From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Igbo in Lagos and every part of Nigeria have been charged to ignore all forms of shenanigans and stand up for their rights.
Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndígbo, gave the charge, yesterday, while condemning what it called voter intimidation.
Ohanaeze, which recalled some cases in Lagos where Igbo were harassed and threatened, warned that not only is intimidation antithetical to democratic norms, natural Igbo reflexes are allergic to it.
In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Alex Ogbonnia, the organisation said its attention had been drawn to remarks made by one Baale of Igbara community, Jakande, in Eti-Osa council of Lagos State to the effect that ‘only residents who have their permanent voter cards (PVCs) and are ready to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) would be allowed to do business with them in the community’.
“Although the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin, was quoted to have said: ‘the traditional ruler will be invited for questioning’. And that ‘everyone should feel free to vote for the candidate of his or her choice’.”
Ohanaeze called on the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, security agencies and, indeed, the lovers of democracy to caution the Baale for such unreflective, provocative, incendiary and inflammatory remarks.
The group said the Baale should be made to understand that Nigeria had gone beyond such careless and inciting rhetoric as: “We are ready to fight; yes, I am not hiding it…”just as he and his cohorts might know why the fight would start but would surely not know how, where, when and in whose favour the fight would end.
“In other decent climes, the said Baale should be arrested and detained until the election is over. This will serve as a deterrent to some other ethnic chauvinists, crises entrepreneurs, hoodlums and low opportunists.
“A few days ago, hoodlums in Lagos State attacked supporters of the Labour Party said to be on their way to Tafawa Balewa Square, the venue of the party’s presidential campaign rally.
“The hoodlums were said to have targeted the supporters to prevent them from attending the rally. Some of the supporters had their clothing torn to shreds, while others sustained various degrees of injury during the incident. The report further indicates that lives were lost. This is one of the outcome of the Baale incantations.
“Most recently, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Segun Agbaje, said the reason the Igbo in Lagos cannot have their PVCs is that they are from the South East part of the country, inferring that they are immigrants.
According to the pan-Igbo group, “In spite of all the orchestrated conspiracy, machinations and deprivations against the Igbo, and now the Labour Party and Peter Obi, the initiated will easily realise that there is a mystic wind blowing across the land; a wind that does not recognise the rigid human barriers of ethnicity, religion, gender, class or creed; a wind of redemption from poverty, corruption, inequity and other pathologies that have held Nigeria down for several decades; a cosmic wind that attracts the virtuous as it overwhelms the vicious. In the words of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the blessed memory, ‘only the deep can call to the deep’.”