It speaks to the education and enlightenment of the Lagos electorate that just when the state appears poised to reap the benefits of many years of hard work and painful sacrifice in opposition and isolation, questions are being asked, entirely for the wrong reasons, whether to harvest the waiting benefits or stoically endure many more years of needless, self-inflicted isolation. One of those wrong reasons is the controversial interpretation given to Oba Rilwan Akiolu’s intervention in the voting behaviour of the Igbo people in particular. Summoning representatives of the Igbo in Lagos, the Lagos monarch had warned against voting for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) Jimi Agbaje. Speaking in what some interpreted as complex trado-spiritual language and terms, Oba Akiolu suggested very harshly that the Igbo would be repudiating the cooperation of their hosts should they vote against the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) Akinwunmi Ambode.
The Igbo deplored the apparent threats, and argued that the oba’s statement was not so complicated as not to be decipherable. If he warned of their drowning in the lagoon, they summed up, it was an indication of a subtle hint of ethnic cleansing. Palace rebuttal suggesting that the oba spoke metaphorically were rebuffed, and some Igbo were reported to have made their own counter-threats indicating that they were even now more resolute in defying Oba Akiolu and the APC. Not unsurprisingly, but rather unwisely, the PDP, desperate to win Lagos after the national debacle of President Goodluck Jonathan’s humiliating defeat, has waded into the controversy by stoking the fire. In a move evocative of the Afonja/Solagberu rift that opened up Ilorin for invaders, Lagos PDP leaders and a few hurting Afenifere leaders have railed against Oba Akiolu and denounced the APC.
PDP’s dangerous short-termism and Afenifere leaders’ opportunism ignore two salient facts about the Lagos monarch’s statement. First, while the oba does not hide his preference for the APC and has even adopted Mr Ambode as his candidate, he is neither a member of the party nor their spokesman. But while the Igbo have the right to take exception to statements they interpret as harmful to their interests, they nonetheless open up themselves to accusations of reverse ethnic bigotry and electoral opportunism by extrapolating Oba Akiolu’s statement as an APC policy. Those who believe the Igbo merely fished for justification to vote as a bloc for the PDP, as they were presumed to have done for President Jonathan, would be proved right. This constrictive electoral behaviour, it is argued, prompted the Lagos monarch’s impolitic statement in the first instance.
Second, Oba Akiolu sees himself as the custodian of Lagos culture and values, both of which he perhaps wants preserved irrespective of the growing status of the city-state as a megacity and multicultural settlement. His acute intervention is a reflection of the continuing conundrum of growth and development of cities and communities within the context of dramatically changing demographics. It is doubtful whether the Lagos monarch directly or indirectly advocated ethnic cleansing, nor is it clear that even if he did, he had the means and the support to execute it given the cosmopolitanism of Lagos and the famed hospitality and accommodation of the Yoruba.
Third, perhaps unknown to the Igbo, the battle for Lagos, which warfront continues to morph considerably and unpredictably, is a complex one involving Yoruba elite struggling for the plum prize of Lagos. Many leading members of the Lagos and Yoruba elite, including the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), feel alienated from the commonwealth of Lagos. They want not just a slice of the action, but a mastery of the state. No method is too controversial, and no tactics too bizarre to be co-opted into the battle. If Igbo umbrage against Oba Akiolu’s statement looks appealing, they will seize it to make war. Lagos stakeholders and ethnic groups must take cognisance of these tendencies in shaping their responses and political behaviour to avoid more unmanageable and more destructive crises in the near and distant future.
Whichever way the controversy is resolved in the future, especially considering its many divergent manifestations through the prisms of elite and cultural conflicts, there is trouble ahead. The Yoruba traditional institution, Lagos State political elite, and the Igbo must tread carefully and circumspectly to guarantee the peace and understanding that have subsisted in the state for decades. The disputants must appreciate that what is imperilled is not just the victory or defeat of candidates in the state elections of Saturday, but the decades of amity between all ethnic groups in Lagos, an amity that before now had weathered many storms and promoted commerce. They must realise where this conflict’s watershed is coming from and how to manage it before it drowns everybody.
In 2011, President Jonathan campaigned in Lagos advocating for a gang up between the Igbo and other ethnic minorities against the Yoruba in order to seize political power. Since then that heresy has formed the inner core of the ethnic dissonance ripping Lagos apart. That heresy undoubtedly holds tantalising opportunities for the PDP, which is dutifully exploiting them. Latching on to the controversy, too, are a number of disaffected Afenifere leaders whose main goal is the humiliation of APC leaders in Lagos rather than the ennoblement or development of the state. Today, given the stridency of the controversy and the number of combatants whooping for war, it is anybody’s guess whether the genie has left the bottle, and whether in fact Lagos and its ethnic constituents can summon the reasonableness and temperance to smother the rage before too much damage is done.
One way to repair what is summing up as a major fissure in ethnic relations in Lagos is for the Igbo to disavow bloc voting, lest they be seen, as perhaps Oba Akiolu saw them, as working against the larger interest of Lagos, however that interest is aggregated. Everyone has the right to vote whichever way they deem fit; but it is not everything that is lawful that is expedient. And until the voting pattern of the March 28 presidential and National Assembly elections is deconstructed, the suspicion that the Igbo voted as a bloc for President Jonathan may be difficult to erase. In addition, until the country matures enough politically for the redefinition or clarification of indigeneship and citizenship, the regnant culture here in Nigeria in which ancestors and their progenies exercise metaphysical bonding with their lands will subsist. The required change cannot be forced; it can only evolve. And while that evolution is taking place, traditional institutions and ethnic groups must deliberately cultivate and encourage peaceful coexistence and amity.
There is no doubt that should Mr Ambode come to grief on Saturday, Lagos will endure a punishing isolation far worse than any paradox it had ever confronted. The PDP, no matter its indifference and bravado, and other ethnic bloc voters, no matter their disingenuous electoral excuses, will be held responsible for the pyrrhic victory and be made to bear the brunt of animosity certain to emerge from the despair and suffering of a distressed populace. After 16 years of isolation, and having served as the main inspiration for the realignment of political forces and power in Nigeria, it is incontestable that this is Lagos’ finest moment. It would be a tragedy of monumental proportion should any realignment be enthroned tomorrow that does not favour and compensate Lagos.
