Rwanda Genocide
cenotaph; Oluomo, the enforcer Ofordile Stabbed after voting at Ajah
Because the
sentence on the evil doer is not carried out on the instant, people’s heart are
full of the desire to do wrong; because the sinner does evil 100 times and
survives! (Ecclesistes,8:11).
I did not want to ‘go
to’ Rwanda this week. Indeed,
since my desire to undertake a tour of Rwanda collapsed due to ‘pocketities’(despite
a discount granted by one of my compatriots), the country has been far from my
mind. I had wanted to write on the Obi-Effect; how a single,
simple, unassuming fellow has, without prior notice, turned our structured and
predicable political ecosystem upside down and turned some political
heavyweights into paperweights overnight! However, I changed my mind
after a brief interaction with my
colleague and next-door neighbour at the office, who came in to exchange greetings
with me on 20/3/23. I had told him that
all was well, except what is happening to ‘us’ at Lagos. And he said ‘but
you people caused it’. To say that I was shocked was an understatement.
That meant that since we ‘caused it’, whatever happened thereafter was OK. In
effect, good for you! I
recovered from my discomfiture within the twinkling of an eye and asked him how
we cause it and he replied, it is said that you people said that Lagos is
a no man’s land! I prefaced it with ‘it is said’ because,
no onye-Igbo told him so directly; it was what he must have heard
in the market square! When he saw the expression of disappointment in my face,
he clarified, as an afterthought ‘I am not saying whether what they are doing is right or wrong’. I told
him that he had made his point and I left it at that. Of course, you know very
well that the ‘they’ referred to some misguided Yoruba fellows and ‘you people/us’
referred to Nd’Igbo, in Lagos who in this instance refers to
anybody who is a trader, obviously not Yoruba,
does not live at Idi-Araba axis of Lagos, and is neither a BATist
nor a BATian sympathiser.
In 1966, one thing
led to another and a coup engineered by some soldiers, who thought they were
doing the country a favour occurred. The putsch, which included co-conspirators
from across the country, and had the
objective of crowning the detained Awo,
the Prime Minister, was branded an Igbo-Coup. And suddenly,
people who were initially ecstatic about
the coup, were programmed into violence by the Northern
establishment, (government officials, traditional institutions and those
paid to protect the people),
which organised, sponsored and coordinated the gruesome butchery
of Ndi-Igbo in the most cruel and macabre manner ever seen. The
definition of Igbos was initially elastic and included everybody beyond Benue
State. Undertaken by known soldiers
and the usual highly inflammable Hausa mobs, the most conservative estimate of
the dead was 60,000. Funny enough, that’s how the current season of
coordinated lawlessness in Lagos played out: those who should do something or say something took
sides and ‘Igboness’ became an elastic concept.
The Igbos reluctantly left for home but were not allowed to
be because a week-long police action was initiated to
force them back, which dovetailed into the Biafran war of
Independence. Eventually it became an ‘ogu-ikpu’(
war of all against one) and turned into the 3 year old civil war in which we lost about
3m people mostly through starvation. We were not accepted and we were not
allowed to go! And since we
pretended that nothing happened, nothing was done officially beyond Gowon’s RRR programe neither genuine
in intention or sincere in prosecution.
As at today, the government never set up any enquiry; nobody was held
accountable and nobody was punished. As my colleague just told me, it was
caused by nd’Igbo and they should bear their cross!
24 years after the
failed Biafran war of liberation, Rwanda went up in flames. It was the Hutus( poor, majority) against the Tutsis( wealth, ruling class, minority); culturally
the same people with wealth as the key distinguishing factor. About 800000
Tutsis,(70% of them) moderate Hutus and Twas
were slaughtered in the 100 days of rag!
The world and Rwanda took coordinated steps to bring a closure to the sad incident, engaged in a sustained drive to promote national unity and reconciliation and took
steps to prevent its recurrence, including a new flag and an anthem, which
refers to citizens as Rwandans, not
Tutsis and Hutus. The UN established the
International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda while the government
established
the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide It also holds an annual weekly
celebration themed ‘never again’ involving Walk to Remember, a night vigil and remembrance
ceremony . Those
responsible, including politicians lawyers, soldiers, journalists and ordinary
folks were tried and punished, with a good number receiving death sentences.
One of masterminds, Mr Kabuda, was arrested in June, 2020, 26 years after the
event! Compare this with Nigeria where the victims are blamed (as my
fried has just done) and nobody ever answered any questions. I was
touched that Rwanda, which had only 800000 deaths, took concrete steps at reconciliation
and prevention, and has an annual remembrance for the event but Nigeria which
lost more than 3m did nothing. After
reading about this memorial in 2020, I decided to identify my townsmen who died
fighting in the war and construct a cenotaph for. However, the project is in abeyance for now
due to some domestic dynamics.
Unfortunately, and
with our eyes wide open, we are taking the expressway to Rwanda via
unrestrained ethnic profiling and syndicated brigandage against those with ‘contrary
spirits’. We all know how the Obi Tsunami of 25/2/23 shook those who
thought they had unshakable hold on Lagos politics. Now rather than
strategizing on how to win the electoral battle for Lagos, they turned it into
a 2023 Igbo-Yoruba war with the singsong that Igbos were
disrespectful and were scheming to take over Lagos. As I explained earlier, every
non-BATist became onye-Igbo.
They forget that people like Joe
Igbokwe, who weeps more than the bereaved, Mazi Idimogu, and one Eze Monday Obijiogu, who
holds a dozen ‘Taiwan’ titles in Lagos,
in addition to being the distinguished
Asst Welfare Officer for APC Constituency1 in Mushin, members of the infamous
G50 and the various Sanwolu ka anyi ga eso come-and-chop groups are unrepentant APCians. They also forgot that a
good number of disgruntled politicians and civil servants, some ‘original’ Lagosians, several non-Igbos and Yorubas voted against Tinubu. GRV, an original Yoruba-Lagosian,
Oworu, who contested against Desmond Eliot (who suddenly remembered that his
mother is Igbo) and even Tee Mac, all became Igbos.
Gallant
officer protecting these Nd’Igbo Of course,
MC Oluomo, the commandant of the BAT warriors, warned
those who would not vote APC to stay indoors on the election Day. You
recall that the Oba of Lagos had issued a similar threat before. Oluomo’s 1001 lieutenants went about Lagos
echoing their masters order. He later
said he was joking and the police announced that they were investigating the
matter. The chief BATist also made the condescending statement about people who come
into Lagos at age 12 with polythene bags,
who were accommodated kindly, and probably spoon-fed and then wanted to bite
the fingers that fed them. He had earlier preached that we should grab
power (by all means). The
traditional leaders fixed emergency oro festivals, held meetings at night on
how to contain the Igbos, and also passed threatening messages. The Baale of
Igbara in Etiosa LGA boldly declared that
we are ready to FIGHT the Igbo if they voted against APC. Fight? I
thought elections were won by votes induced by superior arguments?
Nelson,Yemi & Oworu: won in Taraba, not Yoruba enough. ID Card for 2027, not tatoos!
And so, on the
election day, all real and perceived Igbos, were beaten, broken, prevented from
voting and murdered. People who had cohabited peacefully with us suddenly became
hateful, bitter and murderous. We were subjected to coordinated and pre-planned ‘barefooted
brutality, repression and existential threats’ Even those who looked like Igbos suffered the
same fate… in an electoral contest between 3 Yorubas! Those who became emergency Igbos
included Dr Olawale Ogunlana, Iyanuoluwa
Bolarinwa and Sisi Yemi and her husband; they received the bitter concoction
prepared for Nd’Igbo. Thereafter, the BATist mobs descended on areas dominated
by the Igbos, burning, maiming, and breaking and unfortunately, supported by
policemen who were , clothed, fed, and armed with our money. The people in
government and members of the traditional class were also involved. Oluomo is a
public servant while at Sabo in Ojo LGA, a Baale
was not happy at the way his boys were doing it and he personally
scattered the ballot box and voting materials. Oba Afeez ofIbasa Riverline, bluntly
declared that ‘Igbo people are no longer allowed to participate in the
electoral process in Lagos State’ and supervised the brutalisation of
Eze Mozie who insisted on casting his vote. Incidentally, Mozie was the only
one arrested by our hard-working and neutral policemen and was eventually
granted bail on the sum of N50,000000!
Nothing had been heard about all those who assaulted him. Sure, what happened on 18/3/23 in Lagos in
particular was democracy at gunpoint: your vote or your life! They
did not even have the patience to give options; they went for peoples’ jugular.
It was mobocracy at its worst
Sanwo Olu, as the governor or as the
candidate, did not say anything. How could he when even in his own polling
unit, red-eyed agberos were shouting: If you are Igbo or PDP, get out!
BAT was so busy savouring his ‘victory’
that he did not know what happened but his official spokesman, Bayo Onanuga(
whom Abati described as a settler asking another settler to mind his
business) warned that it would be the last time that Igbos would
interfere in Lagos politics and that they should not try it in 2027. But on
2/9/18, Bayo Onanuga had posted a picture
he took at the Kigali Genocide memorial( the same Rwanda I just wrote
about) and noted how sober he was after spending 90 minutes there, recommending
the visit for ethnic champions and asking: ‘why do we hate a person
because he is not a member of our ethnic group’? Probably, it is not the same Onanuga or he had
just had a reverse Damascus-Road experience. It was after the deed, when they ‘had
what they wanted’ that Sanwolu warned against ethnic bigotry and
profiling while BAT called for healing.
If and when they mean it, I will know! And Onanuga has repented
and issued a very soothing rejoinder: “I don’t owe anyone any apology for addressing the
existential threats of our people. I am after all, first of all a Yoruba,
before being a Nigerian. In effect, If you don’t like
my views, jump into the nearest lagoon before you people sandfill all of them
But there are many
others designing, constructing and maintaining the expressway to Rwanda. Fani
Kayode, an anything-goes political jobber had asked Nd’Igbo to go
back to their home, declared that GRV could not govern Lagos because his mother
is Igbo( FFK has 4 boys mothered by an Igbo
wife), supported Onanuga’s legitimate concern of the ‘Ibo
community taking over our land’. He also spoke of Nd’Igbo ‘poking
their fingers into our eyes’ despite all the opportunities they were
offered, and which they could not offer Yoruba’s in ana-Igbo I don’t know how
many of his brothers had bothered to make a home in the east; how many of them
were discriminated against, oppressed, supressed or swindled of their money
over land deals or not allowed to buy lands or build houses. The loquacious
Reno accused my people of threatening violence(???) and demarketing Lagos and
ordered them to behave or relocate. How did he get involved in
this? One Rotimi Adeosun accused the Igbos, led by Peter Obi of trying to forcefully take over Lagos… by intimidation,
threats, propaganda and fielding a young
man by the name Chinedu.. who has strong sympathy for IPOB with the support of
his misguided, violent and aggressive supporters! FORCEFULLY? In this generation or in the
generation to come? It
‘pained’ him that Yorubas are too kind, accommodating and charitable! All
this just because GRV contested for the governorship of Lagos and because his
mother is our sister! There is Godooo!
And this is an election where an okoro-man,
one Mr Nelson, won an election in Taraba State! Of course, the
weponisation of Igbophobia is not a collective Yoruba affair. After
all, Nd’Igbo live in every hamlet in Yoruba Land. It is a strategy designed and
deployed for electoral gains by The Bourdillon Collective and
their subsidiary, The BATist Convention and it occurs every 4 years. Whenever they feel threatened,
they resort to negative profiling, whip up ethnic sentiments and top it up with
brute violence. This is how Hitler started and it is in tandem to with the
stages of Genocide as enunciated by Gregory Stanton of Genocide-Watch,
which includes classification, discrimination, preparation, extermination and
denial. We are now at the denial stage. The whole thing also followed the usual
ladders of genocide: anti-locution, avoidance, discrimination, physical attack
and then genocide. We are now at the door step of step 5. And it all starts
with hate-speech; incitement to abuse,
hatred, intimidation and violence against a group of people, based on
their ethnicity. In Rwanda, the victims were generally termed cockroaches;
in Lagos, they were and are derisively terms omoibo. And
despite the unrestrained, open incitement to
hatred and violence, the only
thing serious enough for Keyamo to go to
court are the inciting comments of Obi-Dat. Anyway, we perceive differently!
The great Lai almost became a Minister of Hate-Speech, for which N336m was approved for him 2021. He had been using a supersonic microscope to search furiously for evidences and incidents of hate speech all over the country and even beyond, ( after all, ‘successfully’ battled Twitter.) Now he sees hate-speech walking on all fours and dancing naked in broad daylight at Broad Street but mum is the word as he looked the other way or pretended to be busy with other matters. As our people will say, Ihe Chukwu ga ekpe n’ikpe ehika!( there are a lot of things for God to judge)
Dogs from Tee-Mac Lady & her Lions
or self-defence; FKK & his OmoIbo
clan
I have been thinking, seriously, on the options open to me on this Igbo-Haram antics of my Yoruba friends, brothers and neighbours. After a SWOT analysis and strategic introspection, these options come to mind: To change my name ( Abdulwahab Ik’bat Moou looks suitable); replace my red cap with the traditional white Yoruba cap or one with that special insignia(you know it now!); join or pretend to join APC, which will be easy since one of my students is a trainee BATist( he told me that the March-hem(mayhem in March) was perpetrated by unknown soldiers); undertake regular primage at Bourdillion ( with Igbokwe as my consultant), enlist into the Oluomo Vanguard( if they will admit me at my age), take insurance on my head, especially my eyes( with which I read) as well as a ‘ next-door neighbour’ cover, return to ana-Igbo and make a bonfire of the Yorubas there (one of them repairs my generator and is also a rainmaker), including the newly crowned Oba of Awka or run away from Lagos. I can also hire some wicked dogs from Tee Mac or import a lion-guard from Kenya , especially during the next election or take some YouTube courses in self defense. All these are nonpalatable and they are not in sync with my person. But as Lagos is getting increasingly stressful, I will gradually leave, not run from it! And in protest against the attempt of Nd’Igbo to take over Lagos, I will sell my boys-quarter to Yorubas ONLY, as certified by the Oba of Lagos, who, by the way owes allegiance to Benin.
Now back to my colleague and his ‘them say’
allegation. I have not heard our people describing Lagos as a no-man’s
land. I was not there when Lagos became
a national capital but I remember that when Abuja was made the national capital,
it was officially declared a no man’s land because the aborigines were relocated and compensated.
The issue of ‘who owns the land’ however crops up there anytime there is
election. The speech delivered by Jakande on 1/10/79, where he declared Lagos
as a no man’s land is also in circulation
for the past 2 weeks. I have lived in
Lagos since 1994 and I am thus more Lagosian that some of these
folks out there. I am not and I will contest who owns Lagos. But I MUST join in
determining, through my 1 vote, who governs me and makes policies that affect
me in Lagos. I can even contest, if I am so minded, especially after I must
have trained my own roughnecks. However,
I will NOT be involved in the
installation of the Oba or in the celebration of the original or
emergency oro festivals
By the way, assuming that the Igbos made
the no-mans-land declaration, does that
justify the xenophobic attacks and genocide we just witnessed? We can’t
leave Nigeria, we can’t live in peace in Nigeria and it is an abomination to aspire to be president! We cannot vote or participate in the political process in
Lagos but we can pay all sorts of taxes, including those that depend on who you
are and the language you speak. But a
Nigerian nearly became the PM of UK the other day, a post currently occupied by
an Indian while on of us is currently the Deputy Treasury Secretary of
US. And Pa Ayo Adebanjo has just asked
what those defending Yoruba Land did or said what unknown herdsmen occupied (they
are still there) hectares of Yoruba forests and farms, killing, maiming, raping
and burning. Funny enough, nobody goes to Idi-Araba, Alaba-Rago and parts of
Ojo to enforce no APC, no vote!
Meanwhile, the President has declared that the 2023 elections were the best ever conducted in Nigeria while the IG of Police also declared that his people did wonderfully well in protecting the electoral process. However, the police is still investigating Oluomo’s threats to ALL non BATtists though they seem to agree with him that it was a joke, even after he had fulfilled his promises, But this is an Ode to Oluomo by one unknown Nigeria: MC Oluomo: the CSO of Lagos state: you and your boys were almost everywhere( despite the restriction of movements), harassing, beating, shooting whomsoever you perceive to be Omo-Ibo, you succeeded in securing victory for your party. Because of you, APC was reborn. And now that the sing song is Awani Lagos, awa ni Nigeria: (we own Lagos, we own Nigeria), his exploits can only be widened and deepened
I agree with Eccle8:11 that evil unchecked leads to more and greater evil. I also believe that it is counterproductive to glorify, condone, support, defend and overlook evil because what goes round comes round and when you throw a stone into a crowded market, you don’t know who would be affected. Those who support evil today because it favours them should know that one day, it may be their turn; where, when and how I do not know. As one unknown sage said, a man could become the next victim of the evil he celebrates today! Some Yorubas were prevented from voting because they looked so ‘Igbotic’. The shop and source of livelihood of an onye-Igbo married to a Yoruba lady was razed and some Yorubas who had offices, workshops and other assets in Igbo dominated areas were also affected. And it appears that nothing unites Nigerians more than hatred, fear or envy for Nd’Igbo Whenever two cocks fight over a hen in Kano, when a woman starves the husband in the other room in Warri when a careless okada rams into a keke in Lokoja or when three Yorubas are contesting election in Lagos, the Igbos are slaughtered! Why? There is Godooo
The narrative has
always been that Nd’Igbo come to Lagos
empty handed, feed fat on the land, live
big and scheme to take over Lagos. It appears that we are all parasites in Lagos
because nobody ever mentions our contribution to the economy and physical development of Lagos.
The above graph shows the economic drivers of Lagos in 2021, with
50% contribution by trade. I do not have the competence to interpret it!
·
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