August 4, 2013 by Tunde Fagbenle
Tunde Fagbenle
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
It is news that has left a bad taste in the mouth since it broke about a week ago. Whichever way it is looked upon and no matter the honey-coating state government officials or agents have tried to give it, the sight of scores (the number is put at about 70) of destitute-looking fellow Nigerians herded into a bus in Lagos and dumped at a point in Onitsha is most unpleasant.
From all indications, it was the handiwork of a Lagos State Government exasperated by the unending flow of human traffic, predominantly of the jobless and penurious kind, daily into Lagos, and frightened by the growing security and social implications for the state.
To be honest, I sympathise with the state of Lagos in what is looking like a “Rock of Sisyphus” challenge it faces; one in which the harder it strives to make Lagos beautiful, habitable and prosperous the more it draws in more dregs abandoning the unpleasantness of their own poorly governed states!
It is a familiar story all over the world that plays out for different reasons and at many levels, microcosmic to macrocosmic, from village to town to state to country to the global world – from the Plateau State “indigenes” seeking to drive out “settlers,” to Nigeria’s “Ghana-Must-Go” of the 80s, to series of deportations and discriminatory laws engaged in by a number of European and American countries. Whenever a place feels its economy, social equilibrium and or security is threatened the culprit to look for is the outsider or “foreigner.”
The question on my mind, however, is: how come Onitsha? Why and how was Lagos able to determine and herd all 70 or so destitute persons and put them as Anambra people. Or was it that it left it to the state of Anambra the business of further sorting out and dispatching to other states those that are not her own? I mean, to get to Onitsha the bus must have crossed at least three or four other states – Ogun, Ondo, Edo and Delta.
A justifiably bemused, if not angry, Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, has gone crying out to the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, asking for his quick intervention lest the situation degenerates into a dangerous tit-for-tat. Obi says it’s not the first time, and that similar incident happened “last September.”
According to Governor Obi, “Lagos State did not even bother to consult with Anambra State, before deporting 72 persons considered to be of Igbo extraction to Anambra State.”
Ah ha, were they all Igbo and was that why Onitsha (Anambra) was chosen as their ‘distribution” point?
But to get more serious, Obi has raised a cogent point, why would the state of Lagos have embarked on such desperate and untoward action that should have been a last resort, without the courtesy of first raising the issue with his counterpart, the governor of the state of Anambra?
Conversely Obi has committed two errors in return, as Governor Tunde Fashola of Lagos has pointed out.
Says Fashola, “It is unfortunate that my colleague governor has made this a media issue. As I speak, I haven’t received any telephone call or letter from him to complain and I don’t think that is the way government works. On less important matters like this, he had called me before.”
More grievous, why would Obi be running to the president like a baby whose candy has been snatched running to mummy, thus further giving the Abuja the wrong notion of being the “parent’ over states, rather than being “partners?”
The whole business is not funny in the context of our supposed “One Nigeria.” And all that contest between two governors on their last lap aside, human lives are involved, and that of fellow Nigerians at that.
As I have indicated earlier, it is a human sociological tendency for people to feel aggrieved at the sight or thought of some other people coming to take overly undue advantage of the openness or generosity on offer by their clime or sweat. It is worse when this advantage being taken turns into an abuse or even appropriation of ownership or control of the land.
The pressure on Lagos is onerous, and the creation of, and movement of the Federal seat to, Abuja has not abated it in anticipated proportion. Unfortunately ours remains a self-spiting, Ostrich-like, silly country, denying Lagos its deserved “special status” for Federal allocation purposes to handle the continuing influx of people from all over the place. At the same time the same country has not found it imperative and urgent to develop other coastal cities with the potential of having sea ports to reduce the pressure on Lagos.
But more grievously, what is called for is the necessity for other states to hold their governors responsible for the development of their states and the creation of an environment to reduce the urge to migrate to places whose governors are striving to make life more abundant for her citizenry.
A good example is the State of Osun, I daresay. Since that maverick OgbeniRaufAregbesola became governor, he has turned the state rapidly into an economic and intellectual beehive such that all Osun persons are drawn into the state, and none I know is seeking to leave for even Lagos. Therein lies the lesson.
Sports Youth Summer Camp
Talking of engaging the youths and filling their “free” time especially during this long holiday from school, it is heart-warming to know of yet another creative effort of our untiring Chief Segun Odegbami – the Mathematical Odegbami, in his football playing years for Nigeria.
There is probably no Nigerian who has demonstrated greater and as total a commitment to sports development and youth-engagement-through-sports than this great Nigerian, Odegbami. And I am not saying this flippantly. I have watched him at close quarters and I know.
A few years ago, seemingly from nowhere, and from nothing but an expanse of forest land in his Wasimi (near Abeokuta, Ogun State) village, he dreamt of and began his boarding high school – The International (Sports) Academy – that set out to combine regular academic teaching with active sports. Since my friend Segun was not flowing in money I was a “Doubting Thomas”. But Odegbami has pulled it through, and today the Academy has a full high school class-complement, producing sports talents for the country. This effort has already earned him some international awards.
Now, concerned about what happens to the young ones (and their hapless parents) over long holidays, he is introducing “2013 Sports Youth Summer Holiday Camp” on the Wasimi academy grounds, from 15-25 August, a residency thing that would include coaching in basketball, football, tennis; experience of musical and acting performances by Nollywood stars; night time camp fire; leadership training; and much more. All that for a paltry N75,000. Of course I told him unless he gets good corporate sponsorship that sum won’t add up.
And so the requests from parents have piled up. But for me it is enough that there is at least one Nigerian who continues to dream noble dreams for Nigeria and the Nigerian youths, and pursues the dream with uncommon vigour. Good luck, Big Seg!
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