…the recent renaming of streets in Lagos by Yoruba nativists is a major drawback on the much required Southern unity, especially in the face of renewed political hostility from some of his former powerful allies turned vicious foes. As the political leader of Lagos, President Tinubu cannot pretend not to know that some of the actions of his protégé in Lagos are capable of throwing a spanner in the works of unity, peace and progress across southern Nigeria.
For some of us from Northern Nigeria, who are resolute about our position that presidential power should remain in the South until 2031, our efforts at ensuring peace and unity through equity, fairness and justice appear being undermined by the very people of Southern Nigeria to whom this matter mostly concerns. The simmering ethnic tension and mutual hate between the Igbo and Yoruba, two of Southern Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups, may boil over into xenophobic acrimony, if the leaders of Southern Nigeria do not rise up to the occasion and put out the burning fire. Nothing underscores the current situation between the Igbo and Yoruba than the recent renaming of streets in Lagos from Igbo to Yoruba names by the political leadership of Lagos, in their effort to take back their “land” from Igbo “aliens”, whose economic and political influence may have become unbearable to the Yoruba “sons of the soil.”
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Although, the disunity and mistrust between the Igbo and Yoruba was always there right from colonial times, the recent deepening of the Igbo/Yoruba ethno-geographic fault lines is a fallout of the 2023 presidential election, when Peter Obi, an Igbo from Anambra State, South-East Nigeria, defeated Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba from Lagos State, South-West Nigeria. Obi’s defeat of Tinubu in Lagos was erroneously attributed to the large population of Igbo residents in Lagos, who voted for one of their own against a son of the soil. Since the defeat of Tinubu in Lagos, the relationship between these two Southern brethren has taken a turn towards hell. In fact, despite the fact that Tinubu emerged the eventual winner of the election, ahead of Atiku Abubakar from the North and Peter Obi, some group of Yoruba nativists in Lagos have decided that they have had enough of the Igbo people and their domineering influence.
In addition to Obi’s denunciation of the outcome of the 2023 presidential election that threw up Tinubu, a fellow Southerner, as winner and his teaming up with Atiku, a Northerner, to torpedo the election through judicial intervention, the follow up gubernatorial election of 2023 in Lagos, which saw Yoruba mobs being mobilised to prevent Igbo residents from exercising their democratic right of choosing who governs their state of residence, even when all the leading candidates for the position of the governor of Lagos were Yoruba, raised tension through the roof. So much was the trading of hateful words between the two groups that I had this to say then, “Having fulfilled its pledge to ensure a shift of presidential power to the South, the ‘educationally backward’ North must be bewildered, bemused and irritated by the on-going war of vile words and crude display of primitive politics by the educationally advanced South, as the bitter dispute over the outcomes of the 2023 presidential election continue between Nigeria’s Igbo and Yoruba people of southern Nigeria.”
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As a phrase that was widely popularised by Lateef Jakande, the former governor of the state, the notion that Lagos is no man’s land is nothing but a euphemism for the cosmopolitan, urban and diverse nature of the state, which makes it effectively an “all man’s land” to those who reside in it. Ordinarily, this should be a thing of pride to the aboriginal people, that their ancestral land is now a home for all.
While calling for healing across the South, I also had this to say: “To arrest this ugly situation and avert the path to a mutually assured self-annihilation of the Igbo and Yoruba in the politics of Nigeria and save the country the avoidable road to Sudan, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the president-elect must rise up to his responsibility as next leader of Nigeria and begin the national healing process. This must begin with Southern unity. Tinubu must realise that he is only president-elect today because of Obi’s presence in the race, which decimated the Atiku’s chance in the South-East, South-South and the Middle Belt regions of Nigeria. If Obi and his Igbo kinsmen had betrayed their Yoruba kinsmen in their collective quest for a power shift to the South by aligning with PDP’s Atiku Abubakar from Northern Nigeria, Tinubu would not have won the 2023 presidential election.”
Whereas, President Tinubu has taken some concrete steps in this direction by extending a hand of fellowship across the Niger River, the recent renaming of streets in Lagos by Yoruba nativists is a major drawback on the much required Southern unity, especially in the face of renewed political hostility from some of his former powerful allies turned vicious foes. As the political leader of Lagos, President Tinubu cannot pretend not to know that some of the actions of his protégé in Lagos are capable of throwing a spanner in the works of unity, peace and progress across southern Nigeria.
Having lost some ground in the North, President Tinubu and his Yoruba kinsmen must realise that only southern unity and solidarity and not the tribalistic misapplication of “Yoruba Ronu” can checkmate the coming onslaught from Northern Nigeria and as all it takes is for the Igbo and other Southern peoples across the Niger Delta region to feel sufficiently alienated by his leadership style and the behaviour of his people to consider reviving the age-long alliance between the old Northern Region and Eastern Region, as currently being proposed by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
The obnoxious claim that Lagos is being referred to as “no man’s land” by its Igbo residents is a regurgitated lie that is now believed by its purveyors, which is what is driving the level of tribalism in Lagos that is worse than racism in London, Paris and New York. As a phrase that was widely popularised by Lateef Jakande, the former governor of the state, the notion that Lagos is no man’s land is nothing but a euphemism for the cosmopolitan, urban and diverse nature of the state, which makes it effectively an “all man’s land” to those who reside in it. Ordinarily, this should be a thing of pride to the aboriginal people, that their ancestral land is now a home for all. Unfortunately, if the disunity in the South continues till 2027, President Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the Yoruba nation will be the greatest losers and they will go down in history as unable to manage regional unity that is enough to ward off hostile takeover of power by the “entitled and overbearing North.” A man carrying a bowl of palm oil must be wary of a man carrying a log of wood. At the moment, President Tinubu and by extension the Yoruba nation, are carrying a bowl of oil and must be most careful not to collide with a man carrying a log of wood.
Having lost some ground in the North, President Tinubu and his Yoruba kinsmen must realise that only southern unity and solidarity and not the tribalistic misapplication of “Yoruba Ronu” can checkmate the coming onslaught from Northern Nigeria and as all it takes is for the Igbo and other Southern peoples across the Niger Delta region to feel sufficiently alienated by his leadership style and the behaviour of his people to consider reviving the age-long alliance between the old Northern Region and Eastern Region, as currently being proposed by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. Therefore, the Yoruba nativists of Lagos who purport to love President Tinubu, must now substitute Yoruba Ronu with “Southern Nigeria Ronu” by rising above the pettiness and silliness of fatal nativism in the heart of Nigeria’s commercial capital city of Lagos, which is an “all man’s land” that belongs to every Nigerian that resides there, including the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. And the starting point will be for President Ahmed Bola Tinubu to prevail upon the concerned authorities to revert to status quo before the ill-advised renaming of streets in Lagos.
Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through [email protected].
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