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In the epochal Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe presents Okonkwo, an Igbo man too Igbo for his own good and unable to negotiate the pragmatics of change, to document the tragedy of the colonial experience. A veteran of local wars, Okonkwo, the symbol of a fast disappearing establishment, cannot discern the times, and goes to war against the white man. Suicide ends up providing only a lucky escape. This is the story that immediately comes to mind as I ponder the assaults launched on non-Yorubas and non-establishment Yorubas during the March 18 governorship and State Assembly polls in Lagos State. The oppressors think March 18 is ended and that they must open a new chapter, but their future will go up in smoke. As the Bard of Avon once said, “Though those who are betrayed do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe.”
The assaults were preceded by the decree issued ahead of the election by MC Oluomo, the notorious Lagos motor park parrot made famous by Yorubahood, namely that Igbos must stay indoors if they wouldn’t vote for APC. Instead of going after him, the police actually made excuses for him. Any surprise then that on election day, terror gangs unleashed physical assaults on non-Yorubas and even Yorubas falsely thought to be Igbo? In November 2018, Mr. Oluomo stormed Osun State at the eve of a re-run election, threatening Senate President Bukola Saraki, and now he feels like a king. I have never seen a modern city in the world which parades hoodlums as the face of civilization. I remember the words of our elders, “Eṣinṣin ò mọ ikú; jíjẹ ni tirẹ̀. (The fly doesn’t recognise death; all it knows is eating).
Okonkwo in Achebe’s fictional universe dies a wretched death but he is at least an honourable man: the misfits who maimed non-establishment voters across Lagos last Saturday have no honour. They are savages ruled by the rustle of currency notes, led by their ancestral demons and perpetually incapable of a noble thought. They deplore xenophobia in South Africa with bile, yet they kill and maim their own countrymen with glee.
Is this land not a funny one? The Lagos lions were nowhere to be found when killer herders from foreign lands turned the length and breadth of Yorubaland into a human abattoir, playing soccer with the skulls of Yoruba (wo)men, raping wives before their husbands and daughters before their parents. It was people like Sunday Igboho, now submerged in legal battles in a foreign country, that stood up to be counted. They are only bold on election day when law enforcement chiefs make excuses for murderers. A hoodlum identified as even allegedly shot a lady to death while celebrating the outcome of the election!
Shall I speak of the role of the N200k-per-night Nollywood public toilets in the episode? When a motor park tout has had a taste of too many celebrities–nearly all of them milking public sympathy with stories of childhood sex abuse and parading full-grown children birthed at the onset of puberty —he feels like a king and asks for a throne. Do you blame him for demanding what his ancestors never dared to ask for? These are the days when varsity professors laud criminals for a crate of beer. Let me say no more about the Nollywood hoodlums who threw away decorum for a mess of pottage. The attacks saddened me as a Yoruba and a Lagosian because they did not reflect what any people should be. The wars in Rwanda which cost so much in life and limb weren’t always about the big political questions; they were also about ethnic profiling and supremacy brewed in the forge of verbal slurs.
Going forward, do the unwanted ones still need to pay tax? Do they have a right to be counted during a census? And should the Yoruba men married to non-Yoruba women now line their wives and children up like the Ushtashi did to the Jews during WWII and kill them? My family house is at Lofiri Street, Ijomu, Ikorodu, but I have never thought to look down on anyone, knowing that I am a stranger in the world itself. In Exodus 23:9 we read: “Thou shall not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Yet hoodlums who came to Lagos less than 20 years ago not only oppress non-Yorubas, they actually call the true sons of the land bastards! When they have made enough money, they return to their hometowns in nether lands to harass their roots, but the indigenous Lagosians have nowhere else to turn. Hmmm.
IGP’s anti-Amotekun releases
I’ve noticed that ahead of every election, the IGP is fond of releasing a statement saying that Amotekun operatives are not allowed anywhere near polling units. These releases are provocative on two levels: (i) Amotekun has never begged for election duties (ii) Amotekun, just like the agencies permitted to monitor elections, is a creation of law, not a ragtag outfit.
I find it interesting that the IGP would so casually assault the sensibilities of the people of the South-West whose governments established Amotekun to protect life and property following the woeful performance of the police that he (IGP) heads. Surely, continually disparaging Amotekun every election cycle amounts to disparaging the Yoruba.
As a creation of law, Amotekun cannot be put in abeyance because of elections. The traditional functions of the police and other agencies are not suspended because of elections, so why should Amotekun’s? To hear the IGP speak, you’d think Amotekun operatives were lepers that should not be seen anywhere at all during elections, including their own stations. Are they not security operatives? Or is the IGP now greater than the people and governments of the South-West? Why the ethnically insensitive directive? Mr. IGP, you will either respect our Amotekun or lose the respect we have for you. We love our Amotekun and that is never going to change.
..And a man called Onireti
I’ve never met Olufemi Onireti, the PDP House of Reps candidate for Ogbomoso North, South and Oriire Federal Constituency in the February 25 polls but he has earned my respect. Ahead of the polls which he lost, Onireti, mindful of the lingering fuel crisis and cash crunch, converted his campaign buses to free shuttle vehicles within the Ogbomoso environs. But what got my attention was that after losing election, Onireti continued his free shuttle scheme. That is a true leader, quite unlike the narcissistic fella who retrieved the transformer he had donated to a community following his electoral loss!
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