This is my position, and I stand by it that Governor Babatunde Fashola ‘deporting’ Nd’Igbo from Lagos is just fine. Yes, it is. But we have to know first who the persons are. I insist I like it if those Igbo people deported have no business in Lagos. Let’s not be worked up about this. There are many people in Lagos as in other cities who have no business there and would be better and get rehabilitated when they live among their kinsmen.
I am a proud Igbo man just like many others are proud of their identity. So if Fashola deported Igbo men who crowd the bus stops begging and doing odd things to remain in Lagos at all costs as if they are fugitives, I associate myself with him. Igbo beggars have so proliferated in Lagos that you start to wonder if our sense of pride and hard work as means of livelihood has totally waned.
I have a relation who lived in Aba for many years struggling to survive. It was when he took a bold step to relocate to his village that the light of the day started shining on him. They have been many others like him that left the city, which they feel is the nucleus of their lives, to find that lives abound elsewhere.
Without any form of aggrandizement, I recall an incident two years ago where a girl of eleven years came to my home in Lagos and I was told she makes my daughters’ hair. My inquiry on why she does not go to school showed that the girl was actually born while the family lived in uncompleted building. When I met her, they still lived in one and the family insisted on living in Lagos. The girl could not enroll even in a public school because the parents can’t afford it. When her mother came back to thank me for a little assistance to the girl to enroll in school, I told her I didn’t need that, I rather needed her to be wise and leave Lagos, go back to her Akwa Ibom State where children go to school free. So what would the parents who insist on living in Lagos and can’t afford their children’s school fees lose if they are deported to their state at least to have their children in school?
I don’t stand on the ground that such deportation, as it were should always be right, but deporting those who are of no real use to an economy could be justified. Let us face the facts that Nigeria is one of the few nations in the world that condone persons who constitute a burden to their economy. We used to have so many beggars on our streets who were illegal aliens from Niger and Chad. I had told friends some times in the past that if I were to be president of the nation, they will all go because they are strain on our lean and ailing economy.
What I would not rather take from Fashola is if his deportation of burdensome Lagosians is selective and restricted to the Igbo. But I recall that some years ago the same Fashola deported some people to Ibadan and there was reaction from the state claiming the people were not theirs. Those deportees to Ibadan were said to be all beggars and street urchins. Now, it is the turn of Nd’Igbo, and I hope Fashola is aware that many people in Lagos from all the states of the nation also constitute excess baggage to the state? If he deports other urchins, let him also fix the urchins of Isale Eko and other Lagos natives that also terrorise other residents.
I would ask people who fight Fashola on this to wait and see him play the game to the end. Where Fashola would misstep is when he takes the benefits from the right alien and sieves out the chaff. I lived and worked in Lagos for about 15 years and I have proof of payment of taxes up to the last year I was there and even now I am on transfer to Abuja, I bet my tax deducted at source by my employer located in Lagos still goes to the Lagos government.
So, if Fashola uses his winnow and pruning hook on the useless, he should also accept the useful. I had all my children in Lagos and they still reside there, so based on the selection by elimination Fashola has introduced, I argue that my children should be recognised as full Lagosians with all the benefits. I have seen instances of people from other parts of Nigeria resident in Lagos contesting elections and losing just because of the state they come from, and with the new formula, all those should change. We should all put our mouth where our money is. When Fashola and indeed Lagos government constitute state executives, they should spread out the membership to include all the aliens whose taxes and contributions oil the Lagos wheel.
There is this instance of a certain woman, Mrs. Ngozi Muofunanya. I cite this case, and plead that the family of the woman would understand me as making it in good faith. She died in the early 2000 when she was the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Lagos Ministry of Justice. When Al-Mustapha and Bamaiyi’s trial started, she was the DPP. One of her deputies, I gathered is Yoruba by birth and married to Igbo later became a High Court judge. Muofunanya was always in court for the trial until one morning we woke up to hear she went to bed, took ill and could not make it to the following morning. The rumour mill was awash that the woman ‘died’ because she was Igbo and could never be made a judge of Lagos State High Court. In the growth process of the ministry, the next step for her would have been the position of a judge. I would not ascertain the veracity, but I heard a fellow court reporter then who hailed from Ekiti State that a certain retired judge from Lagos Island boasted in his presence and in glee that ‘it would have been improper to allow that Igbo girl to be a judge here. So we had to take her out of the way.’ Just a little after her death, new judges were appointed and some people who were her juniors got elevated after she was taken out of the way. The irony in her case is that sometime in the late 70s, Muofunanya after her Law School was posted to serve in Lagos State. After her service, she was retained and worked through the ranks until she became DPP. At the point of elevating her to a judge, some people all of a sudden remembered she was ‘Ibo girl’ and had to be taken out of the way.
Those days I reported the Lagos courts, late Justice Abiodun Kessington, a nice old man who had retired from the Bench always came around to chat with us at the Press Centre of the Igbosere High Court. One day, he told us a touchy story of how he served in the Rivers State judiciary up to DPP level and the government of the state asked him to leave. His only offence was that he was Lagos State man and was unfit to be made a judge in another state. That is the same circle Nigeria keeps walking round without growth or progress.
With the new order of taking out the unwanted, the beneficial should not have this experience any more. There should be equality in the scheme of things. Let people get paid where they worked and not the opposite. People should be assessed on equal terms and grounds. Let us not see situations people who are about 45 and were born and still live in Lagos indicate interest in politics and they are suddenly reminded that they come from Edo or Benue State.
In so many countries where there is liberal lifestyle, those born in a place are full citizens and accorded full rights. That way, many Nigerians hold political posts in Europe and America. Likewise, those that are of no value to such societies are taken out of the way.
So Fashola’s precedent should be taken as the starting point of adopting the right rules for citizens of the nation wherever they live.
I see this as wake-up call for the Igbo man who has lived in the fool’s paradise of loving other peoples’ land more than his. He has over 80 percent of his wealth outside his land and he prides himself as the true Nigerian when he reaps only loss from the deceit. If the Igbo man faces extradition from other states he takes as his where he invested all his life earnings, then he should think twice and rediscover that beauty stars at home as they say. Nobody builds your home except yourself. So, the self-deception should be over. Let’s rather call our brothers to order to return to their base and develop themselves because it is possible some other people could borrow the Fashola formula and deport more Igbo in their domain..
By Ikenna Emewu 08078011807 E-mail: [email protected]