“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.”
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