For Politics of Inclusion in Lagos State By Femi Falana SAN | Nairalaw

On January 26, 2018 the Federal government deported 47
Cameroonian refugees and asylum seekers from Nigeria in utter
breach of the obligation of the federal government under
international law. As a sequel to the instructions of the
deportees, our law firm challenged their deportation from Nigeria
at the Abuja judicial division of the Federal High Court.

In a judgment delivered a fortnight ago, the trial judge,
Justice Anwuli Chikere declared the deportation illegal, awarded
damages in favour of the deportees and ordered the Federal
government to bring them back from Cameroon. While trying to
contact a colleague in Cameroon to break the news to our clients
who are held in a military camp in Yaoundé my attention was drawn
to the empty threat of some Yoruba irredentists to expel the Igbo
community from Lagos over political differences. I was, however,
delighted that the threat was dismissed by the Igbo community on
the grounds that “Lagos belongs to all Nigerians.”

The needless controversy reminded me of the politicisation of
the 2013 expulsion of beggars and destitute from Lagos by the
Babatunde Fashola administration. At the material time, the regime
had decided to carry out an urban renewal programme of the Lagos
state. It was a project whose execution culminated in the removal
and expulsion of beggars and destitute from all streets in the
state.

Incidentally, the first group of victims of the deportation are
indigenes of Oyo state. They were removed from Lagos vi et armis by
the Lagos State Task Force and dumped at Molete in Ibadan. Hundreds
of beggars and destitute from other western and northern states
were subjected to degrading ejection from state. In criticising the
urban renewal policy.

I accused the Lagos state government of violating the Welfare
Law which required the local governments to rehabilitate beggars
and destitute in the state instead of relocating them by force to
their states of origin. As I did predict at the material time the
number of beggars and destitute in Lagos state has continued to
increase phenomenally due to ignorance and poverty in the
country.

However, the anti- poor policy acquired an ethnic coloration
when 47 beggars and destitute of Anambra state origin were expelled
from Lagos. The Igbo and Yoruba Internet warriors embarked on a
reckless campaign of calumny. On behalf of the Igbo nation the then
governor of Anambra state, Mr. Peter Obi reported his Lagos state
counterpart, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, to former President Goodluck
Jonathan for executing an “anti- Igbo agenda”. Even though I had
condemned the Lagos state government for violating the
constitutional right of the beggars and destitute to live
peacefully in Lagos state and not to be subjected to discriminatory
treatment I could not fathom the hypocrisy of Governor Obi. Hence,
I was compelled to point out that Governor Fashola was following
the bad example of Governor Obi who had expelled beggars and
destitute of Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi origin from the streets of Awka,
Anambra state in 2009.

Apart from expelling beggars and destitute from urban centres in
Nigeria the authorities of the federal capital territory and the 36
states of the federation have continued to demolish the so-called
illegal structures inhabited by the poor. On a few occasions state
governments have extended the discriminatory treatment meted out to
poor people to civil servants. In 2014, the administration of
former Governor Theodore Orji of Abia removed all non- indigenes
from the civil service of the state. Even though the victims are
all of origin the Abia state government vigorously defended the “To
Thy Tent, O Israel” policy. However, to prevent other state
governments from adopting the dangerous policy the Nigeria Labour
Congress had already briefed my law firm to sue the Abia state
government at the National Industrial Court. But the planned legal
action was shelved when the policy was reversed by the Abia state
government due to pressure from men and women of goodwill.

Regrettably, the criminal action of some thugs in Lagos was once
again politicised during the just concluded presidential and
national elections. According to reports, a gang of armed thugs who
invaded some voting centres at Okota, in Lagos state snatched
ballot boxes and destroyed ballot papers. A member of the criminal
gang who was reported to have been apprehended was beaten up and in
a brutal manner by the angry voters. Other members of the gang were
promptly arrested by the police. Instead of demanding that justice
be done in the circumstance, a section of the Igbo elite decided to
hold all Yoruba people vicariously liable for the action of the few
thugs. Unfortunately, instead of distancing the Yoruba people from
the shameful attack on the voters at Okota not a few irredentists
of southwest origin have insisted that Lagos state belongs
exclusively to the Yoruba people.

It is unfortunate that the reactionary forces that usually whip
up ethnic sentiments among the Yoruba and Igbo people have failed
to realise that the descendants of the original settlers in Lagos,
otherwise known as “Lagos indigenes” do not share the view that
Lagos state is part of Yoruba land or the south west region. Hence,
Yoruba people from other southwest states are constantly reminded
by Lagos indigenes that “gedegbe l’Eko wa” (Lagos is independent)!
In distorting the history of Lagos state it is often forgotten that
Epe, Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja, Apapa, Mushin, Agege, Surulere,
Ajegunle etc. were part of the old western region up to 1967 when
the Yakubu Gowon regime created the Lagos State. This was why the
Lagos government did not join the Oodua investment until a couple
of years ago.

As far as Lagos indigenes are concerned, other Yoruba people
living in Lagos are “awon atounrinwa” (aliens) or “ara ilu oke”
(people from the hinterland). In the politics of exclusion played
conveniently by the elite, the aliens from the other states in the
southwest are no longer qualified to hold political posts in Lagos
state.

It was account of such exclusionary policy that Lagos indigenes
strenuously opposed the decision of Governor Akin Ambode to appoint
Professor Wole Soyinka as the chairman of the Lagos at 50th
Anniversary celebration planning committee three years ago. The
fact that the Nobel Laureate grew up in his family house at Ebute
Meta in Lagos was of no moment to the Lagos indigenes. Before then,
Lagos indigenes had kicked against the appointment of Mr. Segun
Aganga as a Minister representing Lagos state in the Jonathan
administration despite the fact that his grand-parents hailed Edo
state which was part of the old western region.

In his intervention in the on-going debate on the status of
Lagos State, the respected 84- year old nationalist, Alhaji Femi
Okunnu, a former federal commissioner, has recalled that the Aworis
were the original inhabitants in Lagos Island. Others who later
joined them and became indigenes of Lagos came from Tapa land in
Niger state and Benin in Edo state. Others were freed slaves from
Sierra Leone and Brazil. While the contention of Alhaji Okunnu is
correct that Lagos was never a no man’s land at any point in time
it has to be realised that Lagos has since become a home for other
people from other states in Nigeria. The dynamics of the
development of the state in the context of the evolution of the
Nigerian nation makes this trend an inexorable march of
integration.

As a cosmopolitan state, Lagos cannot afford to subject any
Nigerian citizen to discriminatory treatment.

From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that Lagos indigenes do
not believe that Lagos State belongs to the Yoruba people. To that
extent, Nigerians from other states including southwest states are
subjected to equal discriminatory treatment by Lagos indigenes.

This is not unusual as the politics of exclusion is played by
the elite of all ethnic groups in the country.

The reactionary and opportunistic political class in the country
is to blame for the dangerous trend; they invoke ethnic, religious
and other primordial sentiments to divide the people of Nigeria.
Since the dominant politics is devoid of ideology or principle, the
members of the elite usually resort to the campaign of hate and
prejudice to perpetuate their political and economic power. It is
an old game of manipulation, which has impaired national
integration a great deal.

Instead of politics of exclusion, progressive politicians should
defend abandoned welfare programmes and policies that could benefit
the people; they should embrace the politics of inclusion in the
interest of national integration and unity. It is time that genuine
progressive politicians stepped forward to organise and unite the
masses of our people to defend their interests.

In the second republic the Lateef Kayode Jakande administration
implemented the popular programmes of the former Unity Party of
Nigeria such as mass housing, free and compulsory education, free
health care, mass transit (including water transportation and metro
line project which was illegally cancelled in 1984 by the
Buhari/Idiagbon military junta).

However, to some elements of the APC the execution of welfare
programmes has become political anathema while the neo-liberal
policies of privatisation, commercialisation and multiple taxation
have alienated the masses of our people drawn from all ethnic
groups in Nigeria from the government of the Lagos state. To worsen
matters, the unemployed young people are subjected to daily
harassment by the Lagos State Task Force aided by the Nigeria
Police Force.

The cosmopolitan character of Lagos makes it wise and mandatory
for any government in the state to play the politics of inclusion
in a very sophisticated way by implementing policies that would
improve the quality of the lives of the people regardless of their
ethnicity or religion.