What Exactly Do We Gain By Peddling Ethnicity? -By Oluseun Onigbinde

The Lagos narrative around ethnicity is so shameful and hurts a lot. And maybe it’s time that we really start remembering where exactly we come from. I have been pondering well. You know where – Ile Asipa Masifa Ogbomoso.

I have tried to create jobs, and at least we have 25 people paying taxes to government every month. If I ask for accountability on such taxes, I don’t get an answer. That pisses me off. Folks say we refuse to demand accountability with our detachment from oil, but what of those now paying taxes?

When we should be debating issues, it’s about tensions rising around ethnicity. Did this whole ethnicity not start when some folks were told that they would be drown in the Lagoon? Did anyone speak up? Look at the map? Don’t they all have their family in safety of public office? Wasn’t there a video recently with threats on Igbo at a party meeting? Ogbomoso folks usually vote PDP, are they are Igbos too?

What exactly do we gain by peddling ethnicity? Can people of Yoruba origin lay full claim to the progress of Lagos or do we think Lagos will have the concentration of formal workers and its financial district appeal without being the capital of the FG?

As usual we are distracted from the issues of Lagos – a Visionscape that was guaranteed with state bonds, two tolls gates without public accountability, a 27km rail line taking almost a decade, opaque contracting, hellhole inner roads, huge projects by Ambode that he won’t likely finish, parallel taxation system known as agberos, underequipped health centres (Franca, God rest your soul), poor education, traffic etc.

I don’t believe in ethnic discrimination. It’s the greasy hold to manipulate naive people. Those who have helped me in life, didn’t think of region, tribe or race. Why would I discriminate against others? We can make our ethnic origin, our culture and identity but in a country forged as an independent entity, should that be our card for discrimination? When does it work and when does it not work? Aren’t we suppose to be better? A step ahead?

I remembered landing from Abuja and looking through a sea of heads, trying to find a driver. I accepted a man to take me. Next thing, another man started abusing me, speaking in Yoruba, why I should have given him preference. I was disgusted. Just think about if I later followed the Yoruba man, what seed would I have planted in the heart of the first guy, who I believe is from Akwa Ibom? This crass ethnicity that we started in 1960s has not helped us because fractured countries (implicitly or explicitly) don’t scale.

But, we know that politics is what really carves out the intention of hearts. With this flow of ethnicity rolling around, and it will get louder towards 2023, the work of the gods is made easier, watching how the foot of the food chain, poison themselves.