Leave Lagos out of it!

By Morenike Taire

Last week, Ondo state governor Rotimi Akeredolu called on investors to invest in his state, touting the Southwestern state as an investors’ destination superior to Lagos.

You can call him delusional; others call him ambitious and they would be right. The veracity or otherwise of his submission that his State can become the hub of economic activities in Nigeria is clearly subjective at best. But he comes with hard facts.

He cites a Nigerian Police Force and Department of Security Services (DSS) report that places Ondo state at number 3 in terms of security in Nigeria as well as the state’s proximity to Lagos, Delta and other strategic parts of the country.

He also cites verifiable facts, such as the one that Ondo sustained free education for the entire Western region in the 60s with its cocoa production. He boasts of natural resources such as bitumen, good soil and an agreeable climate. In short, he demonstrates his total and unshaken faith in his state, as every good executive should do.

Moreso, Akeredolu demonstrates a spirit that we have lost as a people- a healthy competition between the unitary entities that constitute the nation called Nigeria. It is a spirit that will necessarily foster development rather than disintegration. It is also a spirit that will ginger industry rather than direct energies towards anarchy and insurrection.

This spirit is the very one that is missing in Nnamdi Kanu, his followers and his ill-fated quest for their own nation state. The natural spirit of healthy competition which he rightly claims to be present in the Igbo has, in a twist of irony, been undermined by their unhealthy pronouncements, disjointed analogies, illogical philosophies and rash judgments.

Of all the cards by which the leader of IPOB is playing his followers, the singular most dastardly yet seemingly effective one is the propagation of idea that people of South-eastern Nigeria are superior to the rest of their erstwhile compatriots; that they, alone know anything about industry or commerce ; that they are naturally wired to get the highest scores in national examinations and that, for the lofty reasons stated above,   the rest of the country holds them in contempt and envy, and is determied to hold them down.

Like Hitler, he seeks to portray the indegenous peoples of the South east as this pure breed of people whose stark purity has never and must never be diluted by cross breeding with the rest of the world, especially Yoruba and Hausa/ Fulani. It is a flattering narrative, one which necessarily seduces his air headed fans.

It is also a faulty   narrative . Beyond sounding pompous and self important, Kanu has been unable to propound any real -let alone profound – solutions to the very glaring needs confronting the South east as well as the rest of the nation. And because the IPOB founder has no regard for facts, he   is unable to appreciate the contributions made by the people of the other geopolitical zones in the country to the collective.

This is not surprising in the least, since he pays no mind to the background to several issues which he rashly and ignorantly pours petrol upon. The fire spreads rapidly and gets the desired results. He is glad.

One of his most dangerous theories is that the “Igbo man” developed Lagos by his dexterity in commerce. On the contrary, the colonialists came and found Lagos an already thriving major city   which was a veritable nerve center for commerce. It was also a vastly cosmopolitan city which boasted incredible diversity. Apart from the Edo, the Awori and Ilaje which constituted the indigenous population at the time, Tapa, Hausa and the Efik were already present there.

In addition, the Portuguese, Saro and Brazilians were not only doing business in Lagos, they were living, building houses and settling down there. By the dawn of the twentieth century, while the rest of Nigeria dozed on, Lagos switched on her first street lights.

Even in more modern times, Lagos remains the nation’s industrial hub and center of commerce. Not surprisingly, the coutry’s most important port is here, and is about to fade into irrelevance as residents groan under the pressure of being at the gateway through which the entire country gets   its supplies.

Two new ports are under construction in Ibeju Lekki and Badagry respectively. They have nothing to do with the Federal Government but are set to surpass Apapa port by every standard.

In the worst of times Lagos continues to attract investment from everywhere because her arms remain wide open in welcome to visitors. Kanu and his followers should pursue this in earnest but healthy competition rather than whipping up a storm over some non existent advantage given to Lagos by the Federal Government.

This is an age that is no respecter of location, and Nnamdi Kanu and his ilk will do well to brush up their history books, if they own any.

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