OPINION
Thoughts On Revenue Generation
By Abiodun KOMOLAFE
In a nationwide address last Monday, President Bola Tinubu announced some palliatives to mitigate the impact of the high cost of living brought about by the fuel subsidy removal.
Great speech! Excellent delivery! So, kudos to Mr President! However, a section of Nigerians frowned at the speech because it was one-sided’.According to this group, the president only pleaded with the masses to persevere without telling Nigerians what the elite and the privileged clique would be sacrificing to make Nigeria great again.
Though Nigerians have never doubted Tinubu’s capacity to be to Nigerians what Prophet Elijah was to the widow of Zarephath, they had expected him to talk about, say, a certain percentage of the emoluments and the privileges of the ruling class –beginning with the president, to the governors, the judiciary and other politically-exposed persons -that would be going into a certain purse in favour of Nigeria’s rescue mission.“The president spoke eloquently to appease the masses; but what about the ‘elite of the elite who put us in this situation? Won’t there be a probe?”
Well, it is no longer news that the fuel subsidy removal has opened up many wounds, including the worms of scams and inefficiency in Nigeria’s governance system. All the same, Nigeria is in dire need of an escape route from her present financial and socioeconomic predicament cannot be overstated. A situation where annual budgets are hugely dependent on foreign borrowings, always running on alarming deficits; and where monetary authorities only present unrealistic balance sheets is not healthy for a country that’s already on tenterhooks. Sad that our economic expertise no more generates predicted results, and Nigerians continue to gnash their teeth in deeper pain. Nigeria’s economy needs urgent surgery; otherwise, the future is in for a serious mess.
Tinubu is known as a revenue driver. He knows all the tricks in the business of governance. I have also argued elsewhere that Zacchaeus Adelabu, his Special Adviser on Revenue, is a man of unimpeachable pedigree. I stand by my words! As fate would have it, the Oyo State-born technocrat is the man chosen by the president to help him find reasonable solutions to that very important aspect of governance.
The bitter truth is that the task before Adedejiand his team is as enormous as it is unenviable. But while our president expects Nigerians to empathetically persevere in the face of the agonizing pains, he also needs to bear in mind that, until the superrich are prepared to play major roles in this case, the troubling chapter of Nigeria’s history will remain a tale too difficult to tell.
Living in penury amidst plenty! Nigeria is in trying times and all eyes can see it! According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), nearly 133m Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. Of this figure, 86.1m (i.e., 65%) live in the North while the rest (i.e., 35%) live in the South. Approximately 70% of Nigeria’s population is said to be living in rural areas; yet, these areas are home to 80% of poor people. The intensity of poverty in rural areas is also higher, at 41.9%, compared to 36.9% in urban areas.
As if these are not enough, 4 out of 10 Nigerians are said to be experiencing monetary deprivations but “more than 6 out of 10 are multi-dimensionally poor”.As of June 2023, unemployment stood at 33.3%; underemployment at 22.8%; youth unemployment, at 42.5%; and youth underemployment, at 22.0%.
Once upon a time in Nigeria’s recent history, social media platforms were awash with videos of young men who, in their hundreds, were reportedly undergoing paramilitary training in the insurgency in selected camps. Unfortunately, the government of the day watched helplessly as some misguided elements acted recklessly. Now, the chickens have come home to roost, with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN) as the culprits; and Nigerians are living with the consequences.
But Nigeria can’t continue like this! To get out of this mess, let there be a comprehensive and sincere economic summit. Let the leakages in our revenue generation be fully identified and solidly blocked. Let oil theft and smuggling be confronted with renewed vigour, without giving room for any sacred cows.
Beyond the rules of engagement associated with the destruction of illegal refineries, let there be innovative ways through which seized vessels and their products can add value to the sources of revenue for the country. From Ilesa in Osun State to Maru in Zamfara State, let all issues relating to illegal mining be decisively addressed and scapegoats made, where necessary. Most importantly, let the roles of non-state actors in the protection of our pipelines and mining sites be reviewed in the overall interest of Nigeria.
We need to fix our hospitals with adequate resources and cutting-edge medical technology that will help patients to diagnose diseases and get healed. Agriculture (mechanized farming) and food security must be vigorously pursued while the education sector and skills acquisition programmes must be adequately funded.
At the heart of economic growth is the electricity supply. With a population of 223,804,632, Nigeria’s power generation capacity is below 5,000 megawatts. South Africa, with a population of 58,048,332, generates 63.28 megawatts while Egypt, with a population of 109,546,720, has 60.07 megawatts to its credit.
So, how did Nigeria arrive at this pass? Queen Elizabeth of England was once reported to have recommended an electric firm that would give Nigeria a sustainable power supply, instead of paying the $12 billion reduced debt, which the Olusegun Obasanjo-led government said must be paid back as loans acquired by Nigeria. For reasons best known to him, ‘Balogun Owu’ never agreed to the Queen’s proposal. Instead, he went on a turbine-building expedition. And, since society couldn’t sanction him, the former president started pontificating, never to be satisfied!
Wait a minute, why has Nigeria become a dumping ground for electric generators? Again, what are the roles of estimated billings and what are the steps being taken by the government to put a stop to this despicable act? Until these and other pertinent questions are answered, improvement in electricity generation may continue to be a fantasy in Nigeria. Until all houses, even military and public institutions are prepared to do the needful, there will be no stop to hikes in electricity tariffs.
According to experts in Tax Administration, tax evasion is a crime that can distort the overall economic, political, and social systems of a country. Economically, it affects the fair distribution of wealth for the citizens. Socially, it creates different social groups motivated by tax evasion, thereby leading to unfair and unhealthy competition. So, it is a criminal offence in the eye of the law, and it is punishable by facing criminal charges bordering on money laundering.
In sane climes, tax evasion is another serious economic crime known as sabotage, which no law-abiding citizen would like to commit. In the USA for example, former President Donald Trump is still battling with it, in addition to several other offences hanging on his neck. But here in Nigeria, the rich and the powerful are deliberately evading tax without proportionate consequences. Starting with public institutions, therefore, the focus should be on the rich while the middle and lower classes are expected to key into ‘pay-as-you-go’.
Lastly, with the new drive to raise revenue by making individuals and companies be corporately responsible, fightback is imminent! Therefore, communication becomes of paramount importance to enlighten and educate those concerned to make them responsible.
May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
*KOMOLAFE writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)
By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
One of the many things Nigeria teaches you quietly is to excel in whatever you do. Sadly, this teaching tends to support criminals, and the like, who know that in organised crime – Nigeria is a scene of daily occurrences – you get many men and women to do the job.
You de-risk your operations by that method. You also ensure that the risk is well spread and that instead of shifting blame, when necessary, you can share the blame. Blame-sharing is better than blame-shifting.
Theories that suggest Nigerians, adults and toddlers alike, are responsible for the Nigeria we have are rooted in blame sharing. Everyone is in it.
When you read all that we are told about former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, there is a sense of incredulity. If you flip it, you ponder about how porous Nigerian processes are.
Emefiele stole N1.6 billion, the single charge read after it collapsed from 20 charges. It takes a saint to have all that money, means, and moments before him and he takes so little. He must be a rare Nigerian, selfless, not as greedy as we see around daily.
He has belatedly discovered that the said N1.6 billion cannot get him a N300 million surety. You can see the futility of seeing too little. Where was the big picture?
That must be why in a certain era in Onitsha, the boast was that one excelled in a chosen cause to the point of being Ozo. The Ozo was for the refined, the excellent, the community’s exemplars for good things.
Criminals have appropriated that wisdom for their industry. They steal so much that they have enough to secure justice wherever they are charged. While at it, they enjoy the best services available in our prisons, okay they are correctional centres.
Emefiele may not be in that league. He would make more discoveries during these dark days. The N1.6 billion, he allegedly stole, is not adequate to get him “a good lawyer”. Many lawyers would be disappointed by the size of the Emefiele brief.
He was charged with conferring economic advantage on a CBN female staff Sa’adatu Yaro and her company April 1616 Investments Limited through contracts for the supply of vehicles to CBN. The charge has been dropped.
Once charged with gun-running and financing terrorism, in court, it was alleged he was slugging one unlicensed pistol. A vivid image is the catapult we bore in those days, pretending that a sling made it more potent.
These are not to suggest that Emefiele stole more or less, nor that one unlicensed gun was not enough offence. The trials have strained our lawlessness in a year that series of judicial pronouncements, you can call them judgments, are without the ingredients that drill conclusions from interrogated evidence.
Judgments are issued mainly from contradictory indecisions. Judges’ indecisions are final.
There are no surprises here. As Emefiele emerges from a court clutching an order that has granted him momentary freedom, DSS is by the wings waiting to throw him back into another detention until a new charge is raised to keep him away from freedom
One would almost think that breaking the law was a mandate of DSS. The patriotic zeal they have invested in keeping Emefiele in detention is bewildering.
A fight that broke out at the Federal High Court, Lagos, between Ikoyi Correctional Centre officials and DSS over who should have Emefiele in custody was one of the scandalous high points of Emefiele’s detention since 9 June 2023. Has keeping Emefiele become a business?
Where are his friends? Where are his enemies? Where are those who allegedly gained economic advantage from him? Who watched while he stole? Did the security agencies know he was stealing? Who did they tell?
Could Emefiele have acted without President Muhammadu Buhari’s knowledge of the harsh Naira conversation policy that killed many businesses and possibly people? He could not have acted alone, simply impossible.
Emefiele deserves no pity. I don’t think he would be asking for any. He is not getting what he deserves. When Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court ruled he should be kept at the correctional centre, that’s what he deserved. Why did DSS fight to keep him?
Whatever happens to Emefiele is an important particle of our laws. If his class can mal-treat him, the masses, the unclassed, those whom the law often fails to protect, have no chance to get justice.
People are afraid to bail Emefiele because they do not want to be seen as the enemy of those holding him. Is that how justice works?
Let’s put Emefiele on trial, and jail him if he is guilty. We should stop wasting time on one Emefiele. More Emefieles need to be tried for Nigeria to strive. And their offenses? Breaking their brotherhood code with Emefiele.
Finally…
OUR Bolt driver from last week is breathing a little better. Son was buried, and by 30 November he paid off the hire purchase agreement on his car. Thanks to those whose humaneness led them to pool together the resources that paid off the hire purchase. There are needs everywhere, and with social media, communal solutions are more possible.
ABIA State Governor Alexander Chioma Otti has by word of mouth changed the title of Local Government Chairmen to Mayor for the Transition Chairmen he has just appointed. There is illegality involved. Imagine the waste across the 17 LGAs changing signs, seals, insignias, stamps, office papers, folders, files, furniture, and cars for Mayors and Deputy Mayors to support the fantasy.
INCONSISTENT accounts of the Abuja-Lagos flight that landed in Asaba as Lagos indicate horrible things with our aviation. One account said the pilot told passengers to get ready for landing in Lagos. The two airports bear no resemblance whether on air or the ground. Did the navigational aids fail? How did the pilot (I almost called him driver) ‘mistake’ Asaba for Lagos?
Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
By Basil Okoh*
After all the bonhomie, backslapping and happily worded congratulatory messages, Chiedu Ebie should now be settling down at his working desk as chairman of NDDC. Success is celebrated in the public space but the sweat and work to achieve success is an arduous and lonely undertaking. And Ebie should be poring through the papers for the long, lonely and arduous work ahead.
His appointment as NDDC chairman should pay tribute to trust and long term friendship of James Ibori, his friend and mentor. Ibori has always been a man of conviviality because of whom as governor the word “amiable” became popular in Nigeria. He keeps a coterie of loyal friends from everywhere and every ethnicity as a matter of learned habit. Ibori’s appetite for big money has sometimes been so he can help out a friend in need. James Ibori may not be your friend if he cannot find a way to help you. So it is no surprise that he referenced Chiedu Ebie his long term friend, for this job.
Chiedu Ebie was a victim of treachery from Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa who fired him as SSG just for being a friend of James Ibori. At a point in his tenure as Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa went wonky, seeing snakes in every cluster of bush. So Ebie’s brilliant performance at a command post in his government became a threat to his overlordship.
On an average day, Okowa does not like to associate with brilliant minds. Brilliant minds menace and challenge his deeply provincial character. He is “Ekwueme” after all, a provincial potentate, so he wants always to be the sage among dunces. And Chiedu Ebie is a brilliant mind from a family background of savvy technocrats. There was bound to be a cataclysmic clash at some point, particularly being of Agbor ethnicity, a hated rival . So Okowa had to ease him out.
Ebie’s job at NDDC is well cut out for a technocrat like him. He grew up in a home where managing big institutions was in the normal course of his upbringing experience. Running big institutions offered challenges for the intellect which he saw his parents pass through in his entire young life. Big institutions also offered opportunities for self actualization.
His father Professor John Ebie was the Chief Medical Director of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital in Benin City. It was a burgeoning teaching hospital at that time and Professor Ebie had to grow it to the range of care, complexity and professionalism to win both academic and public respect. His mother is a nurse and well respected matron who a colleague said, “you don’t play the fool in her presence”.
Chiedu Ebie had an uncle, Mr. (He refused ever to be called Chief) Fortune Ebie who was one of the founding architects of modern Nigeria, literally speaking. Mr. Fortune Ebie was the Director of the Federal Housing Authority who planned and executed the building of what still today is the biggest Housing Estate in Nigeria, the FESTAC Housing Estate in Lagos, Nigeria. Fortune Ebie was the head of the FHA with Brigadier Olu Obasanjo as Minister of Works and Housing and delivered a housing estate that remains even after a half century, the pride of the black man. It was showcased during the First World And African Festival Of Arts And Culture (FESTAC) in 1977and it brought admiration to Nigeria from the rest of the world.
So Chiedu Ebie comes from a background of achievement in public service especially after his stint as Secretary to the State Government of Delta State. Success in his management of a big institution as the NDDC is our valid expectation and the challenges should not be daunting to him.
The NDDC may appear different because it is a much bigger arena and a regional authority as it carries developmental and interventionist responsibilities for an entire region historically deprived of its just dues. The NDDC is a federal government institution set up to atone for the federal sin of exploiting and polluting the Oil producing states almost to the death, seizing their wealth and giving them tokens in atonement. NDDC has over the years become a whore house of sorts, taking all men and accepting to be ravaged by pleasure seekers of all sorts and from everywhere.
Every working day at NDDC is a market day with people gathered round a big beehive, with contract papers and files flying everywhere. Everybody in the premises is pursuing a signature, either on the cheque or on the contract paper and in the midst of the general mayhem, huge sums get stolen or missing. The general mayhem and lack of order galls the decent but then no decent man is expected to withstand the dissonance in NDDC.
The NDDC has gained the management reputation which does no credit to the oil producing region of Nigeria. So Chiedu Ebie has a tall order to create order and decency at NDDC and remake it into an agency of planned systems and ordered processes. Ebie must implement a tectonic shift of attitudes and respect for processes and order in NDDC. A technocratic order must be infused into the institution before it can be expected to deliver on its mandate of intervening in the developing of the region.
There must be a multi-year plan as we used to have development plans in Nigeria and the board of the agency must insist on staying faithful to that multi-year plan. As it is presently, every strong politician comes to impose its will on NDDC. The political influence on the agency is so overwhelming that the NDDC does not have a regional development plan of it’s own. The same budgets are repeated and presented as new every year. This must be corrected and a serious budgeting and monitoring regime must be implemented for the NDDC to make any impact on development in the region.
To make a difference and enforce a new order, the new chairman of the NDDC must work on big ideas that deliver lasting impact on the Niger Delta and that will bring further speed to development in the entire region. There are challenges like Port development, agricultural programmes, power projects or investments in the development of local industries and services that should bring the sense of collective wellbeing in the region. These projects must have utility and value across the region. NDDC must no longer allow itself to be condemned to working on every village road that reappears in its budgets every year.
Mr. Chiedu Ebie must also bring technology to bear on his work at NDDC. The reason for the gross abuse of its contracting and payment system is the absence of computerization and automation of these processes. He should not be naïve not to know that there are powerful forces aligned to stall these processes and make sure that computerization and fidelity does not work.
The shamefully disorganized and abused NDDC must be made to work again. It will be a tribute to his willpower and technocratic skills to ensure that automation of processes and orderliness is built into the establishment and work of the NDDC and help alleviate the suffering in the oil producing region.
*Basil Okoh writes from Delta State, South-south, Nigeria
EXPRESSO UMBRAGE 》》By Steve Osuji
WHAT CAUSED THE CIVIL WAR: Igbo envy and hatred have been common historical phenomena in Nigeria. The civil war of the 60s was caused by other tribes in Nigeria becoming paranoid about the rapid upward movement of the ‘bush tribe’ of the lower Niger that caught up swiftly and blazed ahead of them in every sphere of national endeavour.
The British colonialists who ran Nigeria up until 1960, in their quest for merit in public service, ‘inadvertently’ hoisted Igbo at the helm of affairs of the fledgling Republic. Ndigbo dominating the new public space by independence was purely on merit. It was not by any quota or manipulation. The exiting Brits wanted competent hands to handle the new nation and they found more capable.
But this was to the chargrin of other tribes who have wrought an unwritten policy not only to stop Igbo but to annihilate them by any means possible.
The first weapon to be deployed was to shun merit and wholesome competition. This led the North to develop a huge entitlement syndrome. For instance, they have continued to claim a disadvantaged position in education to date – for over 70 years. One then wonders how many years are required to fix something as basic as education among a people. But all they are doing is distort the merit system and hold others down.
The second is to openly and blatantly deny, shunt, or supersede Igbo in public service placements and promotions. They are made to do the work but side-lined when it comes to benefits. The Federal Civil Service particularly, has been hell for Ndigbo since after the war and it gets worse by the day. Igbo civil servants are virtually slaves in their country and they die in silence.
And third is an unspoken policy to gang up against Ndigbo and put them in the margins of all national affairs at anytime and by any means possible, especially politically. For instance, certain national positions and appointments have been made a taboo for Ndigbo. The presidency, for instance has rotated between the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba to the unconscionable exclusion of Ndigbo since 1999. This is how the term, MARGINALISATION came about. It has been OPERATION SUPPRESS NDIGBO since after the civil war. Consider an extant example: the other reason Mr Godwin Emefiele has been in detention for 180 days is because he bears an Igbo name (though he may claim not to be Igbo).
PASTOR TUNDE BAKARE BLOWS THE COVER: Back to the present, you may not like the theology and emotionalism of the fiery preacher, Tunde Bakare, but one must acknowledge his courage and candour. In a trending video, he has not only condemned the ongoing carnage against Ndigbo in Lagos, he has revealed the official plot to worst them.
He says in the video that he was invited to a parochial meeting to plot the economic holocaust against Igbo in Lagos. He asks them what the offence of Ndigbo was and they said Igbo had taken all the land in Lagos; thereupon he asked them whether the Igboman purchased the lands or put a gun to anyone’s head?
Recently, social media has been awash with pictures of destruction of magnificent buildings belonging to Ndigbo. Abule Ado on the Badagry axis is one example. Many other areas have been mentioned.
Markets dominated by Ndigbo have been routinely shut down for days on flimsy excuses like hygiene and sanitation. But we know that Local Government officials collect levies for keeping markets and public places clean. Again, why is it that each time state officials extort the traders to the tune of tens of millions in order to have the markets reopened?
BOLA TINUBU LEADS IGBO PERSECUTION IN LAGOS: Ndigbo have lived in Lagos as long as any settler group, long before amalgamation. Many are in the fifth generations. Igbo have played more role in helping to develop Lagos perhaps more than any other ethnic group. Igbo being outgoing and economic adventurers are largely peace loving people.
This is captured in the Igbo wisdom: ojemba enwe ilo, meaning an ardent traveller courts no enemies. Igbo are all over the country, indeed, the world, developing their host communities and creating wealth for all.
However, the advent of Tinubu’s win-by-all-means brand of politics in Lagos since 1999 is now setting the Igbo in Lagos on a collision course against some misguided Yoruba people. Since 1999, Igbo bloc vote in Lagos has become significant to swing any election in the state. This is a political reality.
In democracies where politics is played according to reason and persuasion, emerging political blocs are canvassed especially. Parties seeking their votes blandish goodies to them by way of localised candidates, appointments and promise of special infrastructure. This is what happens to American Blacks and the Hispanics. Their bloc votes swing elections in some states and counties so the parties devise strategies to win their vote.
You can’t win my votes by demolishing my house or hampering my businesses. You can’t chase Igbo out of Lagos. You can’t exterminate Ndigbo in Lagos, Nigeria or even from the surface of the earth. This is my quarrel with the Tinubu strategists like Dele Alake, Bola Onanuga, Femi Gbajabiamila and Babatunde Fashola. They are possessed of such provincial mindset which is the reason Lagos has largely underperformed compared to its peers in Africa and beyond. The Tinubu political clan that seized Lagos in the last quarter century regard the city state as their personal estate. They milk the cow more than they feed it. This is why Lagos remains at the bottom of every HDI index by UN bodies.
REMINISCENCE OF THE INDIGENISATION PERFIDY: The refrain we hear among Yoruba rascals is: go to your state. Of course they would want to wish Ndigbo away so they would inherit them. But they won’t support a referendum for the creation of Biafra or an Igbo sovereignty.
It’s reminiscent of the post civil war situation during which Ndigbo lost most of their assets including houses, landed properties, businesses, stocks, insurance policies, etc. To make the defrocking of Ndigbo total, it was decreed that only 20 pounds sterling was to he paid to every Igbo even if he had a deposit balance of millions of pounds in the bank.
Though the war was over, the Igbo was down and out. It was at this time that the Federal Government, with Chief Obafemi Awolowo as chief economic adviser chose to introduced the Indigenisation Act, 1972.
With this singular law, about 1,300 multinational corporations in Nigeria were converted to Nigerian ownership ( read Yoruba ownership). The Igbo stripped financially, had no dime to partake in the purchase of the blue-chip shares. Yoruba therefore, mopped up majority of shares and equity and took over most of the multinational corporations set up by the British, Americans, Lebanese and other foreign nationals – UAC, UTC, the banking and financial services, production assets, etc. This is how come Yoruba nation acquired the greatest economic assets of Nigeria after the civil war and gained the most economic leverage in the country by sleight of hand.
But sorry to note that most of these mammoth corporations have been run into the ground by the Yoruba managers who hijacked them. Graft, incompetence, indolence, sybaritic lifestyles (owambe) intrigues and rigimo, caused the death of these large conglomerates. Those that are still existing were rescued by former foreign owners who returned hastily to retrieve the carcasses. Cadbury and Lever Brothers are two such examples.
After they hijacked and lost the foreign assets, now they eye the little businesses built on the sweat and grit of Ndigbo.
ARE YORUBA AGAINST FOREIGN INVESTORS? If you can pull down the houses and businesses of fellow citizens, how do you expect foreigners to trust you with their businesses? One day, you are going to go after them as you did in 1972. No investors would trust the Yoruba enough to plant any serious investment on their land.
FINALLY, IGBO WOULD SURELY FIGHT BACK: Let it be put on notice that Igbo would fight back and defend themselves if pushed to the wall. Igbo would arm himself and return fire, let no one forget that. If you continue to target and pull down Igbo properties, Igbo can also bring down properties, even public buildings.
Before the purview of the FG and all the security agencies, Igbo were prevented from voting, maimed and bloodied in Lagos as if they were aliens in their country. None of the perpetrators suffered any consequences.
Now the Lagos State government, apparently gingered by the Tinubu presidency, is pursuing a hate agenda against Ndigbo in Lagos.
It’s on record (YouTube) that the wife of the president, Oluremi Tinubu publicly stated in 1999 that they would chase Ndigbo out of Lagos and inherit their properties. The current Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly reiterated Mrs Tinubu’s comments. During his inauguration a few months ago, he had outlined plans to annihilate Ndigbo. Speaker Mudashiru sounded like a Ku Kkux Klan chief and the whole world was repulsed at such effusion of primordial hate against fellow citizens. Mr Bola Onanuga, top journalist and presidential adviser had in what seemed a Faustian slip blurted out that Igbo would never be able to vote in Lagos in subsequent elections. And one of the more enlightened of the Tinubu group, former governor Babatunde Fashola had loaded a horde of so-called Igbo destitute into trailers and dumped them by the foot of the Niger Bridge. This happened when he was governor of Lagos State.
These are manifestations of deep, subconscious hate against Igbo. To think that these champions of hate are rustics who migrated from Yoruba hinterland with twisted tongues and having little understanding of metropolitan lore.
Who would imagine that in a world in which an Adeyemo is currently an undersecretary in the US administration and a Kemi is a top minister who lines up for the UK PM job, such an ethnic group would prosecute bloody ethnic ‘war’ at home? But the reason is simple: Lagos is currently under the spellbound by a gang of narrow-minded carpetbaggers led by President Tinubu.
But let it be stated today that this official attack on Ndigbo in Lagos will lead to one sure consequence – the violent break up of Nigeria. And the violence may start with the burning down of Lagos!
Never again shall Igbo accept genocide and pogrom!
Never again shall the war be on our soil!
Never again shall we run from evildoers or surrender to evil!
Enough is enough!
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