We are not behind #IgboMustGo call, says Lagos group

It is reckless, according to the sociocultural organization DeRenaissance Patriots Foundation, to associate it with the #IgbosMustLeaveLagos movement.

It stated that the organization is not a far-right Yoruba group, but rather a very respectable and well-respected socio-cultural organization in Lagos.

According to a statement from its media office, one of the organization’s goals is to promote social and cultural values and foster conditions that allow state residents, especially those who are native to the area, to actively participate in state affairs.

The statement reads: ”Our attention has been drawn to an article published in a national paper, where they wrote that, “The Lagos De Renaissance Patriots want to develop indigenous culture, use indigenous language and allow indigenes to reclaim the Lagos government. Ethnic Eko, who think other Yoruba are “atohunrinwa” aliens, should know that Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja and Epe divisions were excised from Western Nigeria by General Yakubu Gowon to join Eko that was colonized in 1861.

“And that the Western Region Governments led by Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola developed Ikeja, Apapa and Ilupeju industrial parks of the Western Region that the military further splintered into unviable beggar states. To be sure, far-right politics is not peculiar in Nigeria. The Make America Great Again movement, led by former American President Donald Trump, is the antiseptic public face of racist and far-right Ku Klux Klan, Proud Boys and QAnon.”

“First, we take an exception to the tag of far-right on De Renaissance Patriots Foundation. As a socio-cultural group of very senior eminent citizens of Nigeria that have been culturally and constitutionally blessed with indigeneship of Lagos State, we consider such uncharitable, wicked and unguarded use of vulgar language as unacceptable. That vitriolic name tag of far-right on these very responsible citizens does not show sensibility on the members of De Renaissance Patriots Foundation. We are not far-right in ideological description.”