Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has expressed displeasure over the raging controversies surrounding the argument of who owns Lagos, describing such development as disheartening, shameful, embarrassing, disgraceful, and unpatriotic at a time when Nigerians are going through economic hardship.
George, a Lagos indigene and who is also the Atona Oodua of Yoruba land, said this in a signed statement titled: “Ownership of Lagos: Enough of this needless distraction,” a copy of which was made available to newsmen on Tuesday, in reaction to the recent statement by the Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II, who was recently in Lagos on a visit, saying that the Binis founded Lagos.
This was just Chief George also took on the statement credited to Chief Emmanuel Nwuanyanwun, President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the socio-cultural organization of the Igbo, claiming that Igbo developed Lagos, which met as a swampy terrain to what it is today.
George described the claim as laughable, warning that people should just keep their peace if they don’t have anything to say.
George declared pointedly that the controversy which “some elders are infatuated with” was obviously a diversionary issue and uncalled for “at a time like this when Lagosians and Nigerians are going through economic hardship, adding: “What a distraction! What a disturbance! What a perturbation!”
“It is shameful that at a time millions of Nigerians are going through anguish and extreme pain, some elders are flexing muscles on proprietorship of the Centre of Excellence.
“The question to ask is: What exactly is the intention of these agitators?
“The whole gamut of argument about the ownership of Lagos is not of any importance to patriotic Nigerians at this crucial time. Obviously, it is just a diversionary issue,” he said.
According to him, all these combatants and gladiators should know that all efforts, at this trying time, should be geared at ensuring good governance, how to tackle economic issues, and take people out of poverty, saying that efforts at this time should be about how to put food on people’s table; get them out of abject poverty they were into, among others.
“All these combatants and gladiators should know that all efforts, at this trying time, should be geared at ensuring good governance, how to tackle economic issues and take people out of poverty, how to put food on their table; how to get the people out of abject poverty they are into; how to tackle the insecurity plaguing the country and how to deliver good healthcare to Nigerians whose lives are being cut short by the lack of a good health care system.
“Anything short of all these is a complete waste of time.
“Pitiably, the ship of the nation is currently drifting, yet the issue of who is the rightful owner Lagos is what some people prefer to discuss. What a pity!” George stated.
“As a bonafide Lagosian, I say without any sense of equivocation that Lagos has been, and would remain, a center of commerce, which has allowed everybody to settle down here. It is not in our tradition to discriminate. People settle down from all over Nigeria and from the entire West African coast from time immemorial – a culture which has remained with Lagos and the city of Kano, the only two cities known for commerce in Nigeria.
“People are presently angered, thus the rhetoric about who truly owns Lagos has gained momentum but we know ourselves.
“No matter how twisted the narrative, Nigerians know the truth,” he added.
Speaking further, the PDP chieftain said it was true the Bini were here in Lagos the earliest time, but quickly added it was temporary and not that they “conquered Lagos like the colonial imperialists, as it is being bandied about.”
This was just as he noted that intermarriage had also overshadowed a lot of things, pointing out that the only sister of “my paternal father married a Benin man and gave birth to all my cousins, who are all in their 70s and 60s.
Text of the statement read:
“They have spent the greater part of their lives in Lagos. We should stop dissipating energies on a frivolous issue like the original owners of Lagos; rather, governance should take center stage, how to improve the lives of the ordinary Nigerian without making the Center of Excellence lose its candor as a commercial Nerve Center of the West African sub-region.
“It is rather most disheartening for the government to encourage the people to engage in a frivolous narrative about founders of Lagos, a debate triggered by the comments freely expressed by a traditional ruler, who himself did not choose the tribe he originated from.
“I say, enough of engaging in such a diversionary issue as nobody created him or herself to be a Bini, Hausa, Igbo, Itsekiri, Kanuri, Fulani, Ijaw, or Yoruba. We are all humans.
“What should be of utmost concern at this critical period of despondency is how to make life meaningful to all and sundry.
“Nigerians should refuse to be divided by diversion.”
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