A few days ago, the Oba of Lagos
threatened Igbo leaders. If they did not vote for his governorship candidate in
Lagos, he said, they would be thrown into the lagoon. His entire speech was a
flagrant performance of disregard. His words said, in effect: I think so little
of you that I don’t have to cajole you but will just threaten you and, by the
way, your safety in Lagos is not assured, it is negotiable.
There have been condemnations of the
Oba’s words. Sadly, many of the condemnations from non-Igbo people have come
with the ugly impatience of expressions like ‘move on,’ and ‘don’t be
over-emotional’ and ‘calm down.’ These take away the power, even the sincerity,
of the condemnations. It is highhanded and offensive to tell an aggrieved
person how to feel, or how quickly to forgive, just as an apology becomes a
non-apology when it comes with ‘now get over it’.
Other condemnations of the Oba’s words
have been couched in dismissive or diminishing language such as ‘The Oba can’t
really do anything, he isn’t actually going to kill anyone. He was joking. He
was just being a loudmouth.’
Or – the basest yet – ‘we are all
prejudiced.’ It is dishonest to respond to a specific act of prejudice by
ignoring that act and instead stressing the generic and the general. It is
similar to responding to a specific crime by saying ‘we are all capable of
crime.’ Indeed we are. But responses such as these are diversionary tactics.
They dismiss the specific act, diminish its importance, and ultimately aim at
silencing the legitimate fears of people.
We are indeed all prejudiced, but that
is not an appropriate response to an issue this serious. The Oba is not an
ordinary citizen. He is a traditional ruler in a part of a country where
traditional rulers command considerable influence – the reluctance on the part
of many to directly chastise the Oba speaks to his power.
The Oba’s words
matter. He is not a singular voice; he represents traditional authority. The
Oba’s words matter because they are enough to incite violence in a political
setting already fraught with uncertainty. The Oba’s words matter even more in
the event that Ambode loses the governorship election, because it would then be
easy to scapegoat Igbo people and hold them punishable.
Nigerians who consider themselves
enlightened might dismiss the Oba’s words as illogical. But the scapegoating of
groups – which has a long history all over the world – has never been about
logic. The Oba’s words matter because they bring worrying echoes of the early
1960s in Nigeria, when Igbo people were scapegoated for political reasons.
Chinua Achebe, when he finally accepted that Lagos, the city he called home,
was unsafe for him because he was Igbo, saw crowds at the motor park taunting
Igbo people as they boarded buses: ‘Go, Igbo, go so that garri will be cheaper
in Lagos!’
Of course Igbo people were not
responsible for the cost of garri. But they were perceived as people who were
responsible for a coup and who were ‘taking over’ and who, consequently, could
be held responsible for everything bad.
Any group of people would
understandably be troubled by a threat such as the Oba’s, but the Igbo, because
of their history in Nigeria, have been particularly troubled. And it is a
recent history. There are people alive today who were publicly attacked in
cosmopolitan Lagos in the 1960s because they were Igbo. Even people who were
merely light-skinned were at risk of violence in Lagos markets, because to be
light-skinned was to be mistaken for Igbo.
Almost every Nigerian ethnic group has
a grouse of some sort with the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state has, by
turns, been violent, unfair, neglectful, of different parts of the country.
Almost every ethnic group has derogatory stereotypes attached to it by other ethnic
groups.
But it is disingenuous to suggest that
the experience of every ethnic group has been the same. Anti-Igbo violence
began under the British colonial government, with complex roots and
manifestations. But the end result is a certain psychic difference in the
relationship of Igbo people to the Nigerian state. To be Igbo in Nigeria is
constantly to be suspect; your national patriotism is never taken as the norm,
you are continually expected to prove it.
All groups are conditioned by their
specific histories. Perhaps another ethnic group would have reacted with less
concern to the Oba’s threat, because that ethnic group would not be conditioned
by a history of being targets of violence, as the Igbo have been.
Many responses to the Oba’s threat have
mentioned the ‘welcoming’ nature of Lagos, and have made comparisons between
Lagos and southeastern towns like Onitsha. It is valid to debate the ethnic
diversity of different parts of Nigeria, to compare, for example, Ibadan and
Enugu, Ado-Ekiti and Aba, and to debate who moves where, and who feels
comfortable living where and why that is. But it is odd to pretend that Lagos
is like any other city in Nigeria. It is not. The political history of Lagos
and its development as the first national capital set it apart. Lagos is
Nigeria’s metropolis. There are ethnic Igbo people whose entire lives have been
spent in Lagos, who have little or no ties to the southeast, who speak Yoruba
better than Igbo. Should they, too, be reminded to be ‘grateful’ each time an election
draws near?
No law-abiding Nigerian should be
expected to show gratitude for living peacefully in any part of Nigeria.
Landlords in Lagos should not, as still happens too often, be able to refuse to
rent their property to Igbo people.
The Oba’s words were disturbing, but
its context is even more disturbing:
The anti-Igbo rhetoric that has been
part of the political discourse since the presidential election results.
Accusatory and derogatory language – using words like ‘brainwashed,’
‘tribalistic voting’ – has been used to describe President Jonathan’s
overwhelming win in the southeast. All democracies have regions that vote in
large numbers for one side, and even though parts of Northern Nigeria showed
voting patterns similar to the Southeast, the opprobrium has been reserved for
the Southeast.
But the rhetoric is about more than
mere voting. It is really about citizenship. To be so entitled as to question
the legitimacy of a people’s choice in a democratic election is not only a sign
of disrespect but is also a questioning of the full citizenship of those
people.
What does it mean to be a Nigerian
citizen?
When Igbo people are urged to be
‘grateful’ for being in Lagos, do they somehow have less of a right as citizens
to live where they live? Every Nigerian should be able to live in any part of
Nigeria. The only expectation for a Nigerian citizen living in any part of
Nigeria is to be law-abiding. Not to be ‘grateful.’ Not to be expected to pay
back some sort of unspoken favour by toeing a particular political line.
Nigerian citizens can vote for whomever they choose, and should never be
expected to justify or apologize for their choice.
Only by feeling a collective sense of
ownership of Nigeria can we start to forge a nation. A nation is an idea.
Nigeria is still in progress. To make this a nation, we must collectively agree
on what citizenship means: all Nigerians must matter equally.
This article was first published by Olisa TV, from
where it was culled. We have their permission to republish.
