Open Letter To Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

Dear Femi,
I was drawn to this conversation when I stumbled into Dr Samuel Okafor’s article debunking the claims you made in your rather spurious article titled “The bitter truth about the Igbo”. Somehow, Dr Okafor inadvertently followed your lead even though his intention was to tackle you shoulder-to-shoulder on your claims. I am not going to follow your lead. But I will tell you what actually happened and hope that you will still reconsider your position after reading this and continue with your original plan to have the country restructured.

I must tell you, Femi, that you are one of the very few men I have always had a lot of regard for, not only because you are married to one of the very beautiful Igbo women I would consider any day as my sister, but more so because both of us write for the Nigerian Voice and Modern Ghana newspapers and the Sahara Reporters. If I should say that in a private capacity I am fond of you, it would be the truth.

Yet, despite the fact that I like you a lot or perhaps because of it, it is sometimes worrying for me to watch a man of your pedigree who is expected to build bridges of friendship to positively facilitate the country’s rather lousy march towards true democracy being more preoccupied with fanning the embers of tribal mischief.

The true situation about Lagos is that when Nigerians and even non-Nigerians insinuate that it is “no man’s land”, it does not mean that every Nigerian who lives in Lagos migrated at the same time or that they all have the same social status in the land.

One fact that is obvious though is that nearly every Lagosian migrated from somewhere else. But while some families have lived in Lagos for four, five, six generations, others are just new in the place. But that is not even the issue here. The issue is that Lagos was the capital city of Nigeria until General Babangida implemented the idea of creating a new federal capital, now Abuja.

Most Nigerians are not in a hurry to forget that by the time Nigeria had self rule in 1960, Lagos was both the commercial nerve centre and the federal capital territory of our country. Lagos had always been a commercially thriving coastal city which held massive attractions for traders and business men and women from many parts of the world. Lagos swarmed with people.

Being a coastal city, men and women arrived from all nooks and crannies of the world to add to the glamorous night life that made Lagos tick. And as a result, traders of all shades and business men and women of all persuasions trooped into Lagos in their droves from other parts of the country too, to make money. Lagos thrived like a beehive. And that was when the idea of Lagos becoming “no man’s land” was hatched. It meant no harm, either to the original Yoruba owners of the land or the subsequent Yoruba settlers or to the settlers who came from other parts of the world.

When with time, Lagos became congested, the city began to find it difficult to accommodate the teeming number of people who came in daily to live and do business in the land. The infrastructure became over-used and consequently became inadequate for the swarming population that thronged into the city. Expansion became a necessity. And so was the urge to separate the seat of government from the commercial nerve centre.

When the military government of General Yakubu Gowon was toppled in a military putsch on 29 July 1975, the new military Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed had appointed a panel to evaluate the possibility of relocating the federal capital. The panel had approved a relocation of the federal capital and seat of government and recommended that while the seat of government should be moved to a new location, Lagos should remain as the commercial nerve centre of the country.

Government officials immediately set out to study world capitals. They looked at Brasília, the new capital of Brazil. They visited Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. They went to Paris, the capital of France and to Washington D.C., the capital of the United States of America. Nigeria was looking for a central place to build a new national capital where its citizens would be equally represented in their entirety. Like Lagos, the new territory was to have favourable climate conditions, vast acres of land and plenty of water.

In 1976, after Abuja was chosen as the land for the new national capital, General Murtala Mohammed spoke to the nation in what encapsulated the seeming controversy about Lagos, the first national capital.

He said about Abuja: “We believe that a new federal capital territory created on such virgin lands will be for all Nigerians a symbol of their oneness and unity. The federal capital territory will belong to all Nigerians.” General Murtala Mohammed predicted a new era of “justice, peace and unity” for all Nigerians. But seven days later, he was assassinated. As a soldier, General Mohammed made the supreme sacrifice for what he believed in. Looking at Abuja today, we see a modern city sprawling with high rises and a lush topography no one would have thought possible only a few years before.

As the capital city of their country, Nigerian citizens still refer to Abuja as “no man’s land”, just as they referred to Lagos when Lagos was their federal capital territory. The federal capital territory is always designed to be for all Nigerians a symbol of their oneness and unity. The federal capital territory is meant to belong to all Nigerians. First it was Lagos. Now, it is Abuja. And what could possibly be so wrong with that? When the Yoruba insist that Lagos belongs solely to them, who between them and the Igbo is actually misinterpreting the law of the land here?

I am not being harsh or difficult. But I am baffled and somewhat disappointed that educated historians like you cannot easily preach this gospel of national unity to your less informed Yoruba kith and kin. It is not only unfortunate, it smacks of your proclivity towards tribalism even when you know that Lagos remains the commercial nerve centre of the country. And should a man with your level of education and exposure, despite marrying across your own tribe, advocate for tribal supremacy, where does that leave the rest of us professionals who have worked all our lives to support the political class in Nigeria to try and build Nigeria and its citizens into a formidably strong, populous nation, united by their ‘one love’ slogan?

In fact, when in January we heard about the handshake across the Niger proposal in London, we wondered. Was it possible that the Igbo and Yoruba would one day sit in one room to table and mutually discuss the future of Nigeria as it was happening to them? We adopted a wait-and-see attitude. But when it became official that elders of Ohaneze and Afanifere, their youths, their royal fathers, their governors, the women – in fact, all stakeholders in the Nigerian experiment who hailed from South of the country – were to meet in Enugu on 11 January 2018 many of us in the Diaspora were more or less excited about a new viable future for Nigeria that would emanate from the ashes of that meeting.

You were there. You spoke admirably and eloquently on the ordeal the Igbo had been forced to pass through over the years and insisted that the days of fear were over and that either the present government was willing to restructure the country in its present context or Nigeria would seize to exist as it is known today.

At Enugu, the Southern Nigerians who attended the meeting rubbed minds and exchanged ideas on the way forward in the current political dispensation. You deliberated on whether the people of Southern Nigeria still had a voice in determining how the future of Nigeria should be shaped. You must have also discussed the possibility of restructuring Nigeria in its present context and come to a consensus.

Here in London many Southern Nigerians were thumbs up for the attempt. But some of us received the news with mixed feelings of excitement and caution. We were excited because we felt that our people of Southern Nigeria were at last beginning to shake off their long, deep slumber. Every day, we heard news about very ugly and unpleasant events happening in Nigeria. We heard, especially, of the daily killings of tens and hundreds of Nigerians in the North East either by Boko Haram or Fulani herdsmen or some local vigilante group. We heard of the government’s reluctant response to the situations on the ground. We heard of the people’s frustration and subsequent self-resignation to the violent whims and caprices and the ever threatening presence of terrorists among them.

We were surprised that the leaders of Eastern and Western Nigeria had not thought it necessary to intercede in the conflict that was threatening to crush the country and bring it on its knees. So, if at last they agreed to come together in unison to look into what the problem could be with Nigeria, it was sufficient reason to be excited. But then, some of us from the South East were also cautious. From our very personal experiences, most people from the South East would be willing to tell anyone who cared to listen that people from the West were as slippery as jelly. They could betray their friend, even to an enemy. The South Easterners believed that with all the power the North wields in the present government, occupying all the major security posts in the country, they would be simply taking a huge risk discussing the future of Nigeria’s ethnic components with a people they could scarcely trust.

Your people, on the other hand, also distrusted the Igbo. They could have seen them as somewhat dominating, especially in business, and were afraid that any dealings with them would be like subjecting themselves willingly to Igbo domination. And in that sense, they would prefer the Hausa-Fulani alliance where they would be surer of superior grounds in terms of education and enterprise.

Against this backdrop, one Yoruba commentator in the social media posted a soul-searching analysis of what he considered as the Yoruba position titled “Sad Yoruba Nation?”

In that post, the anonymous writer who virtually summarised the situation that had hitherto forestalled the coming together of the Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups asked: “Did the Igbo put guns on anybody’s head before buying up Alaba, Ajegunle, Isolo and Oshodi in Lagos? Did they use juju before Ibadan surrendered Iwo Road to them? And what were we (Yoruba) looking at before the Igbo took over Isida and Adeti in Ilesa? Where were the Yoruba when the Igbo thrived and built 90% of the hotels in Abuja? Was there a law that excluded Yoruba from selling building materials? Dei Dei Building Materials Market in Abuja is 90% Igbo-owned. So, the more we point one finger at the Igbo, the more we have the other four fingers pointing at our laziness and lack of initiative as a society. The Yoruba should have been better with all our education, but we may be worse than the Fulani who just roam about the bush. Why? It is because we lack the entrepreneurship spirit. We just want salaries from doing 8 am to 5 pm jobs. The Igbo are different hence we are now jealous and envious. We love wasteful parties and Aso Ebi. Just a little business without even making any profit, yet we usually call musicians and spray money like confetti.” That was a Yoruba. Sincere, almost to a fault, you might say.

Despite this and similar situations, we were encouraged when those who attended the handshake across the Niger meeting said it went well. They said people came with an open heart. They came in expectation, like bosom friends who were meeting again after losing contact in a long, long while. You were there, Femi. You sounded like a nationalist then. So, one would have expected a “return match” after the first handshake across the Niger. You, as a Yoruba front liner should have called a follow-up meeting after the one held in Enugu. But, no, you did not see the need! There was not going to be a follow-up after the first handshake and today your kinsmen and you appear to be dancing to a different tune.

One thing we must all understand, Femi, is that Nigerians already know that tribal leadership is what pays Nigerian politicians better. That is why Nigerian politicians have deliberately and criminally suppressed any attempt to fuse the different ethnic groups into a nationality in practice. That is also probably why eight months later you slide back to discuss the frivolous idea of Lagos being no-man’s land and assert Yoruba personal ownership of the former federal capital territory as if Lagos was not once the federal capital territory of Nigeria. And you seize the opportunity to lambast innocent Igbo people for being who they should be.

Of course the only ethnic group that can unite the country and give it a deserving place in the comity of nations is the Igbo. To put the records straight, when Nigeria attained independence from Britain, Nigerian politicians managed the country. Political alliances were forged. But just two years into Nigerian independence, trouble started. The crisis that erupted between Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group Party and Chief Samuel Akintola who was also in the party led to the 1962 State of Emergency in the Western Region. It is well documented and has become part of the dark spots in the country’s history. Both Awolowo and Akintola were Western Nigerians.

Many Nigerians knew that the disagreement that erupted during the Annual Congress of the Action Group in Jos, Northern Nigeria on 2 February 1962 was not a sudden event. The misunderstanding was not like it was goaded by the spur of the moment instincts of the state actors. It had been building up, gradually but steadily, soon after Nigeria was granted self rule by the British. It was the political battle that laid the foundation of all other battles that have continued to bedevil the entire Nigerian political horizon ever since. So, we can confidently assert that it was the Yoruba who created the condition that attracted the military to disrupt the democratic process in Nigeria, subsequently ushering in mediocre state actors who have had only one mission ever since then – to milk the national economy dry.

We now know that when the British left, even the army felt liberated. The political alliances in the country and even the army formation at the time were like normal people, always eager to manifest their new-found strengths and relevance in the new dispensation.

We also know that within the political parties, there were personal ambitions on the part of the politicians which led to scheming and manipulations. There was a desire to consummate those ambitions expeditiously, which led to impatience. There was the fact that not many of the politicians thought that building up a nation would take time and patience. There was insensitivity on the part of the politicians flouting their wealth and big new cars in public which was not a part of the British legacy and which attracted public disgust and opprobrium. And so, idealism came in conflict with realism.

In both army and political circles, there was courage and there was cowardice that culminated in betrayals. There was intellectual leadership and there was financial leadership, both attracting their followers. There was hate and there was love, sometimes manifest and at other times covert. There was magnanimity and there was pettiness that fanned self aggrandisement on the part of the political class. And so, there was trust and there was mutual suspicion within the polity.

The fact of the story is that the deteriorating political situation in the West had far reaching effects. One of those effects was that it gave rise to a new dimension in the vision of the khaki boys in the Nigerian Army. In that chaos, Igbo boys in the Nigerian army saw both a loophole and a possibility. And they began to nurse the ambition of the Igbo being the ones who should step into the shoes of the British colonial masters, now that they had left. Majors Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna who masterminded the first coup that unseated the First Republic were both Igbo who grew up in the North. They knew the terrain and the relationship between the Easterners and the Northerners very well.

For the records also, it is important to note that these army boys were very decent about their ambition. They meant to maintain the standards the country inherited from Britain – the civil service structure, the economic activities, the agricultural enterprises, the roads maintenance and other infrastructure and if possible, improve upon them for Nigerians irrespective of whether they came from the East or the West or the North, just the same way the British would have done.

Their ambition was nursed by the fact that throughout the country at that time, the Igbo were the ones occupying all the viable positions in the country just the same way as Asians are doing in contemporary United Kingdom. They were there in the banks as workers and managers. They were there in schools as students and teachers. They were there in the markets as business men and women. They were there in the civil service as staff and permanent secretaries. They were there in the transportation industry. They were there in the hospitality industry. In Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, wherever you went, the Igbo practically dominated the national economy. And for that reason, the Igbo boys in the army convinced themselves that only the Igbo could conveniently step into the shoes of the British and rule Nigeria with equity and the fear of God. And they became committed to this objective.

However, the objective was a sort of internal arrangement. They couldn’t possibly disclose this to those non-Igbo colleagues of theirs with whom they planned to embark on the first coup de tat Nigeria was to experience. It was their internal arrangement which no outsider was to know about. But they still had to enlist the support of their military colleagues. And together they sacked the government of President Nnamdi Azikiwe and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa thereby redirecting the political and military focus of the country.

In the North, key political actors like the Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello and the first Nigerian Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa were murdered in the coup. In the West, some key actors like Chief Samuel Akintola and Chief Festus Okotie Eboh, the Minister of Finance were also killed. But in the East, principal actors like Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr Akanu Ibiam and Dr Michael Okpara who the coup plotters had slated for death were not seen at home when the army boys went for the operation. It was strongly suspected that the plan had been leaked to them. So, not one Igbo leader was touched during that first coup.

This situation could have corroborated the internal plan of the Igbo military officers to get the Igbo to step into the shoes of the white man who was now gone. They saw that the cap fitted and were eager to wear it. So, the highest ranking army officer, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi was installed Head of State after the coup. Ironsi was an Igbo, from Umuahia. But the plan back-fired after those they executed the coup with now had an afterthought. Not one Igbo leader was killed during the coup. It was then construed that it was an Igbo coup and the Northerners staged a counter-coup.

Subsequent coups that culminated in the unstable position Nigeria finds itself at this time manifested all the threats we have already noted: courage and cowardice, betrayals, scheming and manipulations, mutual trust and mutual suspicions, and so on. All these led to distrust, the killing of Easterners in the North and the subsequent declaration of Biafra by the Igbo and the war that followed. But on January 15, 1970, Biafra surrendered.

Now, dear Femi, we need to do a little bit of reflection and ask ourselves some pertinent questions. For instance: was it mere coincidence that the first coup was staged by Igbo majors Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna on 15 January and despite everything that happened, the genocide and the war, Biafra surrendered and the war ended on January 15? Was January 15 mere coincidence or was the hand of God in all of this? And rather than continue to run after the shadow, can the Igbo and their Yoruba brothers now come together to salvage Nigeria from total collapse? Together, they are the only ones who can do this.

This, I believe is the truth about the matter. As Abuja remains the federal capital territory and by design ‘no man’s land’ so also will Lagos remain the commercial nerve centre of the country and ‘no man’s land’ also by design. Both cities will continue to remain for Nigerians a symbol of their oneness and unity. To become petty about this relationship will not help anyone. And I think that many of us, Nigerians in the Diaspora, expect much more from you, dear Femi, than the sentiments of a tribal leader you tend to exhibit. Remain blessed.

Chief Sir Emeka Asinugo, KSC

• Mr Asinugo is a London-based journalist, author of “The Presidential Years: From Dr. Jonathan to Gen. Buhari” and publisher of Imo State Business Link Magazine (imostateblm.com)