It is the anniversary month. Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have clocked one month as President of Nigeria at the end of the month.
Naturally, it is time to review how the nation has fared under his leadership. But before delving into that, I wish to address one outstanding factor that heralded his coming.
Hardly has Nigeria seen the kind of ethnic baiting that Tinubu’s managers unleashed on the nation as a prelude to his ascendancy.
From Bayo Onanuga, who now serves as Tinubu’s spokesman, to sundry thugs, came threats to the Igbo community in Lagos that should they vote for any candidate besides the ones chosen by Tinubu, they would live to regret. The Igbo community had apparently not voted for Tinubu in the presidential election, resulting in his shocking loss at his home base. The governorship of Lagos was critical to the All Progressives Congress (APC) favoured by the owners of the land. They warned the Igbos whom they regard as mere tenants despite selling land to them, that they could not exercise their democratic options of vote to the detriment of the choice of the indigenous people.
They made good their threats, attacking Igbos that came out to vote. They carried out the instructions of their leader to smash, carry and run with the ballot boxes. Result sheets were crudely altered. An apparently partisan electoral umpire accepted that, and their preferred candidate was declared winner. The rest is history.
Whereas it was not all the ethnic Yorubas that supported the smash to victory, the APC propagandists still managed to drive a wedge into ethnic relations in Lagos. Their coloration of the Igbos as ambitious visitors trying to wrest power from the indigenes struck home with many of them. Choice which is the essence of democracy would take a lower position to ethnic preference. When Lagos was made the national capital and the centre of development, it hardly occurred to these ethnic champions that the people of the hinterlands who had to emigrate to Lagos to literally see the light would one day form a sizeable voting population. Besides that, content with getting all that Nigeria could offer in the city of Lagos, most Yoruba Lagosians see no need to travel elsewhere in Nigeria. They hardly know that their fellow Yorubas are making a living in other parts of the country. They are living the lie that it all starts and ends in Lagos. I will just give them some anecdotes from the streets of the East, both the high and the low.
On a certain evening in November 2022, I was driving into Owerri from Anambra State. At Ogbaku, on the outskirts of Owerri, the Federal Road Safety Corps has its state office there. Its officers have a roadblock on the other side of the road. They flagged me down. I slowed down, looking for a safe place to park. The young assistant superintendent leading the team strutted in reverse directing my car. He must have imagined himself gallant, as if a swing of the steering would not set off uncontrollable wailing in his father’s house.
I’ve always wondered what’s in a uniform that makes the wearers take irrational decisions. Close to 40 years ago while on national service with my primary assignment at the police headquarters, Akure, I noticed that my boss, Ogu Hemjirika, the PRO, used to warn men on roadblock duties that would literally stop trailers with their boots that they would die unnecessary deaths.
Back to Ogbaku. I asked the young officer if he thought it was his ‘gallantry’ that made me stop? I was ready for him to do whatever he could do. He told me that I had one worn out tyre. I caustically retorted that I thought he saw a human head in my car. He announced he was going to book me, and I told him to do so. It turned out to be a fine of less than N2,000.
Enter Gbenga
The young lieutenant that booked me told me that I should go to Gbenga Bet Naija at Ogbaku to pay the fine. ‘Gbenga Bet Naija’, I repeated, with incredulity. ‘Or you can go to a bank, but Gbenga would be easier for you’, she offered.
Questions swam in my head. How many Yorubas have I seen in Owerri that one of them would have the prime position of being the collection agent for the FRSC? Of course, nothing bars them. But a local person is normally used in such situations.
Curiosity took me to Gbenga Bet Naija the next day. It was a surprise. The most imposing physical structure at Ogbaku bus stop, a compound of about four plots with fine buildings, belongs to Gbenga. In it, he has his betting emporium, a photo studio, and other businesses run by other people. On one of the buildings, there’s an inscription, God has done very well for me. It’s there in both English and Igbo.
Indeed, God has done very well for Gbenga. A scratch of the surface revealed that Gbenga arrived Ogbaku, set up a business and it thrived. Along the line, he married an Ogbaku lady, bought parcels of land, thrived even more, and is now part of that society.
I would not be surprised if Gbenga has become a chief at Ogbaku, having distinguished himself. One thing is clear, though: Gbenga was not made by the FRSC collection. The N1,000 premium he collects is nothing to him and must be a tryst for a corps officer, either local or remote. Point is that Gbenga has made good at Owerri while many of his fellows, listening to losers, think it starts and ends in Lagos. There are a lot more of them.
My brother who lives at Asaba told me another story that would stun those who think it all starts and ends in Lagos. He told me of a young Yoruba man who was a guest testifier at their Full Gospel meeting. This young man had come to Onitsha on youth service just over 20 years earlier. He never left. He has lived in Onitsha ever since. This is a city that many Anambra Lagosians consider too rough and would not live there. The cap, however, is that this young man has an imprint in the engineering works of virtually every significant industrial outfit that has sprung up in the East in the past 20 years! Imagine how rich he has become, and the equity he would own in those industrial outfits beyond building and maintenance contracts! Meanwhile, his mates are instruments in the hands of newcomer Lagosians causing mayhem, and killing to protect the single room they inherited from their fathers’ bungalows at Ajegunle!
Finally, I would want to introduce Dr Babatunde Obada to the losers in Lagos. He is the husband of Erelu Olusola Obada, former deputy governor of Oyo State and former minister of state for defence. In the last days of Theodore Orji as governor of Abia State, Dr Obada signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Abia for the ownership of Umuahia Industrial City. Now that Abia is coming into its own under Governor Otti, all the Igbos (and others) who want a piece of this prime property will have to buy or lease from Dr Obada!
Ojukwu-Enendu is a former newspaper editor
