From Rant To Reason: Correcting Femi Fani- Kayode’s Falsehoods By: Leadership Editors on August 24, 2013 - 1:31am BY Emeka Aniagolu CONTINUED FROM YESTERDAY As a consequence of the centrality of Lagos to Nigeria’s political administration and economic lifeblood, Nigerians of various nationalities flocked to Lagos in their hundreds and thousands, if not millions; not because they necessarily wanted to or liked to, but invariably had to. The Federal Government of the Republic, that had the knife and the yam, so to speak, was there in Lagos. It helped considerably, especially from an economic point of view, that Lagos is also a port city. From the economic sea lane of the Atlantic, just as slaves flowed out of Nigeria and other parts of West Africa to the Americas in the centuries before; goods flowed in modern mercantile and contemporary times. These were the reasons Nigerians from across the Federation, endured the insufferable congestion, traffic jam and filth that used to be the modus operandi of life for the masses in Lagos for many years. It was also the reason they put up with the periodic insults of some ethnocentric Yoruba, perhaps of the like of Mr. Fani-Kayode. As a matter of historical fact, it was precisely because of the ethnocentric bickering of the likes Mr. Fani-Kayode that the Federal Government of Nigeria, in seeking a territorial location for a more befitting capital city than the “urban jungle” Lagos had become; sought out a virgin territory smack in the geographic center of the country, and in 1976, carved out what became the capital city of Abuja from parts of former Nasarawa, Niger and Kogi states. And instead of constituting it into a “state” headed by an elected “Governor,” had it administered by the Federal Capital Territory Administration which is headed by a minister appointed by the President of the Federation. The same political and economic centripetal forces have driven millions of Nigerians of various nationalities, including, I presume, Yorubas, and, of course, Igbos; to the nation’s new capital: Abuja. Consider that by 2012, Abuja’s Urban Area, Nigeria’s capital city, since only 1991, a period of just twenty-one years, has already grown to approximately 2,245,000, making it the fourth largest urban area in Nigeria, only surpassed by Lagos, Kano and Ibadan. Someone judiciously tabulated the infrastructural investments the Federal Government of Nigeria, made in Lagos, as a result of the fact that it was Nigeria’s capital city; and upon perusing that long list, it strikes one that Lagos has been an extraordinary beneficiary of not only the tax Naira of millions of Nigerians across the federation, but Nigeria’s petro-dollars; far and away out of proportion, to any other part of the Nation. Here is a shortlist of that long-list: Murtala Muhammad International Airport Tin Can Island Port Federal Palace Hotel Ikoyi Hotel 1004 Towers [on Victoria Island] National Secretariat Towers National Stadium National Arts Theater Nitel Building Carter Bridge Eko Bridge Third Mainland Bridge All the Flyover Bridges in Lagos FESTAC Village in Badagry Now that the resources of the nation—from the oil producing states in the southeast, have been used for many years to develop Lagos; now that the various non-Yoruba nationalities of Nigeria, of which the Igbo are a leading group; have invested the sweat equity of their labor in the commercial development and viability of Lagos, long before they knew that an Abuja would ever materialize; the likes of Fani-Kayode want to claim Lagos as the exclusive domain of the Yoruba! 3. As a matter of fact, they were the ones that FIRST introduced tribalism into southern politics in 1945 with the unsavoury comments of Mr. Charles Dadi Onyeama who was a member of the Central Legislative Council representing Enugu and who said at the Igbo State Union address that, ”The domination of Nigeria and Africa by the Igbo is only a matter of time”. This single comment made in that explosive and historic speech did more damage to Southern Nigerian unity than any other in the entire history of our country and everything changed from that moment on. To make matters worse, in July 1948, Azikiwe made his own openly tribal and incendiary speech, again at the Igbo State Union, in which he spoke about the ”god of the Igbo” eventually giving them the leadership of Nigeria and Africa. These careless and provocative words cost him dearly and put a nail in the coffin of the National Convention of Nigerians and the Cameroons in the Western Region from that moment on. This was despite the fact that that same NCNC, which was easily the largest and most powerful political party in Nigeria at the time, had been founded and established by a great and illustrious son of the Yoruba by the name of Mr. Herbert Macaulay. Macaulay, like most of the Yoruba in his day, saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed. How much more can the Yoruba do than that when it comes to being blind to tribe? Can there be any greater evidence of our total lack of racial prejudice and tribal sentiments than that? First, I will not even bother to waste time, energy, ink or paper, trying to defend the Rt. Honorable, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, against the preposterous charge of tribalism. His contributions to Nigeria’s and Africa’s struggle for political independence, racial dignity and awareness, his sacrifices for Nigerian nationhood, including accepting the position of a quasi-symbolic head of state-President of the new republic, when he might have easily been able to have wrestled the position of an American-style Executive President out of a grateful nation; are too numerous to expend energy on. I will, therefore, turn my attention to the second victim of Mr. Fani-Kayode’s vituperative calumny, namely my uncle of blessed memory: His Excellency, Justice Charles Dadi Onyeama. The statement Mr. Fani-Kayode attributes to him is factually wrong in terms of both accuracy of context and intent. Justice Onyeama was a sterling judge, a man born of Igbo aristocracy, a man of integrity and a legal luminary. His professional colleagues and close friends were mostly drawn from among Yoruba legal minds and literati among whom he worked and enjoyed leisure time. Due to his legal acuity, integrity and personal probity, not only was he highly respected among his peers—of all ethnic nationalities, he eventually made it to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and later still, as Nigeria’s first judge to the International Court in The Hague. We are, therefore, not talking about a light weight, a fly-by-night propagandist or a political charlatan. Desperately searching for “evidence” to support the projected phantom of Igbo tribalism as justification for their own; self- interested partisans, such as Mr. Fani-Kayode, have invoked that commentary attributed to Justice Onyeama, time and again; and will, no doubt, do so again in the future. But for whatever it is worth, especially to fair-minded folk, here is, for the umpteenth time, the true historical context and intent of the comment by Justice Onyeama. First of all, it was not a speech made at an Igbo State Union rally or meeting. It was merely a passing comment made as humorous riposte to his Yoruba friends and colleagues, who were taking the learned gentleman to task about his ethnic group—the Igbo; at the Island Club in Lagos. The eminent jurist clarified the matter in an authorized biography, titled: Onyeama: Eagle on the Bench: An Authorized Biography of Nigeria’s First Judge at the World Court, His Excellency, Judge Charles Dadi Onyeama, CFR, L.L.D., with a Special Section on the World Court[the International Court of Justice] [2010], by Ikeazor A. Akaraiwe, Delta Publications, Nigeria, Ltd. Justice Onyeama’s son, Dillibe, author of several books, journalist and publisher, and author of the internationally acclaimed iconoclastic work, Nigger at Eaton [1985], had this to say about his late father’s comments and its misuse in the Yoruba tabloid: Founded on a combination of falsehood, misunderstanding, exaggeration and mischief, it started life in 1948 at the elite Island Club, Lagos. One Charles Dadi Onyeama, a relatively unknown but well-connected Barrister of 32, and a member of the Club, was engaged in a heated debate with his Yoruba circle of friends. The argument arose from an article in that day’s ‘The Daily Service’ newspaper suggesting that the Igbos in Lagos had bought up all the machetes in order to kill Yorubas. This was the climax of a series of anti-Igbo hysteria by this parochial newspaper, which was floated by one Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Irked and disappointed by the unanimous support of his Yoruba friends for this paper’s ethnically-coloured judgment, Onyeama rose to defend his Igbo people with the parting shot, “You may despise the Igbo, you may even persecute him all you want, but you can’t put him down. You wait - Igbo domination of this nation is but a matter of time.” The Daily Service, the mouthpiece of the Action Group [AG], which saw itself as the counter weight to Nnamdi Azikiwe/NCNC West African Pilot; took it up as headline news: “The next day’s edition of ‘The Daily Service’ proclaimed on its front page the sensation, “IGBO DOMINATION OF THE NIGERIAN NATION, A MATTER OF TIME - Igbo Barrister...” In an instant, what was merely a friendly banter between friends, a mutual ribbing between otherwise good friends and colleagues had become elevated to the level of a similarly alleged “International Jewish Conspiracy” to dominate the world, but in this case, it was the Igbo of Nigeria! Even as I write, one of Justice Onyeama’s sons, himself a lawyer as well, has been married to a Yoruba woman, my sister-in-law, with two children, for the past nearly twenty years or more! The erudite scholar, Professor Wale Adebanwi, demonstrates empirically in one of his works, that the issue of the “ownership of Lagos,” has been a longstanding political football in Nigeria’s inter-ethnic history and politics. Mr. Fani-Kayode is merely the latest mouthpiece in a long line of political reprobates. The dynamic of that longstanding debate or debacle, has been multidimensional: [1] the long struggle to replace Lagos as the capital of Nigeria—starting as far back as the colonial period—a change that might have occurred that far back, had it not been for the decision of the British colonial Governor-General of Nigeria at the time, Sir Clifford; [2] the resumption of the struggle to change Nigeria’s capital from Lagos, within the context of politically independent Nigeria; a struggle that largely played itself out between the three major ethno-lingual/regional groups – the Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba; [3] the struggle to administratively separate Lagos as a Federal Capital City, from the Western Region of Nigeria, which was controlled by the Yoruba-based Action Group [AG]. In fact, “. . . when the independent status of Lagos was removed in the early 1950s through the reform of the Lagos City Council, the city became part of the Western Region, which led to the upstaging of the NCNC, and [the] Igbo mayor of the city by the AG;” and [4] the self-serving conflicted nature of Yoruba political agitation over the status of Lagos, expressed through three main channels: the political party, Action Group [AG], its venerable leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and its propaganda organ, The Daily Service. As far as the Yoruba were concerned, in relation to the status of Lagos and as expressed through the foregoing functionaries, they wanted to eat their cake and have it. They were for retaining Lagos as Nigeria’s capital, then, they were against it; then, they wanted Lagos to remain the capital of Nigeria, but as an integral part of the Western Region; then, they supported moving the capital to somewhere else, then, they opposed it again! Finally, Chief Obafemi Awolowo ended up opposing the decision to move Nigeria’s capital city to Abuja; a policy decision that was made in 1975 by General Murtala Muhammad, based on the advice of a panel he set up, which, ironically, was headed by a Yoruba High Court Judge by the name: Justice Akinola Aguda. The membership of the panel was ethnically balanced, inter alia: Dr. Tai Solarin, Colonel [Monsignor] Pedro Martins, Alhaji Muhammad Musa Ismail, Chief Owen Fiebai, Dr. Ajato Gandonu and Professor O.K. Ogan; with E.E. Nsefik, a deputy permanent secretary in the Federal Civil Service, acting as secretary to the panel. Alas, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode’s psychotropic catharsis, hardly amounts to the “bitter truth about the Igbo,” but is merely an unwitting public display of his disingenuous talent at obfuscation and incitement; his role as an agent provocateur; and perhaps, his own personal bitterness towards the Igbo as a group of people, for whatever his reasons. If anything, it appears that Mr. Fani-Kayode, as evidenced by his assertions in his article, is the one who exhibits an invertebrate arrogance, by claiming that a proud and self- confident people such as the Igbo especially, “secretly wish they were Yoruba;” and that what is rightfully the national patrimony of the modern Nigerian nation-state,I should be conceded the exclusive private preserve of the Yoruba; who nevertheless are part and parcel of the selfsame Nigerian nation. Or does Mr. Fani-Kayode not believe in the Nigerian nation? — Aniagolu, a professor of African and African American History and Politics, wrote in from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, USA CONCLUDED
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 09:19:58 +0000
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