The People That Started The Verbal Exchange Between The Igbos & Yorubas -By Azuka Onwuka

Can we agree on these facts?

1. It was not the Oba of Lagos that started this particular verbal exchange between the Igbos and Yorubas.

2. It was not Jimi Agbaje that started it.

3. It was not Mr Babatunde Fashola’s 2013 “deportation” of some Igbos that started it.
4. It was not the talk about Lagos being a no man’s land that caused it.

5. It was not the talk that Igbos need to show respect to their Lagos hosts that caused it.

6. It was thugs allegedly sent by APC leaders in Lagos to disrupt elections in areas with high Igbo population, who told Igbos to go back to their states and vote, that started it.

7. During the build-up to the presidential/National Assembly elections on February 23, 2019, there was no altercation between Igbos and Yorubas about Lagos being a no man’s land or not, or whether Igbos were grateful or disrespectful to Yorubas or not, and the like.

8. Rather than deviate from the issue at hand, we should focus on what caused this present problem and ask:

I. Do Igbos (like all Nigerians) have a right to vote for the candidates of their choice in Lagos or any part of Nigeria?

II. Does the fact that the majority of an ethnic group choose to vote for candidates of their choice as opposed to the choice of the majority of the indigenous ethnic group equate to a declaration of war or an attempt to illegally grab the land of another part of the nation?

III. Is it proper for a people to be attacked and their votes burnt on election day because they are not indigenes of the place they reside?

IV. Is it right for a people to be told to go back to their state of origin to vote in their own country?

9. Please let us not muddle this issue up with extraneous issues in a bid to take attention away from the fundamental issue at stake.

10. The questions above require simple answers.