My boss made a statement that it’s just a matter of time before war would ensue over the spot even though the place had been useless for ages.
Two years ago, I was in the office one day when some men came asking for me. They came with a load of documents. They were court processes, lease agreements, payment schedules and many others by the trustees. Just few years after the traders had commenced business in the market, the leasee changed the rules, wanted more money, refused every negotiation with the traders and threatened to eject them within a given time if they failed to pay. They went to court and started spending more money on litigation without enjoying the market they spent over N1.2b to develop. That day, I went to my boss and reminded him his words. That day, I knew he is also a prophet.
That is a tip of the travails of the Igbo man in Lagos as in other cities of Nigeria. That is the plight of a man who created for himself the eleventh commandment of ‘love your neighbour more than yourself.’
Last week, I emptied some good quantity of fuel into a burning fire. Every Igbo man, the traders especially, even those that barely understood the sentences in my writing called for my head for justifying the deportation of Igbo people from Lagos. Most of them read just the headline and drew their conclusion. Interestingly, over 90 percent of those that reacted through text messages aligned with me. To those that wanted me dead, I was paid billions of naira by Fashola, I was anti-Igbo, false Igbo, betrayer and an evil and foolish man.
It is the same evil I want to extend today and I insist that Fashola was right to deport the people who have decided, even after being victims of Nigeria since 1960 to love their neighbours more than they love themselves.
I met a man last Sunday who said all manner of funny things to me in an interview vilifying Fashola, and I persisted that if Fashola’s move, which I prophesied was just the beginning of such trend would force the Igbo man to think home and get back and develop himself, I welcome it.
This week, Rivers State has extended the trend and deported 113 persons they called destitute and beggars from Port Harcourt. Fashola’s men justified their act by citing that Governor Godswill Akpabio sometime ago invited Lagos to take people of the state who were homeless dwellers of Uyo.
Let me pull this argument further by reminding my callers that wanted me dead for being false Igbo the experience of ASPMDA Igbo traders. The space called Trade Fair was fallow for many years until Igbo traders mainly, who traded at the Balogun Market at the Lagos Island got the space, raised billions of naira to put it back into use. Just few years after, they faced threats of ejection after the federal government allegedly in privatization concessioned the space to a company without considering the investment interest of these people that got money through loans to bring back a moribund facility into use. If you ask the ASPMDA traders, you will get a better picture of their travails. If that market were developed in their land, maybe it would be a different story.
The Igbo man I interviewed entertained himself with a long tale of how God created the Igbo man to be development agent for the nation and that it does not matter where he invests. I asked him if Igboland is part of the Nigeria the Igbo man according to him, was ordained to develop. He could not find a ready answer. If Igboland is part Nigeria, the development agent should also develop himself. He argued again that God will shake the heavens and by happenstance what would trigger the development of Igbo land would come one day. I asked him again if it wise for the Igbo to strategically and meticulously develop other places while he waits for luck and chance to develop his.
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