I listened to an interview granted by the DG of the National Orientation Agency, NOA, Lanre Issa-Onilu, to a Lagos radio station recently. He was asked what national objectives the NOA under him would reorient Nigerians toward. Issa-Onilu was frank. He admitted point-blank that Nigerians had no common objectives after 63 years of independence.
The citizenship issue has not been settled. He outlined what the Tinubu government will do about it. Nigeria has remained a “mere geographical expression”, as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had put it over 70 years ago.
We don’t have “Nigerians” in the same sense that we have “Americans”. What we have are Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba (and others) of Nigeria. When you go down to the states, the same problem is there. We have “indigenes” from disparate tribal and dialectal groups. Even in Rivers State where the indigenes claim as if it is their tribe because of the oil factor, the Nyesom Wike and Siminalayi Fubara feud has exposed the apparent ethnic undercurrents (Igbo-speaking and Ijaw-speaking groups) at play. Soon after he was sworn in as the Labour Party Governor of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti made it clear that he would accommodate non-indigenes in his Abia State development agenda, with particular reference to Aba, which is a home for all.
He went ahead to appoint “Mayors” (Chairmen of Transition Committees) in the 17 local government areas. All of them were indigenes of those LGAs except in Aba where Otti appointed Anambra indigenes, Ide John Udeagbala as Mayor and Nnaemeka Ogbonna, Deputy Mayor. These gentlemen were born and bred in Aba. They are regarded as “city fathers” and pillars of the Aba commerce and industry. Politically and socially, they are “Otti’s men”, people he trusts to help him deliver his vision there. Otti’s decision owed much to his own background. Otti is a product of a cross-cultural upbringing which has also coloured his political journey of the past ten years. Otti’s grandfather migrated from Arochukwu and settled in Isiala Ngwa, where his father, an Adventist pastor and teacher, Lazarus Otti, was born.
The Ottis suffered discrimination from the locals who never forgot that they were “migrants”. This same problem assailed his foray into politics. A section of the Ngwa political class in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, conspired to distance him from their kindred fold, more so as it was the turn of Abia South (comprised of the Ngwa and Ukwa groups) to produce the governor. They trumpeted his Aro roots to deny him of Ngwa votes. Secondly, as a professional, Otti grew up and climbed to the zenith of his career as a banker in a Lagos that had come under the influence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Before Tinubu, Lagos was seen as a “home for all”. In 1999, some Igbo elements even contested for governor there. Today, such an ambition is almost unthinkable due to Tinubu’s political model. Tinubu, who is originally from Osun State, has made all Yoruba speaking elements to see themselves as Lagos “indigenes” who have the right to aspire to any post. Indeed, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is originally from Ogun State. With this Yoruba “unity”, the growing political influence of the non-Yoruba population of Lagos is effectively countered. But in the process, the original indigenes are massively subsumed and marginalised.
Lagos is the only state in the country where the original indigenes cannot assert full control over their state due to the overpowering influence of the so-called “ara oke” (interior Yoruba elements) in their political and economic affairs. Otti also belongs to Igbo elite groups which have always canvassed for Igbo unity as a strong strategy to overcome some of their difficulties within the hostile Nigerian system. Due to their historical and cultural settings, Igbo are the most individualistic of the three ethnic majors of Nigeria. The Muslim North is accommodating of all Muslims irrespective of ethnic backgrounds.
Northerners (especially Muslims) feel at home in any part of the North. The Yoruba close ranks politically based on the ethnic pull of gravity. Tinubu has used this to deal with the perceived political threats from non-Yoruba in Lagos. The Igbo try to rival their mates by working toward the unity of its disparate elements. Of the three ethnic majors, it is only among the Igbo that the intragroup schism is taken to extremes. For instance, Governor Chukwuma Soludo unabashedly blames the criminality and insecurity in his state on non-Anambra Igbo residents of the state; a direct opposite of what Otti is doing in Abia.
When the East Central State was split into five, all the states except Abia sent other Igbo non-indigene civil servants back to their states. They refused to pay the retirees their entitlements. When former Governor T. A. Orji decided to apply the same measure after seeing the large number of rejected Abians from other states, the whole place was up in smoke. At all levels, Nigerians are caught in the web of how to resolve the indigene/settler issue vis-à-vis the constitutional provision that all Nigerians are free to settle, work, live in safety, move freely, follow the religion of their choice, vote and be voted for in any part of Nigeria.
Before the creation of states in 1967, Nigerians lived freely and even won elections in other parts as guaranteed by the constitution. But today, the state system has amputated the constitutional rights of Nigerians. With regard to the Aba Mayoral matter, Otti must tread with the wisdom of Solomon. There is a law that mandates the appointment of indigenes to certain posts. It must be respected. But any eligible citizen should be able to vote and be voted for, especially in Aba. Native and non-native Aba residents must be fully accommodated in its governance and development. Cities like Abuja, Lagos, Aba, Kaduna, Enugu and others, can’t afford to be ethnicised. They are homes for all.
