In this concluding part of last week’s discussion, I continue from where I stopped by noting that the moment traders from other markets in Lagos were relocated to the Trade Fair Complex, from then was the vision that animated the establishment of the Complex corrupted. The influx of traders from different markets in Lagos signaled its transition from an international exhibition venue, a trade fair, to an ordinary, traditional market, where even contraband goods are openly hawked and bought. Disregarding what the law said the place should be used for was one step away from disregarding the regulations that guided the physical planning of the venue, setting off the structural impunity that is proving intractable today.
Even where physical planning regulations have been grossly violated, to execute demolitions in such fully-built areas like Lekki, the Trade Fair Complex and Mandilas Market in Lagos Island, would appear both profligate and inhumane, hence the argument: what were the authorities doing when these structures were being erected? But there would always be corrupt Nigerians, including state officials as well as owners of properties ready to cut corners. There is also the aspect of how identity, which has trademarked the politics of Lagos in the last three years, can be manipulated for self-serving purposes. What is often reported is how the Lagos State government has targeted non-indigenes, specifically the Igbo, in terms of policy implementation.
It is as if the Igbo are the only traders and business people in Lagos. In the unlikely situation that other ethnic Nigerians have ceded the business places in Lagos to the Igbo, is it also plausible that there are no Yoruba traders in these places where demolitions have occurred? Which is another way of saying that, in the emotive narratives of demolitions in Lagos, what is far less reported is how the Igbo, in the specific instance of traders, could be manipulating their status as non-indigenes to seek unfair advantages and disregard extant regulations and laws by appropriating the entire narratives concerning demolitions to themselves and reducing the argument to one of ethnic profiling and discrimination.
The issue is also complicated by the status of Lagos as a former capital of Nigeria. Unlike Abuja where the indigenous population was bought out and compensated, the indigenous Yoruba population of Lagos was never compensated for the appropriation/use of their land and this came with both advantages and disadvantages that cannot be examined here. It was not the first or only capital of Nigeria (Lokoja and Calabar are former capitals even if we ignore regional capitals like Ibadan, Kaduna and Enugu), but some people like to claim that Lagos owes its growth and development basically to this fact, forgetting its status as a coastal town that has served as a trading hub for the Yoruba hinterland and the world beyond since the 14th century.
That Lagos was the seat of government has led to a situation where the narratives surrounding recent demolitions in the state have been woven and reinforced around ethnicity. This is largely because Lagos itself has been seen by some as a contested locale and the narratives around it have been staged as one between its indigenous owners and settlers from other parts, basically the Igbo. On the issues of indigeneity and the ownership of Lagos in the modern era, the Igbo led by foremost nationalist Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, have championed that cause. While other Nigerians may have made similar argument, no other Nigerian ethnicity has been more focused or driven by concerns about the ownership of Lagos or separating Lagos from the greater Yoruba nation than the Igbo. This is the fissure that some politicians, notably Mr. Peter Obi in recent times, are widening and playing into for selfish reasons.
I make this point about some Igbo people’s fixation on Lagos not as an indictment of the Igbo but as a matter of historical verity in an effort to get to the root of the present problem and proffering a lasting solution to it. Given how the Lagos State government has been harping on the urgency of property owners at the Trade Fair to regularise their documents, it is also clear that their action is to some extent revenue-driven. Otherwise, how does perfecting a document correct a structural defect; how does it ‘regularise’ a structure erected on, say, drainages or areas mapped out for purposes other than that to which they have been put?
Why would property owners at the Trade Fair Complex spurn the need to perfect their documents? Perhaps because the space is owned by the Federal Government and, as they claim, under the control of the Federal Housing Authority that has remained stoically silent so far. The matter would not be resolved by the likes of Peter Obi who is the aggrieved owner of about two hundred stalls/stores in the Trade Fair. The conflict of interest is obvious in addition to his being a politician, indeed a demagogue, whose specialty is unnecessary escalation of issues he reduces to a tweet. It is why his interventions are achieving nothing and he is not taken seriously. What came out of his so-called brother’s property demolition case last June?
In the latest case, he went straight to ASPAMDA to stir the traders and returned a week later with a tweet of appeal to the Lagos State government to ‘temper justice with mercy’. This seems as an admission of guilt despite Obi’s winding explanation. He is back again this week with another call on states demolishing properties. He should stop being Toloki, the professional mourner in Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying. Can’t he engage beyond tweets? Why did he not make his appeal to Babajide Sanwo-Olu before going to ASPAMDA? His action was unnecessarily provocative and it is no wonder that he has been ignored by Alausa. Could he have gone to any Northern Nigerian state like that? But he did that in Lagos obviously because he shares the no-man’s-land narrative about Lagos.
The Igbo response to this situation should be clear-eyed. The traders, individually or collectively, should ignore the politicians that have sowed distrust in state institutions and approach the courts and other impartial arbiters once they are sure of their case. Is it not curious that none of them have considered this option? Or is there more to it? Otherwise, their state governors can approach their counterpart in Lagos with the perfected documents of the property owners to show why their property should not be demolished. Where necessary, their self-appointed negotiators can plead for clemency and come to an amicable settlement. For as long as Mmesoma Ejikeme had supporters willing to ethnicise her issue, for so long was she adamant. Let us for once give truth, not emotion, a chance.
The post How the Igbo should respond to the demolitions in Lagos, by Rotimi Fasan appeared first on Vanguard News.
