I was someone you would have called a “Yoruba But”, perhaps I still am, but, over time, I developed even more radical views than the “Ronu” themselves and that is only logical. There is a consistency to my view, something I am willing to debate, something you can abstract to any situation, something universal in principle and it isn’t the hypocrisy that is mind-bending because we have to stop blaming Igbo people’s perception of us at the end of the day but start addressing our own blunders, which are far more consequential than those who take us for granted. In this piece, I will discuss why Igbo people believe Yoruba people are too incompetent to self-govern despite their homeland seeing comparatively less development.
When Okey Joe House of Representative for Oshodi-Isolo made his publication, he was aware of what he did, he did it under the justification that the indigenous people cannot look after themselves so it is up to Igbo people to do it for them. This was what he retweeted: link link and this is far from a fringe sentiment, it’s the norm. The reason why Igbo people bring up property holdings and business investment when a Yoruba person complains about their exertion of ethnic and political tribalism in Lagos is for the same reason. As opposed to virtually any other ethnic group I can think of right now, that would be grateful for being allowed to prosper, study and do business in a foreign land simply because they couldn’t do the same on their own land, Igbo people believe it is rather the people who let them in that should be grateful for their intervention because without them, the indigenes would starve to death. link And what do you think other Igbo people have to say about this? Nothing. This for time becomes the time to preach Unity, regardless if they themselves were born in Lagos or moved very early. Wizarab like Nicholas had nothing to say or even exalting it. You would think Ohanaeze Ndigbo would have issued a statement against the action of the Rep despite a public rally against it at Oshodi but it is basically natural behaviour even to them. Betty Akeredolu made a Jest about Yoruba business ownership in Lagos, said how many Yoruba people own businesses in Lagos, Pastor Iren said something similar and Even Timi Disu cooned to the point that he agreed with Igbo people that they sell land to with the proceeds going to parties. “Selling Land to do Owanbe”
Just this morning, a conversation about a state as unemployed and underemployed could employ a non-indigenous SA for climate control and the SA involved mentioned inclusivity as the reason. I almost hit my head against the wall reading that horse shit. Inclusivity in a state where 40 year old indigenes on the average cannot afford to own a home? Tani ó so Yorùbá di gbèwù dání na? If a Nigerian president decides he wants to hire a Lebanese or Chinese as his SA, we would all unanimously decry that, “are there no Nigerians that can fill that space” but when it comes to state indigenes that made prosperity possible for non-indigenes enough that their parents migrated to that land, that logic is absent. If a man had starving Children at home, would we not call the man mad if he was feeding strangers on a very limited resources? The non-indigenous beneficiaries know this and it is for that very reason they all arrived at the conclusion that Yoruba people cannot self-govern because they just cannot understand the reason for so much neglect in cities with comparably more prosperity than theirs and that is what they are right on.
Inclusivity in a state where 40 year old indigenes on the average cannot afford to own a home? I repeat that idea again because any politician who talks about inclusivity of foreigners in a state where 14 year old boys are rummaging through trash deserves to hanged. I travel a lot and I have seen poverty. I saw a thirty-four year old, english speaking Yoruba man hawking sachet water at Mile 2 in Lagos (Plenty of them in fact) I saw a malnourished child with blazing eyes at Isale Eko recently, just sleeping on the bare floor, I have seen towns in Osogbo with level of hygiene that look like I was transported centuries back in time, market women expelled from their shops to make way for bigger shops that would then be rented out to the same foreigners who look down on them as a lesser form of life, homes demolished. We have Young Yoruba men working as micro-middleman (Oni baranda) for people who wouldn’t even dare hire their ethnicity as store keepers. They think us a fool and that is only natural.