How brothers and friends of many ages became enemies overnight on account of support for different politicians, who remain friends and whose children have continued to inter-marry is befuddling. It shows how fickle-minded, thoughtless, and unreasoning a majority of the people can be when it comes to politics.
As Nigeria’s melting pot, Lagos is a place for all, notwithstanding creed, faith, ideology, or ethnic nationality. There are young Igbo generations that don’t know anywhere outside of Lagos and hadn’t even been to their places of origin in almost two decades. There are men and women of the Hausa/Fulani extraction, who were born and bred in Lagos. It is evidently their home. The fitting examples are endless.
I’m Yoruba, and my parents are from Ogun State, but I was born and raised here. Lagos is all I know, where I’d continued to put my all. I have friends of different tongues that we grew up together, some I met on the job and are fantastic “Lagosians”.
But that does not make Lagos a “No Man’s Land.” That is the ugly assertion fueling the current displeasure and raising tensions. Crossing that line of decency was what stoked a needless and completely avoidable back and forth.
For emphasis, there is no part of Nigeria that is a no man’s land. Even Abuja, the FCT, has its original owners and, indeed, the name (Abuja) derived from the leader of the natives, if you had studied the history properly.
If you live and work in Lagos, pay your taxes here, have children and raise them here and had been of decent character, you are by every standard a Lagosian and no one can intimidate you, including the right to stand for election. But that does not still make Lagos a no man’s land.
Many of the Agberos allegedly harassing people and causing chaos are not even originally from Lagos. Some of those you revile because of their offensive dispositions and arrogance are not core Lagosians. Therefore, they do not have better stakes than Chinedu, Obong, or Aminu. We all belong here. I know a certain Nkiruka, who speaks better Yoruba than a certain Gbadebo. That’s the beauty of this place.
Many people had made it big in Lagos and had at one time or the other returned to their states to do more. There is a Rauf Aregbesola from Osun; there is an Adeola Solomon from Ogun; there is an Adebayo Adewusi from Oyo, and the list goes on. Even a certain Ben Akabueze still calls the shot in Lagos government. They are Lagosians with ancestry in other places. It is an added value to them and hasn’t reduced whatever they represent.either.
That you are carrying a blue passport doesn’t make the US or any state thereof a no man’s land; that you are flaunting the red passport doesn’t make the United Kingdom or any part thereof a no man’s land. At best, you can claim ownership as one of them and not deride them by uttering such twaddle. It makes tolerance appear like a crime and glorifies ingratitude.
That statement, “Lagos is no man’s land” is inciting, disrespectful and unacceptable to the original owners and no one, however, meek would have glossed over such deliberate attempts at undermining them on their own land. That’s the cross of the matter.
Taken together, we remain brothers and sisters in diversity and so, allowing politics that will always come and go to create a silly wedge means we either haven’t learnt our lessons or we don’t really love one another. I don’t want to ponder the latter. I can deal with the former because it’s something we can fix. Hatred is intrinsic and not fixable.
Let’s have a rethink and refuse for the inconsequential to dictate to us how we should relate as a people.
Peace out ✌️
