantees we all stand, until they are annulled. That is what makes us Nigerians. As far as the Constitution is concerned, no Nigerian living in any part of Nigeria is living in “other people’s land”.
Secondly, let me reiterate that non-indigenes live in large numbers in Lagos because it was once our political capital. It is now our economic capital. Abuja and Lagos were developed with the oil wealth of the Niger Delta (where some of us come from) as well as the tax and sweat of hard-working Nigerians residing in the metropolis. The high population figure, based on which the state earns large federal allocations, includes the count of non-indigenes. Non-indigenes were, are, and will always be part and parcel of the Lagos scheme of things. As Ambode stressed during the campaigns: “we are all in it together”, not just in Lagos, but anywhere else in the country.
Besides, elections are not contested based on ethnic or indigene/settler basis. It is contested between political parties. Those chaps who won on APC and PDP platforms are going to Abuja to fight for Lagos, not, Igbo, Yoruba or what have you. Their being elected has not taken anything away from the local Lagos original inhabitants. If anything, they will add value and project Lagos as a state that is advancing to the league of developed,mega city-states in the world such as New York, London, and others.
Those stoking the embers of ethnic xenophobia in Lagos want to draw us back from the democratic progress we have made in the recent elections and plunge us to the abyss of ethnic bloodletting that will do no one any good.
This is not the first time non-indigenes are winning elections in their places of residence in Nigeria. It will, CERTAINLY, not be the last.
Adeyemi Adekunle, a core Lagosian, is a student of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.