Band of bigots

I shared on Monday to a WhatsApp group multilingual Adedeji Odulesi’s street interview of a Yoruba lady raised in the South-East. Idayat Wasiu, was born and raised at Amechi, Enugu South Local Government Area. For context, Amechi-Awkunanaw, a rural suburb of Enugu, is the hometown of Senators Jim Nwobodo and Ken Nnamani. Awkunanaw people are original landowners of Enugu City districts of Awkunanaw, Uwani and Independence Layout.

Listening to this lady made me recall how the great Nnamdi Azikiwe intentionally sustained Enugu as a multicultural enclave. Sustained, because this was the vision of white men who founded and built the virgin city in 1949. The post-colonial Zik and Okpara administrations, in turn, transformed Enugu into the home of all easterners, and Nigerians.

History bears out this story and image of Enugu, the Coal City and capital of the defunct Eastern Region.  A Fulani was elected twice as the first and only Mayor of Enugu. From 1952, Zik brought NCNC loyalists from many tribes to work with him in Enugu. This was after he met his ethno-inspired political Waterloo at Ibadan in January 1952. One Yoruba in the team served as indigenous Director of Information of the Eastern Region, with his office in Enugu. Others were appointed into headship of parastatals and membership of boards. The coal economy and these inclusive policies profiled Enugu as a peaceful multicultural city loved by residents and visitors. Enugu’s brand image as a peaceful multicultural city remains the same to this day, as many a traveller will testify.

Like Odulesi’s interviewee, I myself was born and bred in the Eastern Region, in the present Enugu State. It was not a surprise listening to her enthusiastic endorsement of all things Igbo. Broad-mindedness reflected in their ready accommodation of strangers. Fantastic menu. Great sense of family. Most people born and bred in post-colonial Enugu (and she is an example) view our ethnic nationalities as one. The NCNC politicians that came to rule Enugu, in succession to the white men were nationalists. They were not given to promoting regional or ethno-religious causes, as was the case in the West and North. Their labour helped nurture what can be branded as the Enugu mind-set.

The Enugu mind-set is not an exclusive concept; this also reflects how the Igbo in general live outside their region. It is commonly accepted that the typical Igbo is comfortable traversing new territories, imbued with natural self-confidence and unhindered by fear of stereotypical hang-ups that discourage others from venturing forth. The experience of leaving the East to work both in the West and the North led me to an appreciation of our parochial citizens. They come in four variants. Irredentists who consciously promote ethnic hatred do not know or have not experienced life outside their ethnic enclaves. Some are products of negative ethno-religious acculturation. Then there are the non-reflective and undiscerning. Last but the most dangerous of the breed are the power-mongers.

Nigerian unity and progress are continuously retarded by a combination of ethno-religious acculturation and power desperation. This combination breeds insular, provincial and sectarian citizens. And they are found everywhere in society, from the landlord who determines what ethnic group or tribes to rent their property to, to obnoxious managers in non-ethnic corporations.

On arrival in the West, I found, for instance, that one manager in my place of work actively recruited reporters based on their last names. There was this story told by one Igbira, a Kogi State native, who was hired because the supervisor thought she was from his region. The bitterness publicly expressed by this supervisor – on finding out that the recruit was not who he thought – shocked the poor reporter to her bone marrow. Nigerian employees recall different variants of our similar workplace story of parochial employers and supervisors. This is, however, not what Nigeria is, by and large.

Paradoxically, and relying on a personal experience, my best moments in Lagos were the times I spent in the Yoruba upcountry provinces of Owo, Omuo Ekiti and Akure. Additionally, Lagos gifted me fantastic multi-ethnic friends and deep support networks that promoted my education and career as a journalist and an editor. I profiled this grace that I enjoyed in a previous column piece entitled, “The Yoruba Enemies I See.” It is impossible to forget the friendship and the deep social network support system that made life a breeze in Lagos.

On the eve of my departure from the West to the North, I became convinced of something that I have repeated often on this page. A tiny band of political pirates successfully sows and nurtures division and hatred, which mature into bitter fruits that we harvest and share at each election cycle. In other words, there is a home-grown band of bigots that use ethno-religious advocacy to feed in every region. Shockingly, power-mongers have transformed Lagos – the self-styled centre of excellence – to become the totem pole, the most fertile breeding ground for ethno-religious advocacy. Again, Abuja – the place I left Lagos to continue with work – has turned out not to be an exception.

We created Abuja, like the virgin cities of Enugu and Lagos, from a vision of a multicultural melting pot for all Nigerians. This explained why, in the beginning and similar to Enugu, the first Mayor of Abuja was Igbo and of the female gender. Her councillors were ethnically mixed. It took over three decades for the #ObiDient Movement to cause a similar disruption, electing a non-Gwari politician of the female gender to represent all five area councils of the FCT in the Senate.

Today, however, much water has passed under the bridge and Abuja is no longer the same. Like Lagos, the Nigerian vision of Abuja was progressively devalued. It is no longer politically correct to refer to our Centre of Unity as Nigeria’s “no-man’s land.” Interestingly, like Lagos, the gradual degradation of the Abuja vision is not championed by the indigenes. Leading from the front are non-Gwari politicians and power-mongers. This group used the tenure of Nasiru el-Rufa’i, as Minister of the FCT to complete the rout and return the FCT to a sectional enclave.

A new cultural map of the FCT was drawn when the area was carved into a dozen or so traditional chiefdoms with mini-emirs appointed to oversee them. Abuja now has a multi-layered governance system. The Presidency appoints a minister that overseas the territory as if he is a governor. The National Assembly makes laws for the territory. Local administration is managed by five elected area council chairmen and councillors. Traditional administration is in the hands of a dozen chiefdoms created by Malam el-Rufa’i. The FCT minister appoints and supervises the dozen chiefdoms of Abaji, Karu, Karshi, Kuje, Garki, Sarkin Jiwa, Sa’Rubochi, Bwari, Kwali, Gomani, Gwagwarda, and Zuba.

Like the Jagaban’s Lagos, the Malam el Rufa’i administration also profiled and targeted the Igbo for offensive actions. It began from the minister undertaking an apparently secret housing census of Abuja and announcing with glee that the Igbo owned 73 per cent of Abuja real estate. It turned out that this was only an excuse to Lagosize Abuja. As we hear on the streets, Nigeria happened to another dream of building a united country and its people by constructing a new “Centre of Unity.”

Politically, there are two defined parallels of the Abuja-Lagos degeneration. Like Lagos, the people dictating what happens in Abuja are not the original inhabitants but other ethnicities from outside the territory. Even after successfully prising the FCT from the grips of a national vision, original Abuja indigenes, like those of Lagos, are left scrambling for crumbs, increasingly growing a large percentage of the vulnerable in the territory. Ironically, the power-mongers jumped onto the #OBIdient bandwagon to sack the lone FCT indigene in the Senate.

I personally witnessed the ethnicisation of Lagos and Abuja during the three decades that I lived and worked in both cities. I have since toyed with the idea of further interrogating the seismic shift in ethnic power relations in Nigeria, to enthrone a state where ethno-religious identity governs access to opportunities for survival.

Poor Festus Keyamo

If Nigeria were a country where institutions worked, Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo, would be fired from the Buhari cabinet and forced to sing to security operatives. His boldness in admitting that he purchased a house in the United States while serving as a Minister is enough to ruin a political career.

Our laws forbid public officers from carrying on private business while in office. They also ban public officers from operating foreign bank accounts while in office. Recall that my former boss, Prof. Bart Nnaji, was forced out of office simply because a company that he previously owned put in a bid for a public power company during a privatisation exercise. Nnaji relinquished his executive interest in the company and put his shares in a blind trust, as required by law. Yet he was forced to resign.

Contrast this with where a public official is boldly boasting that he owns and directly interferes in the running of alleged flourishing legal and real estate companies while in office. He also arrogantly admits to personally purchasing property abroad from income allegedly made by those companies. Is it possible to buy residential property abroad and continuously pay taxes on them over eight years without operating a bank account in the United States? Impunity is breaking the law and telling everyone to go to hell.

By the way, could this boastful minister also boldly publish details of his assets declaration, as done twice by his principal, to verify his anti-corruption integrity?