The Baboon of the Lagoon

[Biko Agozino]

A baboon has threatened to drown masses of Igbo citizens of Nigeria in the lagoon if they do not vote for his preferred candidate for the governor of Lagos State. This is a leadership moment for President Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, to show leadership by repudiating such a brazen terroristic threat against model citizens who have ventured immensely to help build a modern nation and who have suffered unprovoked genocidal violence repeatedly in the history of Nigeria. Leaders should call for the arrest, dethronement and prosecution of the Oba of Lagos for this hate speech; apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs especially during the civil war when 3.1 million were estimated to have died with their young women abducted, their properties destroyed or seized, and their life-savings withheld. Propose a law against any denial of the Igbo genocide and against genocidal threats and establish the Igbo Reparations Fund along with the creation of the sixth state in the South East for the sake of geopolitical equity. Other Nigerian groups have been offered reparations for lesser wrongs and the continued denial of fair reparations to the Igbo who have suffered most may be contributing to the entrenchment of the culture of terrorism in Nigeria. Show some leadership now!

Biko

[Segun Ogungbemi]

There is need for caution here. It is an aberration of the highest order to call or address an Oba a baboon. Whatever the merit of the argument, insulting one of the most highly respected Royal Fathers in Yorubaland and in Nigeria by anyone is despicable. 'Biko Agozino should first of all withdraw the description of His Royal Majesty the Oba of Lagos a baboon. 

This inflammatory description can cause mayhem if care is not taken. It is therefore demanded that Biko Agozino withdraws it with an apology. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

On Apr 7, 2015, at 10:42 AM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

A baboon has threatened to drown masses of Igbo citizens of Nigeria in the lagoon if they do not vote for his preferred candidate for the governor of Lagos State. This is a leadership moment for President Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, to show leadership by repudiating such a brazen terroristic threat against model citizens who have ventured immensely to help build a modern nation and who have suffered unprovoked genocidal violence repeatedly in the history of Nigeria. Leaders should call for the arrest, dethronement and prosecution of the Oba of Lagos for this hate speech; apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs especially during the civil war when 3.1 million were estimated to have died with their young women abducted, their properties destroyed or seized, and their life-savings withheld. Propose a law against any denial of the Igbo genocide and against genocidal threats and establish the Igbo Reparations Fund along with the creation of the sixth state in the South East for the sake of geopolitical equity. Other Nigerian groups have been offered reparations for lesser wrongs and the continued denial of fair reparations to the Igbo who have suffered most may be contributing to the entrenchment of the culture of terrorism in Nigeria. Show some leadership now!

Biko

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[Okey Iheduru]

Mr. Rilwan Akiolu, this man who has made this vile genocidal speech worse than what anyone ever did in Rwanda,  is "one of the most highly respected Royal Fathers in Yorubaland and in Nigeria". Are serious? I was thinking we can do better than this, Prof. Ogungbemi!  

Peace as always!

[Segun Ogungbemi]

Okey, I believe no intellectual leader will support any language of diatribe as it is alleged, it  is equally disrespectful of someone to call a Royal Father a baboon. Come on Okey!

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Biko Agozino]

I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.

Biko

[Segun Ogungbemi]

I am not a politician, I mean professional one because everyone of us is a social being and therefore has political inclinations. 

My culture teaches respect for elders and above all the Crown whoever wears it. When people insulted our First Lady Mrs. Dame Patient Jonathan, I asked for caution and called people to respect the Office. During the campaign rally she was quoted  that anyone who "says change" be stoned. 

During campaigns a number of political zealots overstep their bounds. We need to have that understanding and not to allow political inflammation to consume the cognitive part of our being. 

We should not continue to talk about genocide or make statements that bring to memory the past that led to war because we  lost on both sides. 

The causes that led to those ugly days remind us that we should never engage in them again. 

I think Biko ought to learn in addition to his poetic language some decorum. 

In my understanding of philosophy of human nature we have different dispositions, but living together in peace and harmony requires understanding and respect for one another even when provoked. 

The overriding power of Reason over emotions or passions should be the moral compass to guide us as we read, think, write and seek means of living together in unity as people of one nation. 

Let us bear in mind that as intellectuals we have some work to do in this direction if we want democracy to work and flourish in Nigeria.  
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Wrong is wrong.

The least anyone should do before alleging disrespect of a leader dripping with envy and hatred of hard working fellow citizens, is condemn this hater-leader. True respect is earned and not inherited. Who in their right mind would respect a former senior police office and Lawyer, now an Oba, who willfully and for personal gain, breaks Nigeria’s electoral laws, violates the Nigerian constitution, threatens fellow citizens with  death by drowning in the cesspools that use to be lagoons, and swears in the name of his late father that his curse will come to pass in no more than seven days.

This Oba is a disgrace to traditional leadership. Everyone right thinking person should condemn him unequivocally. He is not deserving of the respect of any law abiding person. What else does this man have to say or do to be seen criminally violent, evil, and undeserving of the high traditional position that he occupies in one of the world’s most metropolitan of cities.

The man is an unadulterated apostle of the “politics with bitterness” that true Nigerians are working hard to make a thing of the past. A contributor to this forum if I remember correctly has a quotation postscript that remind us that evil triumphs because good people do not condemn it.

I salute Femi Falana for his prompt condemnation of this very shameless, arrogant, and  vile man masquerading as a traditional leader.  

  

oa

[oriyomijimoh4]

Referring to Oba of Lagos as baboon is provocative. The Igbo should realize that Lagos belongs to the Yoruba people and Akiolu remains the Oba of Lagos. Calling any Oba in Yorubaland a baboon is provocative.

'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.

Biko

[Segun Ogungbemi]

oa,

Try to understand the traditional and cultural values of the Yoruba and it will be well with all of us. It is an aberration of the highest order to insult the Crown no matter what the person who wears it says. 

The Yoruba have a way of reaching the person who wears the Crown if his behavior and utterances are not in consonant with the tradition. 

The Igbo have their own traditions and it will amount to disrespect if those who live among them fail to recognize its values. 

Note oa, this is not the time for any tension driven argument. 

Lagos should have not been made the capital of Nigeria. 

If Lokoja had remained the capital of Nigeria, the issue of who owns Lagos would have not arisen. 

The fact that the Yoruba accommodate all ethnic nationalities does not mean that they have given their territory as co-owners to non indigenes. The line of demarcation must be drawn. Let it be made clear here oa, what you cannot allow non indigenes to do in your own territory, don't do it in someone's domain. 

Let those who want to go to The Hague do so. We will remain here and eat our amala and pounded yam with egusi soup. By the time they come back, there will be nothing left for them to fight for. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Nnaemeka, Obioma G]

 

The problem with the name-calling is that it takes us away from a serious discussion of what the Oba said. Calling him a baboon does not advance the discussion; it diminishes it. What the Oba said was reprehensible and condemnable. Let’s focus on that and leave the animal kingdom alone.

 

Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.

Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor

Department of World Languages and Cultures

Women’s Studies Program

 

Indiana University School of Liberal Arts

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

425 University Blvd, CA 543A

Indianapolis, IN 46202

Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375

nna...@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 8:47 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

 

I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.

[Mobolaji Aluko]

May your tribe increase, Dr. Nnamaeka, Obioma!

Some of those criticizing and abusing the Oba for his reprehensible outburst seem to be as hateful as he himself, especially those who have called him a baboon, or support those who have.  What do you expect his children, his Lagos subjects or his supporters to do ....jump up with glee for calling him a baboon?  Yet, if you describe his speech for what it is, you will win people to you to condemn him.

Do baboons talk?  Are they over-supportive of Ambode, or hateful of Igbo?  Or is it how the Oba looks...and can he change his looks?   Or is it just poetic exuberance....baboon...lagoon?

So let us watch it:  the Oba is not the only hateful interlocutor on this issue.  Yes, let us focus on the issue, and stop quoting Obasanjo's This animal Called Man.

And there you have I.

Bolaji Alukome

[Pablo]

I am not a monarchist, so perhaps some might think I am not the right person in this fora to comment. Nonetheless, if I respect certain forms of "traditional" rule,  there's a saying that one can respect the office and not the person. What OA says here is unassailable; the Oba's language was not over the top, it is vile and unacceptable by any measure for whatever office that one is deemed to hold politically or for some form of authority.

Pablo

[Rex Marinus]

I actually disagree with Dr. Obioma Nnaemeka on this. The comments directed at Akiolu is necessarily harsh. It is the equivalent of Sartre's "racist anti-racism" - a necessary deployment of extreme speech in other to free people of the consequences of even more extreme conducts or speech or beliefs. Rather than detract from the situation, it amplifies the exact nature of Akiolu's  "reprehensible" conduct. I think we must be unwilling to mealy-mouth on this matter by this attempt to separate the meaning and intentions of the man, from the significance of the office to which he is purportedly endowed. Ogugua's statement earlier is quite apt: respect is not an inheritance; it is the value of conduct.
 
I also think Dr. Aluko insults and undermines Nigerians citizens of Lagos by calling them "subject" people. We must be very careful about the words we use. The Nigerian constitution endows everyone in Lagos, including Akiolu with the fundamental right of citizenship. Nigerians are only subject to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose charter of fundamental rights is unambiguous in endowing the rights of EQUAL CITIZENSHIP to every Nigerian irrespective of religion, gender, ethnicity or status. The continuous ascription of limited rights and values to the citizens of Nigeria, whom Dr. Aluko describes as the "Lagos subjects" of the Oba of Lagos carries no less a reprehensible meaning, and it ought to be clear and really challenged.
 
I myself felt that it is the Baboon that we insult by comparing Akiolu to him. Anyone who has seen the video or heard the audio of this guy's foolish utterances, should rather challenge Dr. Biko Agozino for insulting the Baboon, who in my view has greater civic manners than Mr. Akiolu. And just so it be clear, Agozino did not bring anybody into this matter - not Ambode; not Akiolu's neighbours in Lagos; not Yoruba people; not even the laughable cluster of comedians called "Eze Ndi Igbo" in Lagos, towards whom Akiolu directs his choler. So, please, do not bring his children into this matter, unless his children echo Akiolu's statements.
Obi Nwakanma
 

---

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 15:25:44 +0100

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: alu...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

You are in your elements, waxing strong, philosophical, poetical, recovering your voice in usual defence of your "super-menschen" mentality........I know that you will over-do yourself......

I am presumably the next "baboon", being more vile than Oba Akiolu for daring to call people under the Oba's territorial suzreinty "subjects."?

Okay o......left to me, I would abolish all monarchies.  But while they last, I would limit their roles....and their behavior ACROSS the political spectrum encourages that delimiting.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

Having a belly laugh

[Biko Agozino]

Segun,

The Yoruba have checks and balances in their traditional political institutions and when  a reprobate Oba gets drunk and starts slaughtering or threatening his own followers as one Yoruba god did in their mythology, he is held accountable unlike the Greek gods that were above reproach, according to Soyinka. My high school History of West Africa text taught me that the Oba was never seen as an absolute monarch until the British came to invent the institution as a despotic tool of imperialism. The women of Abeokuta forced the Alake to abdicate for the sexual harassment of young girls in the guise of assessing them for taxation during colonialism.

Where are members of the Yoruba Council of Elders who should have presented an empty calabash to a man whose morality is worse than that of a baboon. Femi Falana is among the few Yoruba leaders who have called on Barrister Akiolu to apologize to the Igbo for his unjustifiable and incendiary buffoonery. The president of Nigeria and the president elect should also apologize to the Igbo on behalf of all Nigerians for the past wrongs and offer reparations to the survivors of the Igbo genocide.

As a Professor of Ethics, Segun should have the moral courage to challenge the abominable incitement from a trained lawyer like Akiolu and he should join those calling for reparations to be made to the Igbo for past wrongs. Unfortunately, the cheer-leaders for genocide in history have always been highly educated people who rationalize crimes against humanity in the names of nation, religion, tradition, or culture and seek to blame the victimized for telling genocidists to go and jump in the lagoon with their sad donkeys. Fortunately for humanity, reason is not the only attribute that makes us human, compassion is even more important given that artificial intelligence exists but without compassion, computers will never approach humaneness. So Segun, do not be outraged because I called for the prosecution of your 'royal father' for his criminal hate speech in which he declared that if he does not launch a genocide within seven days of the defeat of his chosen candidate then he must be a bastard and everyone must know that his father (not his mother) did not give birth to him. You should call for such a prosecution yourself and the candidate being used to incite violence should repudiate the threat and dissociate himself from Mr Akiolu.

You must never excuse genocide with your insane suggestion that it must be forgotten because people died on both sides. The fact that some of the people committing genocide lost their lives in the process is never an excuse for genocide and threatening more genocide is enough reason for us to address past wrongs and ensure that they will never happen again. Instead of threatening the industrious Igbo, let us hope that other Nigerian ethnic groups will study the Igbo example of resilience, train their youth in education and commercial activities, and send them all over the country to seek their livelihood, marry, build mansions, vote and be voted for as is done in mature democracies around the world.

The Igbo do not hate anyone but when they receive credible information that an unelected monarch, a former very senior police officer, is planning to incite partisan political violence against the Igbo who are found in all political parties, we as Africans deserve to take such threats seriously. We will be equally outraged if such a threat is issued against any other ethnic group anywhere in the world. Never again.

Biko

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

SO,

You may want to read Rex Maximus’ post at 8:57 a.m. today.

[Rex Marinus]

Dr Aluko:
I will be quite, personally unhappy to think of you as a Baboon, so do not act like one or even beneath one. I think that the Oba of Lagos has no suzerainty over Lagos. At best, Iga-Iduguran is  a fine museum, and the Oba part of its museum pieces. He is good for tourism, and has no political significance. Subjectivity and subjection are not abstract conditions. Perhaps you should "abolish all monarchies" first from your mind, and help install the Republic and all its privilege of freedom and the equality of all citizens in your consciousness. That way, you will stop thinking of people as the "subjects" of a single individual. Nigerians are not even "subjects" of the President of the Republic, not to talk about of some provincial has-been.  Lagos is a city; run as a city government by elected people. The Oba of Lagos does not run Lagos; does not maintain an Army or a Police  Force answerable to him; nor does he constitute a parliament. He can not raise or collect tax, nor compel anyone to forced labour. In what ways therefore are the citizens of Lagos his "subjects?" In any case, which part of Lagos are we talking about? About my "super-menschen mentality" - well, I think the republic is still better than the monarchy or its association, feudalism. Those who established the republic with its laws of human equality and freedom are simply asking monarchists and all those right-wing conservative intellectuals who rally around its cause in the excuse of "cultural nationalism" to catch up. They're just too slow for the rest of us:-) I wear my "super-menchenism" proudly, as you do know.
Obi Nwakanma

 

---

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 16:51:51 +0100

[Nnaemeka, Obioma G]

You misread my post. I do not mean that “baboon” should not be used for the Oba out of respect. The problem I see in this discussion is that the introduction of “baboon” has yielded two threads—one on baboon and the other on the Oba’s tirade. I and many on this list (I imagine) are not interested in the former. Let’s focus on the later.

 

Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.

Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor

Department of World Languages and Cultures

Women’s Studies Program

 

Indiana University School of Liberal Arts

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

425 University Blvd, CA 543A

Indianapolis, IN 46202

Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375

nna...@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu

 

 

[kenneth harrow]

perhaps the subject line should be changed. most people seem to agree at least on that?
ken

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
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ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu

[Nnaemeka, Obioma G]

Obi:

1.     This is precisely the point I made about the two threads in this discussion. This “baboon thread” that has now degenerated into museum-speak, etc., has no use other than fill up our in-boxes unnecessarily. By the way, Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Anti-racist Racism” theory (Orphée Noir) you cited earlier is not applicable here.

Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.

Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor

Department of World Languages and Cultures

Women’s Studies Program

 

Indiana University School of Liberal Arts

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

425 University Blvd, CA 543A

Indianapolis, IN 46202

Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375

nna...@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu

 

 

[Biko Agozino]

Obi,

I have already apologized to the adorable baboons out there for comparing them to a blood-thirsty tyrant. But I am not in agreement with the 'anti-racist racism' of Sarte which was a misreading of Fanon's Wretched of the Earth. Fanon, who married a white woman, did not advocate the hatred of the white people but, as a psychiatrist, diagnosed why a minority of people become violent under a systematic violent oppression. His solution was a non-violent mobilization and education of the countryside and the poor through revolutionary literature. My inspiration for the baboon of the lagoon is closer to home, it is Baba Fela Kuti  who identified the tendency that he called Beasts of No Nation - animals in human skin - whose morality is so inhumane that they cannot be seriously classified with the human species. In that case, Fela was directly quoting the apartheid terrorist, Botha, who bragged that the mass uprising of the people in demand for non-racial democracy 'would bring out the beast in us'. No be me talk am, said Fela.

Obioma, focusing on the words alone is not an effective way of understanding any communication. We must read between the lines too to inter-subjectively understand the meanings of human actions and intentions. A man who boasts that he must be a bastard or that his father did not give birth to him unless he launches a mass killing of innocent law-abiding citizens, was being paid compliments by being called a saintly baboon. Surely, he is much worse than that.

Bolaji may be right that there are people who share the genocidal hatred of Akiolu. Perhaps Bolaji is one such individual for wishing that the 'children and subjects' of the lunatic will fulfill the nightmare of their 'royal father'. Luckily for Nigerian, the youth of Lagos and Nigeria today are not easily incited to go on genocidal rampages. Education and cosmopolitanism have increasingly resulted in a multicultural nation with friendship, marriage and partnership across ethnic divides on a mass scale unknown before. There are Yoruba people who are equally outraged that a power-drunk fool could threaten millions of their fellow citizens for doing their civic duty. Bolaji, are you also outraged by Akiolu's threat?

Bolaji should condemn the royal pretender and demand for his dismissal from office because his outrage is not shared by all Yoruba people, many of whom are friends, associates, in-laws or off-springs of the unjustly hated Igbo. The candidate scandalized by the brazen threat should repudiate the poisoned chalice; the governor of Lagos should arrest the terrorist or the president of Nigeria should order the arrest. The president-elect should use this opportunity to apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs and promise to pay reparations to the survivors We all should join hands to demand justice for the Igbo to address past young and thereby make reruns more unimaginable.

When democracy matures in Nigeria, we will come to a stage where all despotic 'traditional rule' institutions will be abolished and the people will be allowed to elect the mayors of their towns and town council members for limited terms in office as Azikiwe insisted in the South East during self-rule when the people of Enugu chose to elect a Hausa man as the mayor of Enugu and no one threatened anyone with genocide.

Biko

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

I should not "act like (a baboon) or even beneath one" simply because I ask that you and some of your very shrill co-travelers not call the incontinent Oba "a baboon?"  

You can see why I believe that some of you doth protest too much and are probably worse (in your own palaces, when no one is taping you)  than the Oba Akiolu himself that you are denouncing.  There must be something more that is biting you than this already-oft-denounced statement.

You are right:  The Oba is NOT Oba of Lagos State, but Oba of "Lagos", a small part of the state, even a small part of what is known as "Lagos City."  So what is the big fuss?  The man has backtracked; some of his "subjects" have condemned his statement; even Ambode has thrown him under the bus.  So you want him to commit suicide, or to have him deposed?

Come on...in this campaign, terrible things were said about persons and peoples, and nary did I read a word from many of you.....you were probably clapping in the background, and/or crafting the words.  I believe that there hypocrisy - and some unrighteous indignation - is going on here.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

The area around the Oba of Lagos Palace (Iga Idunganran)

Lagos State:

[Rex Marinus]

All I'm saying, Dr Aluko, is tat the "incontinent Oba" should be called by his proper name. I'm saying, it is eough enough to just say, "His Royal Majesty went too far and we condemn his words and action." Such a statement makes the words "Royal" and "Majesty" inappropriate. I should think that saying, "Akiolu behaved like an idiot by threatening the Igbo in Lagos with murder" is more appropriate because it drives home the truth, while the other plays with euphemisms. But on this matter, there should be no tongue-in-cheek. Even his "incontinence" should not be an excuse.
 
It is interesting that you bring up the calumny that characterized the last campaigns. It did not bother me because often politics is about disputes and name-calling between opponents K.O. Mbadiwe once described M.I. Okpara as "that bumpkin from Bende." Zik himself had called Mbadiwe "a political Liliputian."That's ok with me. The difference, and I hope you see this, is that Akiolu threatened to drown the Igbo in the Lagoon if they do not do his will by voting he candidate the has backed. We must draw the line there. That is the basis of my outrage, nothing else, I assure you. But I do not want him commit suicide, jut he is prosecuted, or the very least, forcefully sanction for hate-speech
Obi Nwakanma
 

---

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 19:24:12 +0100

[Maxwell O Eseonu]

Why are you making apologies! The oba is really a baboon. In today's age, a man of his stature making such vile threats on Nigerian Citizens is UNACCEPTABLE!

 

Any Igbo man, who votes for his candidate on SATURDAY, means his/her mother was never married and was born out of wedlock. The person must be AN IDIOT. The pronouncements of the oba are demeaning to ALL Igbos and they SHOULD NOT let anyone intimidate them. When one accepts certain behaviors, it seems to be an accepted norm and others will tend to emulate. It should STOP NOW. You now know who are your friends and adversaries.

Be vigilant at ALL times!

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 12:52 PM

---

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[kenneth harrow]

maxwell
how do we erect boundaries within which a viable, acceptable debate can be carried on, that is the question. once that's settled, people are free to say what they want about the oba. but framing the discussion requires some way of opening the possibility for disagreeing voices to be heard.
seems to me
ken

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

You can see why I will never allow your super-menschen attitude to go past me.

Is it for "threatening the Igbo with murder" that you are venting so much, or is it for threatening ANYBODY at all?

Let me ask this:  if ALL the Igbo vote for Agbaje, and NO YORUBA votes for Agbaje, can Agbaje win the Lagos gubernatorial election?  Absolutely not!  So for Agbaje to win, MANY non-Igbo, including MANY Yoruba, must vote AGAINST Ambode, who PRESUMABLY will also be sunk in the Lagoon by this ALL powerful Oba Akiolu, who will have to REACH beyond his tiny suzreinty in Eko-land, to pick them up one by one, and drown them.

So why are you all not BENT over backwards about his threat to ALL NIGERIANS who vote against Ambode, rather than just the Igbo?  Is this why there is still SHRILLNESS in your community?

Answer me.......

Listen up:  I am OFFENDED by his threat against ANY Nigerian, any person, simply because they vote against Ambode.  I believe that I am thereby one hundred times better than some of you who are simply angered because he addressed your own Igbo group, most of whose Ezes in attendance at the Iga Idunganran were APPLAUDING at that very time, not completely sure of the gravity of the statements.

Let me make two predictions:  (1)  Ambode will win on Saturday, and it will have nothing to do with the Oba's approval or incontinence (2)  Nobody will be drowned in the Lagoon thereafter.

And there is no syllogism implied there.

And there you have it....but I have been wrong before, and my predictions are not water-tight.

Bolaji Aluko

[Ademola Dasylva]

Well said, well written. So far, the reactions are quite justified. You ask me why? It reminds me of a beautiful Yoruba wise saying, roughly translated as, "The elder who ties maize round his waist and chooses to enter the market (or township) must neither be surprised nor complain should he be pursued by very daring fowls". 

No matter how highly placed a public figure is, it is not a proper thing to demand respect for oneself, or on behalf of someone else. Rather, you command respect, you don't demand it. The Oba of Lagos should borrow some wisdom nuggets from our great and amiable Awujale, HRH Oba Sikiru Adetona of Ijebu Kingdom, or HRH Odulana Odugade, the Olubadan of Ibadan, on general royal cum-public conducts, and genuine patriotic zeal. 

Thank God, the APC gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State, Mr Ambode, his Party and other well meaning Nigerians have come out to condemn the unprintable utterance. This definitely is, to say the least a careless distraction. Therefore, I wish to appeal to all patriots and eligible voters to still go out on Saturday and vote wisely and en mass, with their conscience intact, for the candidate of their choice regardless of what the Oba said. 

Long Live Nigeria!

Ademola O. Dasylva 

[Segun Ogungbemi]

That 's right. Let them be inventing history of falsehood. They have not shown any Ibo given a crown as Obi of Lagos. Why can't they turn their eastern cities to mega ones to attract the Yoruba there? How many different ethnicities are in Ibo land? Is Onitsha considered Federal Republic of Nigeria? 

You know what, if the country splits today and every ethnicity goes back to its region will the Ibo remain in Lagos as indigenes? Whenever there is crisis in Lagos why do the Ibos run back to their localities in the east? 

I have raised these questions to show that what these guys say here is nothing but an intellectual exercise. They know the reality. 

 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

--

[Rex Marinus]

Dr Aluko:
I will just be as outraged if Akiolu had summoned the Urhobo, and said to them, "if you do not vote my candidate this Saturday, I will drown you all in the Lagoon," and swear to it on the graves of his ancestors and on his God, Allah! I will be as outraged if he threatened the Yoruba voters in Lagos by saying, "all you Yoruba who have defied me by voting PDP last week, I shall drown you if you do not vote my candidate on Saturday." Nothing justifies this threat so boldly made. But he did not threaten the Yoruba, nor the Urhobo, or Ijaw, or Igala, or Nupe, etc. But he did not. If he did, I will be just as "shrill" in my condemnation of it. Akiolu did not threaten "every Nigerian;" he was specific. The question you should then be asking is: why did he specifically summon the Igbo people and why did he specifically direct his threat to the Igbo in Lagos? Why did he threaten selective annihilation? If my outrage based on this is "super-menschen," so be it. And if the only time when it makes sense to be outraged about threatening people is when it is inclusive, then Dr. Aluko I'm afraid, we live in different universes.
Obi Nwakanma

 

---

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 20:45:22 +0100

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

On April 3, way before Oba Akiolu's "unctious rant", this was your own "unctious rant":

QUOTE

 From: Rex Marinus rexma...@hotmail.com

Whoever does not like the way the Igbo vote, has voted, and will vote, when it comes to elections, should go to the nearest river and jump. It is the democratic option, and the Igbo are indifferent to these unctuous rants. It is a free advise. So, most Igbo voted Goodluck Jonathan? So the Igbo placed their bet on one pile, and made a call? So, what? The Igbo are not complaining. They have not expressed regret. The next day, after the elections, the Igbo simply said, "alright, anu laa taa, echi wu nta...  ." They picked up their bags and went back to work. The Igbo are often not detained by the lax sentiment of failure. They have not asked for anybody's sympathies, or favours, or even regard, for the electoral choices they made. They have congratulated the winners, and praised the losers, and they have not called for the world to collapse because their own candidate lost. In their various communities, the Igbo are busy strategizing; arguing; disagreeing, agreeing, making mistakes, and getting on with their real lives. Somehow, they will find their niche in this political cycle and make it count. That is the way of the Igbo. Again, those who think they have the answers to Igbo political choices, should first save themselves, before they save the Igbo, who have not yet summoned them to help. Ndi Igbo have a right to their political conviction, and should not always toe the popular path. Mark it down: the Igbo did not vote Buhari in large numbers; yes; the Igbo voted overwhelmingly for Jonathan, and yes, the Igbo have a right if they so wish, to put all their eggs in one basket. If it breaks, let it all break. So what?

Obi Nwakanma

UNQUOTE

Ignoring your Igbo super-menschen rantings for now....., I believe that Oba Akiolu must have read you, and decided for the nearest river to himself - the Lagos Lagoon - to suggest that those who don't vote for Ambode should jump into it - or be assisted into it as you seem ready to do for those who "do not like the way Igbo vote."  Also,  noting that you don't care a hoot about any unctuous rants, he decided to go ahead with this threat, and is now surprised at the level of vitriolic reaction?

The Oba Akiolu has been taped:  you, Obi Nwakanma, have been RECORDED.

[Rex Marinus]

Segun Ogungbemi:
The reality is (a) Nigeria is a work in progress. As a postcolonial/neo-colonial state it will contend with profound schisms before the perfection of its ultimate public spirit, (b) the current claim of who owns which Nigerian city is both moot and laughable because the city will remain a 100 years from now, and its character would have changed so much that those in the future of that city may, if they encounter some of the fierce statements in this forum, find it all quaint and amusing, (c) I do not know where you are a professor or of what kind, but I assume that you must have certain groundings to merit your chair: so, I will say this, conceive of all empires that have split or gone into decline. What happened to their populations? IF Nigeria breaks apart, that question is likely to be answered. There will be dramatic population shifts; new powerful territorial claims; enforcement of security boundaries that will splice once coherent communities into fragments, and perhaps contained into new territories. We can speculate but because the split in Nigeria will be accompanied by violent and possibly catastrophic events,  the movement of 12 million people in Lagos alone will reshape the West African landscape. People who were once Yoruba will be absorbed into other places; people who were once Igbo may establish new identities, and the dynamic forces will determine the fate of Lagos.
 
By the way, there are huge numbers of Yoruba in Eastern Nigerian cities in Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Aba, Calabar, Onitsha, etc. I think you should travel a little more around Nigeria. Finally, let me make this statement as plainly as possible: the Igbo are not in Lagos on anyone's invitation, or goodwill; they are not in Lagos because there are no developments in Eastern Nigerian cities. Again, I'd advise you to travel a bit across Nigeria, and see for yourself. My favourite Nigerian city, and I have been to most, is Owerri because of its calm elegance. You should visit to see. The Igbo, like many other Nigerians are in places like Lagos, because THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO BE THERE. Lagos was built by the sweat, genius, and enterprise of these Nigerians, not just of the Igbo or Yoruba, and so on. Lagos was not built by the Yoruba alone. The Oba of Lagos has not contributed a farthing to the development of Lagos. He has of course collected rent. There have been many Igbo, Itshekiri, Urhobo, Hausa, Efik families, etc. who have been in Lagos long before many a Yoruba who now claim to be "Lagosians" left the Yoruba hinterland to come to Lagos. Azikiwe for instance was a Lagosian long before Awolowo took his first trip to Lagos in the 1930s. Azikiwe contributed more to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than Awolowo, for instance. There are many Lebanese and Greek families who have longer and firmer roots in Lagos than current Yoruba claimants of Lagos, and who made far more contribution to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than any living Yoruba. We need to respect these facts. And by the way, the day the Igbo leave Lagos, Lagos will stop being the Lagos as you know it. There is evidence of this during the Christmas when the Igbo leave in great numbers. Lagos looks deserted, and the East becomes enkindled with great human energy. Cities rise and decline. The day the Port policies change towards the expansion of activities in the ports at Calabar, Port-Harcourt, Warri and the new Onitsha port, perhaps the prayer of those who wish the Igbo to leave Lagos may be answered. Maybe that day is not too long in the future.
 
However, right now in Lagos, a great world city is emergent, and it is taking the fierce energy of Nigerians from everywhere. The Hausa supplier of meat to that city is as vital as the Egun woman who hawks that great soul food, Ewa Agoyin with that lovely peppery stew as only the Yoruba knows to make it; in Lagos today, I have heard many Yoruba speaking fluent Igbo without living in the East as a result of a very diffuse use of that language in the city; there are border crossings; marriages contracted across ethnic lines; Lagos is the great Nigerian watershed city where a new urban, cosmopolitan culture has taken roots. It refuses to be provincial, and only a particular kind of Yoruba provincialism continues to hold on to the fiction of Lagos as a distinct Yoruba city. But the cosmopolitan Yoruba and the cosmopolitan Igbo, among others, have met in this city which is the laboratory of a new Nigeria, in spite of the thinking of the Segun Ogungbemis of this world. And I should say, Nigeria is not breaking up soon. When it does, the boundaries will draw themselves. But until it does, every Nigerian is subject only to the constitution of the Federal republic which guarantees the citizenship of a Nigerian, where ever they reside in that republic. It is that guarantee which makes it possible for an Igbo to contest election in Lagos or Kano, and which gives the Yoruba the same rights, should they choose to establish residence, and seek for political office in Aba.
Obi Nwakanma

 

---

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: segun...@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 19:17:53 -0500
CC: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Segun Ogungbemi]

My Colleagues,

What I find repugnant in all this is the intellectual blindness of our Ibo friends responding to an issue that their Ezes did not consider offensive. Rather they promised His Royal Highness their support for his candidate. Why did they do that? How can a Royal Father call you to  forigbepe and you obeyed? They have eaten the kola nuts and other ingredients in the palace. For those who ate them, they should not vote against what they have promised the Kabiyesi. If they do so on Saturday they have forigbepe. Jokes apart, that is the truth. I hope they are aware of it. 

I cannot reprimand my Kabiyesi in this forum. It is not in our character as Omoluabi.

 I have many Ibo friends who understand our cultural values and the respect we give to our elders. They will not be talking like these guys in this forum at all. 

All the votes of the Ibos  alone, as Prof. Bolaji Aluko says in Lagos, cannot make Agbaje to win on Saturday. 

I don't know who will win but whoever wins I assure you it is not the votes of the Ibos alone that will do the magic wand. 

For Biko and his collaborators on genocide and payment of reparation, don't you think such a demand is outrageously and morally unjust? There was no genocide committed and the Federal government has never told the global community that there was genocide committed against the Ibos during the Civil War (1967-197). 

 For those who are willing to listen to the voice of Reason and wisdom of Elders let them do so. 

They should also drink from the water of Yemoja to avoid being drown in the lagoon. Eo ni forigbepe lodo Kabiyesi o Aase Edumare. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

<image002.jpg>

[Biko Agozino]

Segun,

God go punish you o if you do not find genocide repugnant but only find repugnant your intellectual blindness expressed in your continued genocide denialism. May Chineke forgive you your abominable magical thoughts of which the Igbo are not scared because the Igbo believe that they are with their personal Chi in innocence and are guaranteed to survive all wicked plots.

As a Professor of Ethics in Odessa, Ukraine, you cannot claim to be blind, deaf and dumb to the past consequences of fascist genocidal policies and the current neo-fascist tendencies of genocidal threats and denialism by psuedo intellectuals who fan the embers of hate.

Your morality sinks to the toilet pit when you deliberately wrote this phrase in defamation: 'Biko and his collaborators on genocide...' as part of your genocide denialism. I do not blame you for your ignorance, it is the fault of the genocidists who abolished the teaching of history in Nigeria out of fear that their crimes against humanity will be exposed to the future generations who are bound to make atonement for the sins of their fathers.

Please listen to the repudiation of the unwarranted vile threats from your Oba Olopa by people of conscience from every ethnic background in Lagos. Just because two Igbo candidates were elected members of the House of Representative from Lagos state is no reason for all this Igbophobia. None of the candidates for governor in Saturday's election is Igbo and you will find everyone voting their conscience without a strict loyalty to any ethnic party for there is none.

Please tone down your incitement to hatred, we are not blind, deaf or mute to the consequences in Nigerian history. Show some respect and write the name of millions of your compatriots the way they identify themselves, Igbo, and not insultingly the way the colonial authorities tried to dehumanize them, Ibo.

Biko

[Bode]

I am interested in this. Can you elaborate? I ask because I was just saying to my cousin who is visiting how much I wished Zik had become the first Premier of the Western Region, that ethnic relations in Nigeria would have been different especially between the West and East. His response was unexpected: what did Zik do for the East as Premier? UNN? But Awolowo is immortalized for what he was able to accomplish for the West, still without equal. So, you see why I am interested in Zik’s contributions to Lagos?

[Ademola Dasylva]

Where did this fella get his facts from? Why do desperate colleagues deliberately twist facts and stand the Truth on its head??? Find out how Western Region under Awolowo invested in Ikeja and Ilupeju to make them the regional industrial Estates for reasons of their proximity to the port of importation and exportation. It initiated Lagos commercial prominence and status which everyone now enjoys. Let somebody tell the comedian how Chief Henry Fajemirokun by the persuasion of his close friend, Chief Awolowo, and an appeal by the then Military governor, Brig. Mobolaji Johnson, built single-handedly the imposing Three Towers at VI, .etc, etc.

 People that matter, Igbo and non-Igbo, had condemned the Oba of Lagos for his misconduct and clueless utterance, metaphor or no metaphor, but that is no license for anybody to start jostling with history and sensitive facts. 

Mba, mba, if dis na yoke make you stop 'am. 

We should all do something positive about our unity, brotherliness, trust we just got to fix us. The politicians had done our national psyche an incalculable damage by their selfish campaigns of calumny, ethnicity, and divisive religious doctrines that further tear us apart. I think as compatriots we should  not buy into this any more, it is sickening for those of us who were there before Independence, and still stand on our legs by the grace of Baba God. 

I remember, when I was growing up in the fifties up to mid-sixties, there were no ethnic borders, and no boundaries of religions did exist. On the Empire Day celebration on May 24 of every year, we all, school children, young and old, would line the streets and the chosen parade ground to celebrate together gleefully, no pretense, no subterfuge, united, jostling, together. Gone were the days when Zik would ride in his motorcade along major roads in the West, and the noise of Zeeek, Zeeek would rend the air; the same thing, Awooooo! Awoooo! Hogan Kid Basey! Dick Tiger! and Thunder Balogun! etc., etc. nobody cared where they came from. We loved them with passion, and our love and trust were genuine and innocent. This is not to suggest that I endorsed or enjoyed the evil that colonialism represented, but I am desirous of the return of the innocent and pure psychosocial and less sophisticated setting of the period. We used to have in our house some brotherly people from the East and Midwest who either worked on a neighbour's ground-father's farms, or were engaged as petty traders. As kids, none of us cared where they came from; we all integrated as a family, we children had milled around together, played "Hide and Seek" together, had queued to fetch water from the street taps, together; attended schools together, served as Alter boys together, had belonged to the same societies in the church, etc.

Then came the blinding harmattan of bastards and politicians, closely followed by the military coup; then the civil war that broke the legs on which our united spirit had rested. Now we levitate on our fragile frame as a nation, and no legs to stand on. Our story has not changed going by the virtual "civil war" raging on this listserv; we are still being severed further and further apart by legacies of inherited hate and bitterness and distrust handed down by crafty politicians, and still being handed down by "divide and rule" politicians, also passed down by our parents, or respected relations, or read from some history books and celluloid documentaries. We are all witnesses the way all this came to the fore in the current democratic process. Now, it is left to our generation to stop the cancer of hate, expunge it completely from the already congested testaments of our spirit, our system; let us learn to forgive no matter how bitter we are or possibly could be, let us love and trust like never before, let us grant our souls requisite amnesty to make us fly  like the eagles that is our national symbol, let us make both our national anthem and the national pledge real and realistic, or whatever we confess and practice as faith is a fake.

The old love and trust must return, let us go out again on Saturday and vote, let us be guided by our conscience; let us all work towards a truly united and economically vibrant Nigeria. I do pray that the President-elect will steer away the nation's troubled ship from the inclement current of hate and divisiveness sweeping us off our divine course as a potentially great nation! 

The journey has already commenced on March 28, and may as well be perfected NOW as we go to the polls on Saturday. I am unavoidably in God's own country at the moment and, regrettably, I cannot exercise my franchise.

Long live Nigeria!  

Ademola Dasylva

--

[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

Obi Nwakanma,

You have returned with your opportunistic misinformation and distortions of history. What did Zik who preferred Ghana do to develop Lagos? What did he do to develop the East talk less of Lagos.

You always want to claim credit where you have contributed nothing. Soon you will claim Igbo votes secured Buhari's victory in 2015.

Zik was an opportunist who saw the old Herbert Macaulay as waning and he came to take over all the old man's hard work and turn the NCNC into a rabid Igbo party. He was too envious of the Yoruba that when in 1959 Awo offered him the Prime Minister and he become the Minister of Finance he rejected the opprtunity to become the most powerful politician in Nigeria.

Instead he chose to become a mere figurehead to the Balewa government that he ended up betraying and running away from by guise of a Carribean cruise holiday when he knew his boys would strike.

Look you can spread your lies but it will not hold any water.

Cheers.

IBK

--

[Segun Ogungbemi]

"God go punish you o if you do not find genocide repugnant but only find repugnant your intellectual blindness expressed in your continued genocide denialism."

Biko,
Is this kind of tirade and curse you learned from the "baboon"having graduated from the training in their cage?
Your curse has no power of invocation and therefore I don't need to curse you in return.
You are a young man who needs nurture and training in the commonwealth of intellectuals.
My advice to you is to decease from invectives and address issues in the most respectable and intellectually appropriate.

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

> On Apr 9, 2015, at 11:30 AM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

[Rex Marinus]

Ominira:
I'm currently writing the biography of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and my intention is to extend work already done by Zik himself in his My Odyssey, and by his other biographers K.A.B Quartey-Jones (Cambridge UP, 1962) and Vincent Ikeotuonye (Macmillan 1964) as well as the work by Miriam Ikejiani and P. Olisa Esedebe.  Basically, my biography of Zik aims to complete or fill the gaps that Azikiwe, who promised a sequel to his autobiography, did not eventually fill. My Odyssey tells Azikiwe's story from his own voice up till 1960. Mine is to provide the larger context of Azikiwe's life as a 20th century icon of the African Liberation movement, up to his death in 1997. So, I'll suggest that you wait for my book, and buy it when it comes.
 
I do not wish to waste my time on this matter in this forum. If it would stimulate debate, that would have been a different matter. It will however just be another Igbo-Yoruba penis-measuring that would drown the issues in pointless, inconsequential polemics. But one thing I can tell you is that Azikiwe's footprints are all over the place, in the public and personal archives in Ghana, the UK, USA, Nigeria, and in his own published and unpublished papers secured in his own extraordinarily rich library which still has his papers. You can be certain that I intend to tease it all out. Now, some character calls me a "comedian" and proceeds to talk about Ilupeju and Ikeja industrial estates, and all manner of hokum. And you wonder why Nigeria's current national intellectual culture is prostrate when those employed to teach in her universities seem incapable of abstraction and coherence.
 
I choose not to engage in this debate with great depth because I have written about this many times and it is tiring to engage brick walls in a debate. But I will place my position in a summary context: I have asked this question of the likes of IBK many times without coherent answers: what is wrong with Azikiwe choosing to work with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) in a pragmatic alliance rather than with Awolowo? It is clear that Azikiwe foreswore his personal ambition for the sake of the nation. A lesser man would have taken the shorter, more convenient road, and that would have cost Nigeria the entire North of Nigeria as at 1957 and 1960. Zik chose integration and nation-building over the "area-scatter politics" that later led to wild, wild west. About Azkiwe and Lagos: perhaps we should start with these point: Azikiwe's father was Lugard's clerk in Zungeru. From Zungeru he was transferred to Calabar, and by 1918, to the Government Secretariat in Lagos. Azikiwe grew up in Lagos, not Awo; Azikiwe went to boarding school in downtown Lagos; not Awolowo.  Azikiwe was elected to represent Lagos in the Legislative Council, not Awolowo. Azikiwe established his flagship newspaper, the West African Pilot, that spear-headed Nigeria and West Africa's political and cultural renaissance from 1937-1957, in Lagos, not Awolowo; Zik Enterprises was located in Lagos; Azikiwe Athletics Club was located in Yaba, Lagos; Azikiwe's political life was staged in Lagos; Azikiwe's party governed Lagos, and anybody who wishes to understand the impact of the NCNC as the governing party in the Lagos City Council should look at the record of public work in Housing, Municipal Services and Infrastructure carried out in Lagos from 1954 to 1966. Now, Obafemi Awolowo had a certain disdain for Lagos; he did not feel comfortable in its cosmopolitan space. He placed this on record in his own memoirs. Until he served in Gowon's cabinet from 1967-1972, he never had a life in Lagos. He had no political influence in Lagos, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the policies that shaped Lagos. Azikiwe was deeply involved both in the cultural, economic, and political life of Lagos at the top floor. Of this, only the ignorant can dispute. Anyone who wishes to understand the impact of Azikiwe's contribution to Nigeria and West Africa's political and economic transformation from 1937-1957, should read George Padmore's letter to him in 1956 from London, still in the files on Azikiwe at the British archives on Kews Garden.  Zik resurrected an already politically dead Herbert Macaulay, retired from politics by the defeat of his NDP by the NYM, until Azikiwe brought him back to life.
 
Zik formed the NCNC and put Macaulay at its head. At Macaulay's death in 1944, Zik gave him a rousing funeral never seen before in Lagos, and assumed undisputed leadership of the NCNC. With his contacts with T. Akunna Wallace-Johnson and George Padmore, Azkiwe provided Michael Imoudu the blueprint for organizing Nigeria's first major Labour strike against colonialism in Lagos, and nationally. Until Azikiwe started his newspaper chains, there was o such thing as "National Politics." The network of Azikiwe's papers literally "imagined" Nigeria into being for the first time and defined the contours of modern Nigeria as a national political space. If there was any other person in their generation who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Azikiwe in that period, it was the brilliant H.O. Davies. But he was bought out in 1946 by the colonial government with a job in the Customs Services. In 1946, as a result of his sustained opposition, Arthur Richard's was compelled to invite Azikiwe to say, basically, "okay, what do you want?" and it was Azikiwe who articulated and itemized the demands that set Nigeria towards declonization, starting with the convening of the Ibadan Conferences by 1951 & 2; the establishment of the Elliot Commission and subsequently the founding of the University of Ibadan in 1948, and the Nigerianization of the Administrative Services in 1946/7 ( For further elaboration, go read Michael Crowder's The Story of Nigeria, if in in doubt;).
 
What did Azikiwe do for the East? Well, the first thing Azikiwe did on becoming premier in Enugu was to design the Eastern Nigerian Economic Reconstruction plan (1954-1964) as the blueprint for Eastern Nigerian development. It is now on record that published accounts placed the Eastern Nigerian economy as the fastest growing economy in the world by 1964. It was based on the Zik plan that the Industrial Estates at Enugu, Trans-Amadi (PH) and Aba were built. The Agricultural and industrial policies later implemented by Okpara was at the core of that program. There was not a single city in the East that did not become an industrial hub - from the Modern Breweries, Ceramics, and so on in Umuahia, to the first integrated Gas plant, the Niger Gas, or even the Niger Steel plant, which was billed to be integrated with the proposed Onitsha integrated Steel corporation that was later moved to Ajaokuta, as the first of such in the continent, and which was, with the Tri-city industrial Gas pipeline already laid between Port-Harcourt and Aba, with the Owerri end at foot, to be the hub of Eastern Nigerian Industrial and Technological development. All these were destroyed by the Civil war. The Eastern Nigerian Pharmaceutical Laboratories and Corporation, which later partnered and became Pfizer (WA) was established in Aba by Zik. It became Pfizer's West African Operational Headquarters until it was moved to Lagos in 1970 at the end of the war. You must know that as at 1967, Aba stood on  same footing with Lagos as an industrializing city: whatever industry was established in Lagos was also established in Aba - the Nigerian Breweries, Nestle's first production Hq, Lever Brothers, Proctor & gamble etc; all had Aba operations to serve Central West Africa, all because of Zik. The Nigerian civil war and later Federal policies targeted and destroyed the East's industrial and economic growth. For starters, I will recommend Harry Gailey's book, The Road to Aba (New York U Press, 1970) to you to get some picture of what I'm talking about.
 
As for the constant comparison with Awo's achievements in the West: I will certainly take UNN over Redifusion Radio and TV; I will take the first modern library system ever established in Africa over Television House (never mind that Eastern Nigerian TV also came on air, only  one year behind WNTV on October 1, 1960. But the West under Awo, did not have the kind of library network existing in the East.) I will certainly take the Onitsha Modern Market emporium, which made Onitsha for sub-saharan Africa, what Dubai is today, over Cocoa House. Why? The Onitsha modern market is regenerative investment, the skyscraper (Cocoa House) was a white elephant project that cannot even maintain itself. It speaks certainly to the attributes of those two certainly remarkable men. But above all, a powerful, often ignored fact: Azikiwe gave the fishing rod to the East, rather than the fish itself. Using the ACB from 1954 and later the Cooperative Bank of Eastern Nigeria, Azikiwe's government provided incredible access to credit to Eastern traders and businessmen for the first time. Before Zik, British Banks refused to lend to indigenous businesses. It all changed with Zik. The creation of  a vast Eastern network of small scale Eastern businesses and trading activities, the very core of the formation of the vast Igbo middle class today owes something to Azikiwe's economic nationalism. We continue to see the impact even today in the fact that the East is a force to be reckoned with as entrepreneurs. Igbo businesses owe much of its start-up to Azikiwe and his program of empowerment through strategic access to credit to these businesses. I will just leave it at that. I have said much more than I intended to say on this. But there you have it.
Obi Nwakanma

 

---

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2015 22:59:22 +0300

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: ibk...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Segun Ogungbemi]

Obi,

You have raised a number of issues in your post but the primary one is the ownership of Lagos. My idea of ownership of Lagos is not in consonant with yours and it requires a definitive clarification. Obi, ownership has lower and higher re-definitions. The former deals with a general conceptual belief that the Creator owns all things including the planet earth that  you and I call our own.

Nigeria in this category is owned by all Nigerians. 

The latter is the natural location in which each ethnic group who speaks the same language and have cultural affinity and identity resides. 

In this case the Yoruba speaking people living in the Southwest including those in Kwara and Kogi States  in Nigeria own their domains in Nigeria. In their cultural  traditions the Obas have authority to govern according to the dictates of Orisha, ancestors and the people.  They are called Igba Keji Orisha, second command to Orisha. 

Since Lagos is in the Southwest and the dominant ethnicity is the Yoruba, the claim of ownership of Lagos by the Oba of Lagos is conceived in this higher re-definition. 

The word "Oba" is originally and distinctively used by the Yoruba to describe their rulers from time immemorial. 

Now let us separate contributions from ownership. For instance, all ethnic groups which have made huge contributions to the development of Lagos do so for economic and political reasons not because they are joint owners of Lagos in the higher re-definition of ownership as explained above. That is why when Christmas or Easter festival comes most Ibos and other nationalities in Lagos go home for celebration because that is the place they can rightfully claim to be their own. 

Therefore, logically and pragmatically Lagos is not their home and so they don't own it. When there were political crises that led to killings in Lagos, the Ibos ran back to their states in the east because that is their own. 

Obi, you have turned historical facts of its head and arrived at a distorted  conclusion. The Owelle of Onisha, Nnamdi Azikwe met Lagos as an emerging economic and political capital of a dynamic nation. He was a beneficiary of the work laid down by Engineer Herbert Macaulay of blessed memory. He was a Yoruba man, an educationist, activist, politician and nationalist.  Azikwe became a political apprentice under Macaulay. 

You cannot compare Azikwe with Awolowo in all ramifications. The development of the defunct Western Region which extended to MidWestern Region in those days was unparalleled and that is what the Ibos living in those two regions benefited immensely because such was not found in their eastern region. Was there any free education in the east? Were there radio and television broadcasting stations in those days the east? Was there palm oil house like CocaHouse at Ibadan? Was there anything call Liberty Stadium in the east? How many kilometer roads were constructed in the east when Azikwe was their Premier? How many towns and cities in the east   

with pipe borne water? Awolowo provided all these and more for his people. You may need to read more history books in all this and perhaps contact Prof. Toyin Falola the greatest African historian of our time for better understanding of History of Nigeria.

I know there are pockets of Yoruba in Iboland but you cannot compare their population with that of your people in Yorubaland. 

The Ibos are commercial traders and primarily in those days engaged in secondhand clothing, stockfish, etcetera. Today they have added spare parts of all sorts including auto mobil, electronics and computers, building materials etc. These commercial activities do not add much value to Nigeria industrial development. 

Go to Ikeja and see the industrial layout of Awolowo. It is industry that has economic values to the development of a nation. 

With the services of social media one does not need to go to the east to know the rate of the development there. Tell me, are you happy with the streets in Onitsha, Aba , Enugu, etc that you see on AIT, Channels, and NTA international news? Why can't your people go home and develop their cities and towns and stop developing the ones in Lagos and other places in the Southwest?  It does not add up to common sense for anyone to develop cities and towns that are not his own when where he comes from is begging for development.  methinks.  

Obi, I think some of the issues you raised have been adequately answered. 

Ogun agbe yin o. Aase.  

 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Ademola Dasylva]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ighile Mark <mig...@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 12:28 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

To: Ademola Dasylva <dasy...@gmail.com>
Cc: usaafric...@googlegroups.com, Patrick Edebor <pked...@gmail.com>, "toyin....@mail.utexas.edu" <Toyin....@mail.utexas.edu>, samade...@yahoo.co.uk, "josun...@yahoo.com" <josun...@yahoo.com>, Michael Vickers <mvic...@mvickers.plus.com>, Kehinde <kehind...@yahoo.co.uk>, Bola Dauda <bola...@hotmail.com>, REGISTRAR REGISTRAR <regi...@run.edu.ng>

Professor Dasylva,
Thank you so much for this piece. It has not only helped in placing the entire discourse in proper context and perspective, it has also come with its medicinal and historical implications.
This attempt at putting  the overall record straight is soothing, and highly commendable.
Warm regards.

Mark Ighile,  PhD  (Ibadan)
National Secretary,
Nigerian Oral Literature Association &
Ag. Director, Academic Planning,
Benson Idahosa University,
P M B 1100 Benin City.
+234 (0) 802 344 5151, +234 (0) 803 495 9317.
www.biu.edu.ng/www.mark-ighile.blogspot.com

Those who feed others with the integrity of heart and guide them by the skilfulness of hands are the true leaders. Mark them. (Psa. 78:72).

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note on Airtel Mobile

[Segun Ogungbemi]

Thanks my good friend, Prof. Dasylva for your pre-election sermon of love and forgiveness. I hope some of our colleagues from the east will accept your spiritual approach to oneness we once enjoyed in the past. 

The pursuit of money and political power by "new Nigerians" have obliterated the Christian principle of love you have passionately talked about in your sermon. 

I wish all Nigerians peace and love that pass all understanding reign supreme in your hearts and minds as you go to choose your leaders on Saturday. Vote your Conscience and Ogun and Irunmole will be with you all. Aase Edumare. 

 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Ighile Mark]

Professor Dasylva,
Thank you so much for this piece. It has not only helped in placing the entire discourse in proper context and perspective, it has also come with its medicinal and historical implications.
This attempt at putting  the overall record straight is soothing, and highly commendable.
Warm regards.

Mark Ighile,  PhD  (Ibadan)
National Secretary,
Nigerian Oral Literature Association &
Ag. Director, Academic Planning,
Benson Idahosa University,
P M B 1100 Benin City.
+234 (0) 802 344 5151, +234 (0) 803 495 9317.
www.biu.edu.ng/www.mark-ighile.blogspot.com

Those who feed others with the integrity of heart and guide them by the skilfulness of hands are the true leaders. Mark them. (Psa. 78:72).

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note on Airtel Mobile

On 10 Apr 2015 00:02, "Ademola Dasylva" <dasy...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Obi Nwakanma:

I give it to you:  Zik's "political penis" is longer than Awo's....and I am still waiting for your biography of Zik all of these years:  I will be the first to buy it!

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

Having a belly-laugh

[wa...@comcast.net]

Thank you Rex Marinus for the brilliant summary of Zik's contributions to Lagos' politico- economic life and indeed to Nigeria. For about two years I have deliberately not contributed to this forum on a regular basis. In that interval some quasi intellectuals whose understanding of Nigeria's political evolution is subjective have ressurected to write a revisionist history of our march to nationhood. Rather than learn from our past history as a nation, they bask in the new euphoria of APC victory, condemning those whose geo-political zones did not vote for General Buhari. How naive they are.Consciously they lend support to the words of foolishness from the mouth of a paramount ruler, and in the process denigrate those at the receiving end of the unkingly admonishment.

I am sick and tired of lazy intellectuals who would love to be fed truth here rather than dig into the archives and carry out own objective research!

You have done very well Rex to rehash these objective contributions. I lived through Zik's pace-setting political era, read his West African Pilot. I know that Zik was the founder of Lagos City College in Yaba
and numerous companies that empowered him to challenge the colonialists. No true intellectual should demean his contributions. He had the foresight to form alliance with the Northern Peoples
Congress, which the AD, CPC and others have just seen the light to join? Then, he was villified, but time has vindicated his judgement.

Steve Nwabuzor



Let us stride forward with truth on the side of nation builders. Subjectivity and tribally colored lenses should be removed from our body politic.

----- Original Message -----
From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 03:43:04 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

Ominira:
I'm currently writing the biography of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and my intention is to extend work already done by Zik himself in his My Odyssey, and by his other biographers K.A.B Quartey-Jones (Cambridge UP, 1962) and Vincent Ikeotuonye (Macmillan 1964) as well as the work by Miriam Ikejiani and P. Olisa Esedebe. Basically, my biography of Zik aims to complete or fill the gaps that Azikiwe, who promised a sequel to his autobiography, did not eventually fill. My Odyssey tells Azikiwe's story from his own voice up till 1960. Mine is to provide the larger context of Azikiwe's life as a 20th century icon of the African Liberation movement, up to his death in 1997. So, I'll suggest that you wait for my book, and buy it when it comes.

I do not wish to waste my time on this matter in this forum. If it would stimulate debate, that would have been a different matter. It will however just be another Igbo-Yoruba penis-measuring that would drown the issues in pointless, inconsequential polemics. But one thing I can tell you is that Azikiwe's footprints are all over the place, in the public and personal archives in Ghana, the UK, USA, Nigeria, and in his own published and unpublished papers secured in his own extraordinarily rich library which still has his papers. You can be certain that I intend to tease it all out. Now, some character calls me a "comedian" and proceeds to talk about Ilupeju and Ikeja industrial estates, and all manner of hokum. And you wonder why Nigeria's current national intellectual culture is prostrate when those employed to teach in her universities seem incapable of abstraction and coherence.

I choose not to engage in this debate with great depth because I have written about this many times and it is tiring to engage brick walls in a debate. But I will place my position in a summary context: I have asked this question of the likes of IBK many times without coherent answers: what is wrong with Azikiwe choosing to work with the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) in a pragmatic alliance rather than with Awolowo? It is clear that Azikiwe foreswore his personal ambition for the sake of the nation. A lesser man would have taken the shorter, more convenient road, and that would have cost Nigeria the entire North of Nigeria as at 1957 and 1960. Zik chose integration and nation-building over the "area-scatter politics" that later led to wild, wild west. About Azkiwe and Lagos: perhaps we should start with these point: Azikiwe's father was Lugard's clerk in Zungeru. From Zungeru he was transferred to Calabar, and by 1918, to the Government Secretariat in Lagos. Azikiwe grew up in Lagos, not Awo; Azikiwe went to boarding school in downtown Lagos; not Awolowo. Azikiwe was elected to represent Lagos in the Legislative Council, not Awolowo. Azikiwe established his flagship newspaper, the West African Pilot, that spear-headed Nigeria and West Africa's political and cultural renaissance from 1937-1957, in Lagos, not Awolowo; Zik Enterprises was located in Lagos; Azikiwe Athletics Club was located in Yaba, Lagos; Azikiwe's political life was staged in Lagos; Azikiwe's party governed Lagos, and anybody who wishes to understand the impact of the NCNC as the governing party in the Lagos City Council should look at the record of public work in Housing, Municipal Services and Infrastructure carried out in Lagos from 1954 to 1966. Now, Obafemi Awolowo had a certain disdain for Lagos; he did not feel comfortable in its cosmopolitan space. He placed this on record in his own memoirs. Until he served in Gowon's cabinet from 1967-1972, he never had a life in Lagos. He had no political influence in Lagos, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the policies that shaped Lagos. Azikiwe was deeply involved both in the cultural, economic, and political life of Lagos at the top floor. Of this, only the ignorant can dispute. Anyone who wishes to understand the impact of Azikiwe's contribution to Nigeria and West Africa's political and economic transformation from 1937-1957, should read George Padmore's letter to him in 1956 from London, still in the files on Azikiwe at the British archives on Kews Garden. Zik resurrected an already politically dead Herbert Macaulay, retired from politics by the defeat of his NDP by the NYM, until Azikiwe brought him back to life.

Zik formed the NCNC and put Macaulay at its head. At Macaulay's death in 1944, Zik gave him a rousing funeral never seen before in Lagos, and assumed undisputed leadership of the NCNC. With his contacts with T. Akunna Wallace-Johnson and George Padmore, Azkiwe provided Michael Imoudu the blueprint for organizing Nigeria's first major Labour strike against colonialism in Lagos, and nationally. Until Azikiwe started his newspaper chains, there was o such thing as "National Politics." The network of Azikiwe's papers literally "imagined" Nigeria into being for the first time and defined the contours of modern Nigeria as a national political space. If there was any other person in their generation who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Azikiwe in that period, it was the brilliant H.O. Davies. But he was bought out in 1946 by the colonial government with a job in the Customs Services. In 1946, as a result of his sustained opposition, Arthur Richard's was compelled to invite Azikiwe to say, basically, "okay, what do you want?" and it was Azikiwe who articulated and itemized the demands that set Nigeria towards declonization, starting with the convening of the Ibadan Conferences by 1951 & 2; the establishment of the Elliot Commission and subsequently the founding of the University of Ibadan in 1948, and the Nigerianization of the Administrative Services in 1946/7 ( For further elaboration, go read Michael Crowder's The Story of Nigeria, if in in doubt;).

What did Azikiwe do for the East? Well, the first thing Azikiwe did on becoming premier in Enugu was to design the Eastern Nigerian Economic Reconstruction plan (1954-1964) as the blueprint for Eastern Nigerian development. It is now on record that published accounts placed the Eastern Nigerian economy as the fastest growing economy in the world by 1964. It was based on the Zik plan that the Industrial Estates at Enugu, Trans-Amadi (PH) and Aba were built. The Agricultural and industrial policies later implemented by Okpara was at the core of that program. There was not a single city in the East that did not become an industrial hub - from the Modern Breweries, Ceramics, and so on in Umuahia, to the first integrated Gas plant, the Niger Gas, or even the Niger Steel plant, which was billed to be integrated with the proposed Onitsha integrated Steel corporation that was later moved to Ajaokuta, as the first of such in the continent, and which was, with the Tri-city industrial Gas pipeline already laid between Port-Harcourt and Aba, with the Owerri end at foot, to be the hub of Eastern Nigerian Industrial and Technological development. All these were destroyed by the Civil war. The Eastern Nigerian Pharmaceutical Laboratories and Corporation, which later partnered and became Pfizer (WA) was established in Aba by Zik. It became Pfizer's West African Operational Headquarters until it was moved to Lagos in 1970 at the end of the war. You must know that as at 1967, Aba stood on same footing with Lagos as an industrializing city: whatever industry was established in Lagos was also established in Aba - the Nigerian Breweries, Nestle's first production Hq, Lever Brothers, Proctor & gamble etc; all had Aba operations to serve Central West Africa, all because of Zik. The Nigerian civil war and later Federal policies targeted and destroyed the East's industrial and economic growth. For starters, I will recommend Harry Gailey's book, The Road to Aba (New York U Press, 1970) to you to get some picture of what I'm talking about.

As for the constant comparison with Awo's achievements in the West: I will certainly take UNN over Redifusion Radio and TV; I will take the first modern library system ever established in Africa over Television House (never mind that Eastern Nigerian TV also came on air, only one year behind WNTV on October 1, 1960. But the West under Awo, did not have the kind of library network existing in the East.) I will certainly take the Onitsha Modern Market emporium, which made Onitsha for sub-saharan Africa, what Dubai is today, over Cocoa House. Why? The Onitsha modern market is regenerative investment, the skyscraper (Cocoa House) was a white elephant project that cannot even maintain itself. It speaks certainly to the attributes of those two certainly remarkable men. But above all, a powerful, often ignored fact: Azikiwe gave the fishing rod to the East, rather than the fish itself. Using the ACB from 1954 and later the Cooperative Bank of Eastern Nigeria, Azikiwe's government provided incredible access to credit to Eastern traders and businessmen for the first time. Before Zik, British Banks refused to lend to indigenous businesses. It all changed with Zik. The creation of a vast Eastern network of small scale Eastern businesses and trading activities, the very core of the formation of the vast Igbo middle class today owes something to Azikiwe's economic nationalism. We continue to see the impact even today in the fact that the East is a force to be reckoned with as entrepreneurs. Igbo businesses owe much of its start-up to Azikiwe and his program of empowerment through strategic access to credit to these businesses. I will just leave it at that. I have said much more than I intended to say on this. But there you have it.
Obi Nwakanma

[Rex Marinus]

Sina,
I have not raised the question of the "ownership" of Lagos in this response, but since you have now raised it, and defined the terms, I should say this: ownership of a territory within a nation-space is defined nationally. A nation is an agglomeration of all the interests that inhere within, and is protected or secured by it. That is why it is a contradiction in terms to talk about the exclusive ownership of a territory within a nation-state that is inclusive. So, the logic is quite simple: the formation and formalization of Nigeria under a democratic and Republican constitution renders the title of the Oba of Lagos irrelevant, and at best, honorary. It carries no force of law. It is a performance. They may have been "Igba keji" under the Oyo Empire. But the Oyo empire is at best today, a historical artifact, in that it ceased to exist, and it disappeared under the natural, historical evolution of states. Nigeria is not a successor entity to the Oyo Empire. Nigeria is a supra-national state that absorbed all kinds of Empires and nations, and states - the Igbo territorial federations,  the Oyo Empire, the Hausa states; the Kanem Bornu Empire; the Sultanate of Sokoto; the fragments of the Kwararafa, the Empire of Benin, and so on and so forth. It took a defeat of these entities to create Nigeria, and unless these entities specifically rise to reassert their antique independence and reformalize themselves, they no longer can claim unique territorial ownership. To reassert themselves, they have to fight a war and defeat Nigeria. The Igbo tried to fight and reassert unique territorial control and independence from Nigeria and were soundly defeated in that enterprise. The only territory now is the territory of the federation of Nigeria. So, the specific territorial claim you make of Lagos is false. Besides, the Oba of Lagos is traditionally not even a Yoruba Oba. He is traditionally a duke of the old Empire of Benin, which itself has disappeared under the new national order. In any case, the Oba of Lagos in ceding his authority over Lagos in 1861, became just another tenant of Lagos, and another citizen subject to the municipal administration of the old Colony of Lagos which established itself as a multi-ethnic, transnational space. In the final negotiations towards political independence during the London conferences of 1957, every part of Nigeria was given the option of going it alone and reasserting the boundaries existing before the colonial treaties, or going together into independence as a single nation, and thus ceding every territorial claim to the federation of Nigeria. Everyone one chose to be granted independence as the federation of Nigeria.
 
I understand your desire to romanticize your traditional past. But what we need all to understand is that the Yoruba Obas no longer govern. They may have symbolic appeal to your conservative instincts, but they mean nothing to me as a democrat convinced on the liberties of republicanism. Besides, Lagos has no fixed territorial character. It is a city, and life within a city is far more complex than its geography or territorial location. In other words the population of Lagos continues to shift, and has ceased to be overwhelming Yoruba. I get to Lagos, for instance, and I see people conducting their affairs in the Igbo language. It is increasingly the language on the street because trading is the foundation of civic culture. The Igbo are traders, certainly, and much more. They are technicians and artisans too. They are industrialists and they are professionals in all fields. Now, let me excerpt specifically, the following statements in your response:

 
"You cannot compare Azikwe with Awolowo in all ramifications. The development of the defunct Western Region which extended to MidWestern Region in those days was unparalleled and that is what the Ibos living in those two regions benefited immensely because such was not found in their eastern region. Was there any free education in the east? Were there radio and television broadcasting stations in those days the east? Was there palm oil house like CocaHouse at Ibadan? Was there anything call Liberty Stadium in the east? How many kilometer roads were constructed in the east when Azikwe was their Premier? How many towns and cities in the east"   
 

It is clear to me that you did not read, and if you did, you may have not comprehended the detail of my mail to which you offered this response. Because if you did, you would at least understand that I said asked you this by implication: given the Eastern Regional investment in the construction of the vast Onitsha modern Market, basically at its time the biggest mall in all Africa, and the Western Regional government's investment in Cocoa House, a skyscraper in Ibadan, what would you realisticaly choose with the benefit of hindsight? I personally will go with the Onitsha modern market because it has more than justified its investment. Given the choice between an ultra-modern Liberty Stadium and an ultra-modern network of City and rural libraries, and mobile libraries, a non-pareil even till date in the continent, I will choose the modern library system over the Liberty stadium. Why? Because the investment has more than justified itself. I grew up in Ibadan up till 1975, I never went to the Liberty Stadium. But one f my most memorable days growing up was spending time in the beautifully appointed and well-stocked Children's library of the Umuahia modern Library on Library Avenue in Umuahia. Sometimes, on Saturdays, my father will take us. He would spend time in the beautiful reading rooms upstairs in the Library reading journals, while I and my siblings would be immersed in the Children's library downstairs. Many of the lawyers I knew in that beautiful town spent time in the Umuahia library as did the doctors at Queens. It was from that Library that I first borrowed and read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Nicholas Nickleby, and William Conton's The African and many more, round about primary five. Later my father would entertain us occasionally to lunch at the library's restaurant, or next door at the Ridge Club. These treats were often an incentive to do my share of housework on the weekends before 10:00 when the library opened for the weekend. Every child I knew in Umuahia in primary school had a library card. It was the same for kids I believe in Aba, Owerri, Umuahia, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Ikot-Ekpene, Calabar; wherever the Eastern government had built beautiful modern library facilities with cross regional lending programs, and rural access through the Mobile Library system. It is a matter of values. And yes, there was the Enugu Modern Stadium, which was later expanded and redeveloped as the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium today in Uwani. And yes, there was the Eastern Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and the Eastern Nigerian TV. In fact, WNTV began on October 1, 1959. ENTV began on October 1, 1960. I thought I made that clear. I also thought I made clear the range of industrial infrastructure in the East before and even after the war, the result of Azikiwe's economic policies. But you pay attention only to the things you have been primed to believe.
 
The whole question of Azikiwe's accomplishment began in the propaganda between 1977 and 1979 in the period leading to the transition towards politics in the 2nd republic by Awo's propagandists. Azikiwe himself answered that propaganda with his own well articulated monograph titled, "Matchless Past Performance: My Reply to Chief Awolowo's Challenge."  Again, I will advise that you red it and broaden your knowledge of Nigeria and Nigerian affairs, beyond the provincialism that clearly marks your sense of Nigeria. I can discern that you have never been to the East of Nigeria, otherwise, you would not ask some of what I think are questions beneath you as a professor! There is not a single city in the west for instance that has the quality of roads and street networks, and a drainage system that can compare to say Owerri or Umuahia. I do not exaggerate, but I offer this as a challenge to you. Go and visit these cities, and then speak from an empirical position. Ironically, the West of Nigeria had the least number of cities of all Nigerian regions prior to 1976: Abeokuta was a one-track railways town, even till the 1990s; Ondo was no more than a rural cocoa market, Oyo remains the same, as  Ife, basically rural. In fact, the only city of worth in the West was the Western Regional capital, Ibadan, and to some extent Benin city, until he creation of the midwest. You could not say the same about the North with Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Ilorin, etc, or the East with well developed urban centers even prior to the war like Aba, Port-Harcourt, Onitsha, Enugu, Calabar, Owerri, Umuahia. Speaking holistically, these cities are still by far better appointed than anything you can throw at them from your presumptuous perch in the West! That is why I suspect you cling madly to Lagos, built with a fiercer energy than you have given it credit.
 
Finally, all this talk about "free education" in the West is distracting. I do not see any disadvantage suffered by the East in that period or after. Indeed, every data shows that the East of Nigeria had the highest number of schools and hospitals up at least to 1967, and I'm not sure the statistics has changed. The East had the highest number of children registered in schools in the entire federation, and this fact continues to reflect contemporary reality. So, what's the point of your "free education?" In any case, the East under Azikiwe tried it in 1957, and it was shot down by opposition from the Catholic church, and of course, budget constaints. However, the East established the Eastern Regional Scholarship program, and there was no damage done to the development of public education under Azikiwe and Okpara. From  one of the top private schools, Omolewa, in Ibadan in 1975, I went to spend a term of primary school in my village public school, and was blown away by the advanced curriculum to which I was introduced, and the competitive quality of students even in that rural school in 975. I had nothing above them, and I was quite good, even if I should say so myself. In any case, and you may not understand this, Azikiwe's greatest legacy in the East was the creation of a democratic municipal local government system. It gave full autonomy to the people. The East was governed from Town Councils to Municipal Councils. The effect was quite simple: Azikiwe's government introduced governance in the East as a partnership between the people and their government, not a top-down pyramidal system. Communities partnered in the development of their towns. Town Unions raised money and were matched with government grants to build their schools, their markets, their health centers, and their water projects, etc. That was how the East developed, through that kind of "self-help" partnership, in which people determined their greatest needs, levied poll taxes, and the Eastern government provided matching grants. That was how the various Community Grammar Schools were built all over the East from 1954, up till in fact, the 1980s. Now, I'd like to emphasize this point: I defend Azikiwe, not because he was Igbo, but in spite of that fact. I defend his ideas and his position on a Nigerian state that encompasses all Nigeria, and that respects the humanity and fundamental rights of individual citizens, as well as the broad vision of a pan-African and indeed pan-human fraternity. I do not subscribe to Awo's brand of nationalism and its fascist roots and implications, and it has nothing o do with his ethnicity. And for you, I suggest that you rise from your provincial cocoon and travel around Nigeria a bit, and read more broadly, and think more laterally and horizontally. On a final note: I do respect Toyin Falola, but even he will look at you with suspicion if you describe him as "the greatest historian of our time." Only time can make such a claim, and would certainly let Falola's work speak for itself. But again, Sina, you love hyperbole.
Obi Nwakanma
 
 

 

---

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon
From: segun...@gmail.com

Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 00:21:54 -0500

[Bode]

I knew Obi will take the bait to luxuriate a bit in Zik’s greatness, while he pretends to demure! No one disputes Zik’s greatness. It is Obi who seem to discount Awolowo’s contributions for whatever reason. That is the problem. Both are not mutually exclusive. There is a reason we called him Zik of Africa. The only person measuring penises here is Obi Nwakanma: “Azikiwe contributed more to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than Awolowo, for instance.” Now, for Obi, whose love of Lagos cannot be deprived, Zik’s contributions among others become the string he latches onto to proclaim an Igbo stake to Lagos. That claim to Lagos did not have to be made via a comparison of Zik and Awo’s contributions which many will argue is "a single story” and one-sided. The cosmopolitan identity of Lagos does not also have to be made by divesting Lagos of a Yoruba identity. So, before our old folks set loose Zik’s masquerade, let us delimit the conversation, because most of what Obi writes here are not in question and are irrelevant to the specific subject of Obi measuring Zik and Awo’s economic and cultural penises (not political) in Lagos. More  soon….

[Bode]

I knew Obi will take the bait to luxuriate a bit in Zik’s greatness, while he pretends to demure! No one disputes Zik’s greatness. It is Obi who seem to discount Awolowo’s contributions for whatever reason. That is the problem. Both are not mutually exclusive. There is a reason we called him Zik of Africa. The only person measuring penises here is Obi Nwakanma: “Azikiwe contributed more to the economic and cultural development of Lagos than Awolowo, for instance.” Now, for Obi, whose love of Lagos cannot be deprived, Zik’s contributions among others become the string he lashes onto to proclaim an Igbo stake to Lagos. That claim to Lagos did not have to be made via a comparison of Zik and Awo’s contributions which many will argue is "a single story” and one-sided. The cosmopolitan identity of Lagos does not also have to be made by divesting Lagos of a Yoruba identity. So, before our old folks set loose Zik’s masquerade, let us delimit the conversation, because most of what Obi writes here are not in question and are irrelevant to the specific subject of Obi measuring Zik and Awo’s economic and cultural penises (not political) in Lagos. More  soon….

On 4/10/15, 7:40 AM, "Mobolaji Aluko" <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Salimonu Kadiri]

For Biko and his collaborators on genocide and payment of reparation, don't you think such demand is outrageously and morally unjust? There was no genocide committed and the Federal government has never told the global community that there was genocide committed against the Ibos during the Civil War (1967 - 1970) - Segun Ogungbemi.
 
Biko Agozino responded to Segun Ogungbemi thus, "You cannot claim to be blind, deaf and dumb to past consequences of GENOCIDE THREATS AND DENIALISM by pseudo intellectuals who fan the embers of hate. ....as part of your GENOCIDE DENIALISM, I do not blame you for your ignorance. It is the fault of the GENOCIDISTS who abolished the teaching of history in Nigeria out of fear that their crimes against humanity will be exposed to the future generations who are bound to make atonement for the sins of their fathers."
 
If there were 'past genocidal threats and denials' as averred by Biko Agozino, it means genocide never took place in Nigeria. In what appears to be self contradictory, Biko Agozino went on to write about what he termed *GENOCIDISTS* who abolished the teaching of history in Nigeria. I once counselled members on this forum to read and understand history as it happened and not how we  wished it to happen. We have had a lot of conflicts in Nigeria and what is conflict? Conflict is a battle. So, what happens in a battle? Battle is a subject of attack/and defence and both in their true forms cannot exist without bloodshed and destruction of humans and properties. Whatever history book about the Nigerian Civil War (1967 -1970) you, Biko Agozino, might have read, it must have informed you that Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu convened a meeting of what he termed, Eastern Consultative Assembly on 26 May 1967 and told them that the East was fully prepared for war and added "There is no power in this country (Nigeria) or in Black Africa to subdue us by force." Thereafter he urged the Assembly to mandate him to declare the East as an autonomous State. On the 27th of May 1967, the Assembly unanimously passed a resolution mandating Ojukwu to declare the Sovereign Republic of Biafra as early as possible. On that same day, Gowon assumed total powers, declared a state of emergency throughout the whole country and sliced the four regions into 12 states. On May 30, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the Eastern region an independent sovereign state of Republic of Biafra. When war broke out on July 6, 1967, it was between two opposing armies vis-á-vis Nigeria and Biafra. If Nigeria had attacked non-armed Biafrans and civilians there, the word genocide would have been appropriate to apply to Nigeria.

 
Did the Federal Forces commit genocide against the Igbo during the Civil War? My answer is capital NO because in the History of warfare Nigerian Civil War was the only war in the world fought under the supervision of an International Observer Team drawn from the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity (now African Union), Britain, Canada, Sweden and Poland. The International Observer Team, individually and collectively, wrote reports exonerating the Federal forces of any genocide against the Igbo in the war. In response to the allegation that the Observer Team was guided by the Federal Government, the Team in its Observers' Report on Activities During the Period, 24 September to 23 November 1968, dated 25 November 1968, stated that the team had unrestricted freedom of movement during all investigations and visits, and made up its own programme, including last-minute changes. So, Biko Agozino, where did you get your history of genocide committed against the Igbo during the Nigerian Civil War? Have you forgotten the Igbo saying, "OJI OSO AGBAKURU OGU,AMAGHI N'OGU BU ONWU which means THOSE WHO RUN TO WAR WITH SMILE ON THEIR FACES,WILL CERTAINLY BE GREETED WITH MISERIES OF WAR?" I will be delighted to read from you about what actions constituted GENOCIDE during the Nigerian Civil War or at any other time of Nigeria's History. 

 

---

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2015 16:30:32 +0000
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

“Let me make two predictions:  (1)  Ambode will win on Saturday, and it will have nothing to do with the Oba's approval or incontinence (2)  Nobody will be drowned in the Lagoon thereafter.”

 

BA

 

If Ambode wins Saturday, it will be because the Oba of Lagos  threatened those he believed were not going to vote for Ambode, if not for his (Oba’s bare-faced threat. There is no good reason to believe that BA knows Lagos voters better than the celebrated “owner” of Lagos. His title  we have been told is Eleko of Eko. The Oba was absolutely certain that Ambode will lose the election if the Igbo cast their ballot for Ambode’s PDP opponent. Why else would the Oba take the shameless path of indiscretion, kicking caution, decency, the law, and reason to the kerb, and criminally try to influence the governorship elections outcome?

Only the Oba can ensure that no Igbo are drowned in the sewers called lagoons in Lagos after the election. The Oba thoughtfully choose the waters he wants them drowned in. There are wells among others in Lagos are there not? The hope and prayer is that he changes his mind.

 

oa

[Rex Marinus]

Now, you got me:-) And there I was thinking I was answering  candid question, not knowing it was a bait. Ok, I shall now enter my hermitage:)
Obi Nwakanma

 

---

Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 10:34:30 -0400

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: omi...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Biko has raised an important issue but the discussion will have to center on the parameters
of secessionism vs federalism- and the culpabilities thereof.

At what point does secessionism merit reparations?

We have some learned jurists in our midst that we can
consult on this.

Historians also have some evolving examples in Mali
Senegal ,Libya, Congo etc.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Salimonu Kadiri [ogunl...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2015 11:11 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

On Apr 8, 2015, at 8:08 PM, Ademola Dasylva <dasy...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:

Well said, well written. So far, the reactions are quite justified. You ask me why? It reminds me of a beautiful Yoruba wise saying, roughly translated as, "The elder who ties maize round his waist and chooses to enter the market (or township) must neither be surprised nor complain should he be pursued by very daring fowls".

No matter how highly placed a public figure is, it is not a proper thing to demand respect for oneself, or on behalf of someone else. Rather, you command respect, you don't demand it. The Oba of Lagos should borrow some wisdom nuggets from our great and amiable Awujale, HRH Oba Sikiru Adetona of Ijebu Kingdom, or HRH Odulana Odugade, the Olubadan of Ibadan, on general royal cum-public conducts, and genuine patriotic zeal.

Thank God, the APC gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State, Mr Ambode, his Party and other well meaning Nigerians have come out to condemn the unprintable utterance. This definitely is, to say the least a careless distraction. Therefore, I wish to appeal to all patriots and eligible voters to still go out on Saturday and vote wisely and en mass, with their conscience intact, for the candidate of their choice regardless of what the Oba said.

Long Live Nigeria!

Ademola O. Dasylva

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 2:45 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:


Obi Nwakanma:

You can see why I will never allow your super-menschen attitude to go past me.

Is it for "threatening the Igbo with murder" that you are venting so much, or is it for threatening ANYBODY at all?

Let me ask this: if ALL the Igbo vote for Agbaje, and NO YORUBA votes for Agbaje, can Agbaje win the Lagos gubernatorial election? Absolutely not! So for Agbaje to win, MANY non-Igbo, including MANY Yoruba, must vote AGAINST Ambode, who PRESUMABLY will also be sunk in the Lagoon by this ALL powerful Oba Akiolu, who will have to REACH beyond his tiny suzreinty in Eko-land, to pick them up one by one, and drown them.

So why are you all not BENT over backwards about his threat to ALL NIGERIANS who vote against Ambode, rather than just the Igbo? Is this why there is still SHRILLNESS in your community?

Answer me.......

Listen up: I am OFFENDED by his threat against ANY Nigerian, any person, simply because they vote against Ambode. I believe that I am thereby one hundred times better than some of you who are simply angered because he addressed your own Igbo group, most of whose Ezes in attendance at the Iga Idunganran were APPLAUDING at that very time, not completely sure of the gravity of the statements.

Let me make two predictions: (1) Ambode will win on Saturday, and it will have nothing to do with the Oba's approval or incontinence (2) Nobody will be drowned in the Lagoon thereafter.

And there is no syllogism implied there.

And there you have it....but I have been wrong before, and my predictions are not water-tight.


Bolaji Aluko

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 8:15 PM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:
All I'm saying, Dr Aluko, is tat the "incontinent Oba" should be called by his proper name. I'm saying, it is eough enough to just say, "His Royal Majesty went too far and we condemn his words and action." Such a statement makes the words "Royal" and "Majesty" inappropriate. I should think that saying, "Akiolu behaved like an idiot by threatening the Igbo in Lagos with murder" is more appropriate because it drives home the truth, while the other plays with euphemisms. But on this matter, there should be no tongue-in-cheek. Even his "incontinence" should not be an excuse.

It is interesting that you bring up the calumny that characterized the last campaigns. It did not bother me because often politics is about disputes and name-calling between opponents K.O. Mbadiwe once described M.I. Okpara as "that bumpkin from Bende." Zik himself had called Mbadiwe "a political Liliputian."That's ok with me. The difference, and I hope you see this, is that Akiolu threatened to drown the Igbo in the Lagoon if they do not do his will by voting he candidate the has backed. We must draw the line there. That is the basis of my outrage, nothing else, I assure you. But I do not want him commit suicide, jut he is prosecuted, or the very least, forcefully sanction for hate-speech
Obi Nwakanma

________________________________
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 19:24:12 +0100

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: alu...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>

Obi Nwakanma:

I should not "act like (a baboon) or even beneath one" simply because I ask that you and some of your very shrill co-travelers not call the incontinent Oba "a baboon?"

You can see why I believe that some of you doth protest too much and are probably worse (in your own palaces, when no one is taping you) than the Oba Akiolu himself that you are denouncing. There must be something more that is biting you than this already-oft-denounced statement.

You are right: The Oba is NOT Oba of Lagos State, but Oba of "Lagos", a small part of the state, even a small part of what is known as "Lagos City." So what is the big fuss? The man has backtracked; some of his "subjects" have condemned his statement; even Ambode has thrown him under the bus. So you want him to commit suicide, or to have him deposed?

Come on...in this campaign, terrible things were said about persons and peoples, and nary did I read a word from many of you.....you were probably clapping in the background, and/or crafting the words. I believe that there hypocrisy - and some unrighteous indignation - is going on here.

And there you have it.


Bolaji Aluko


The area around the Oba of Lagos Palace (Iga Idunganran)

Lagos State:

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:
Dr Aluko:
I will be quite, personally unhappy to think of you as a Baboon, so do not act like one or even beneath one. I think that the Oba of Lagos has no suzerainty over Lagos. At best, Iga-Iduguran is a fine museum, and the Oba part of its museum pieces. He is good for tourism, and has no political significance. Subjectivity and subjection are not abstract conditions. Perhaps you should "abolish all monarchies" first from your mind, and help install the Republic and all its privilege of freedom and the equality of all citizens in your consciousness. That way, you will stop thinking of people as the "subjects" of a single individual. Nigerians are not even "subjects" of the President of the Republic, not to talk about of some provincial has-been. Lagos is a city; run as a city government by elected people. The Oba of Lagos does not run Lagos; does not maintain an Army or a Police Force answerable to him; nor does he constitute a parliament. He can not raise or collect tax, nor compel anyone to forced labour. In what ways therefore are the citizens of Lagos his "subjects?" In any case, which part of Lagos are we talking about? About my "super-menschen mentality" - well, I think the republic is still better than the monarchy or its association, feudalism. Those who established the republic with its laws of human equality and freedom are simply asking monarchists and all those right-wing conservative intellectuals who rally around its cause in the excuse of "cultural nationalism" to catch up. They're just too slow for the rest of us:-) I wear my "super-menchenism" proudly, as you do know.
Obi Nwakanma


________________________________
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 16:51:51 +0100

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: alu...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>

Obi Nwakanma:

You are in your elements, waxing strong, philosophical, poetical, recovering your voice in usual defence of your "super-menschen" mentality........I know that you will over-do yourself......

I am presumably the next "baboon", being more vile than Oba Akiolu for daring to call people under the Oba's territorial suzreinty "subjects."?

Okay o......left to me, I would abolish all monarchies. But while they last, I would limit their roles....and their behavior ACROSS the political spectrum encourages that delimiting.

And there you have it.


Bolaji Aluko
Having a belly laugh

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 4:35 PM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:
I actually disagree with Dr. Obioma Nnaemeka on this. The comments directed at Akiolu is necessarily harsh. It is the equivalent of Sartre's "racist anti-racism" - a necessary deployment of extreme speech in other to free people of the consequences of even more extreme conducts or speech or beliefs. Rather than detract from the situation, it amplifies the exact nature of Akiolu's "reprehensible" conduct. I think we must be unwilling to mealy-mouth on this matter by this attempt to separate the meaning and intentions of the man, from the significance of the office to which he is purportedly endowed. Ogugua's statement earlier is quite apt: respect is not an inheritance; it is the value of conduct.

I also think Dr. Aluko insults and undermines Nigerians citizens of Lagos by calling them "subject" people. We must be very careful about the words we use. The Nigerian constitution endows everyone in Lagos, including Akiolu with the fundamental right of citizenship. Nigerians are only subject to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose charter of fundamental rights is unambiguous in endowing the rights of EQUAL CITIZENSHIP to every Nigerian irrespective of religion, gender, ethnicity or status. The continuous ascription of limited rights and values to the citizens of Nigeria, whom Dr. Aluko describes as the "Lagos subjects" of the Oba of Lagos carries no less a reprehensible meaning, and it ought to be clear and really challenged.

I myself felt that it is the Baboon that we insult by comparing Akiolu to him. Anyone who has seen the video or heard the audio of this guy's foolish utterances, should rather challenge Dr. Biko Agozino for insulting the Baboon, who in my view has greater civic manners than Mr. Akiolu. And just so it be clear, Agozino did not bring anybody into this matter - not Ambode; not Akiolu's neighbours in Lagos; not Yoruba people; not even the laughable cluster of comedians called "Eze Ndi Igbo" in Lagos, towards whom Akiolu directs his choler. So, please, do not bring his children into this matter, unless his children echo Akiolu's statements.
Obi Nwakanma

________________________________
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 15:25:44 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

From: alu...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>

May your tribe increase, Dr. Nnamaeka, Obioma!

Some of those criticizing and abusing the Oba for his reprehensible outburst seem to be as hateful as he himself, especially those who have called him a baboon, or support those who have. What do you expect his children, his Lagos subjects or his supporters to do ....jump up with glee for calling him a baboon? Yet, if you describe his speech for what it is, you will win people to you to condemn him.

Do baboons talk? Are they over-supportive of Ambode, or hateful of Igbo? Or is it how the Oba looks...and can he change his looks? Or is it just poetic exuberance....baboon...lagoon?

So let us watch it: the Oba is not the only hateful interlocutor on this issue. Yes, let us focus on the issue, and stop quoting Obasanjo's This animal Called Man.

And there you have I.


Bolaji Alukome

On Wednesday, April 8, 2015, Nnaemeka, Obioma G <nnae...@iupui.edu<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:

The problem with the name-calling is that it takes us away from a serious discussion of what the Oba said. Calling him a baboon does not advance the discussion; it diminishes it. What the Oba said was reprehensible and condemnable. Let's focus on that and leave the animal kingdom alone.

Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor
Department of World Languages and Cultures
Women's Studies Program

Indiana University School of Liberal Arts

Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis

425 University Blvd, CA 543A
Indianapolis, IN 46202

Phone: 317-278-2038<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>/317-274-0062<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>; Fax: 317-278-7375<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
nna...@iupui.edu<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>; www.iupui.edu<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>

<image002.jpg>

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx> [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>]
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 8:47 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.

Biko

On Tuesday, 7 April 2015, 16:39, Segun Ogungbemi <segun...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:

There is need for caution here. It is an aberration of the highest order to call or address an Oba a baboon. Whatever the merit of the argument, insulting one of the most highly respected Royal Fathers in Yorubaland and in Nigeria by anyone is despicable. 'Biko Agozino should first of all withdraw the description of His Royal Majesty the Oba of Lagos a baboon.
This inflammatory description can cause mayhem if care is not taken. It is therefore demanded that Biko Agozino withdraws it with an apology.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

On Apr 7, 2015, at 10:42 AM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>> wrote:
A baboon has threatened to drown masses of Igbo citizens of Nigeria in the lagoon if they do not vote for his preferred candidate for the governor of Lagos State. This is a leadership moment for President Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, to show leadership by repudiating such a brazen terroristic threat against model citizens who have ventured immensely to help build a modern nation and who have suffered unprovoked genocidal violence repeatedly in the history of Nigeria. Leaders should call for the arrest, dethronement and prosecution of the Oba of Lagos for this hate speech; apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs especially during the civil war when 3.1 million were estimated to have died with their young women abducted, their properties destroyed or seized, and their life-savings withheld. Propose a law against any denial of the Igbo genocide and against genocidal threats and establish the Igbo Reparations Fund along with the creation of the sixth state in the South East for the sake of geopolitical equity. Other Nigerian groups have been offered reparations for lesser wrongs and the continued denial of fair reparations to the Igbo who have suffered most may be contributing to the entrenchment of the culture of terrorism in Nigeria. Show some leadership now!

Biko

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[Salimonu Kadiri]

Only a fool will draw a machete to behead a perching fly on his thigh which in the end results of self-amputation without killing the fly. Ogugua Anunoby wrote, "If Ambode wins Saturday, it will be because the Oba of Lagos threatened those he believed were not going to vote for Ambode, if not for his (Oba's) bare-faced threat. .... The Oba was absolutely certain that Ambode will lose the election if the Igbo cast their ballot for Ambode's PDP opponents."
 
I have watched the video in which Oba Akiolu was alleged to have threatened the lives of all Igbo in Lagos, several times, and observed that the attendees at the Palace meeting were under three-hundred people. The video picture in which the movement of the Oba's mouth did not rhyme with the voice sound produced gave the impression that the video was produced to convey a message not intended by the Oba. A sound track fixed to the voice is as following, "On Saturday, if anyone of you, I swear in the name of God, goes against my wish that Ambode will be the next Governor of Lagos State, the person is going to die inside tis water." The statement, if we accept it as a true account of what the Oba said, shows clearly that it was not directed against all Igbo in Lagos but to the congregation of self-made Lagos Eze Ndi Igbo who invited themselves to the Palace on what they called courtesy visit. A Lagos-based lawyer and Industrialist, Mr Chukwudi Atueyi, who was present at the meeting now reveals, "ALL THE EZE NDI IGBO HONORARY IN LAGOS WENT TO PAY HRM SOLIDARITY VISIT ON SUNDAY... WHAT THE OBA SAID WAS FULLY AND SIMPLY DIRECTED TO ONLY THE IGBOS PRESENT AT THE MEETING WHO HIS MAJESTY CONSIDERS TO BE VERY CLOSE TO HIM AND SHOULD UNDERSTAND HIM VERY WELL." www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/oba-akiolus-statement-was-jocularly-to-his-Igbo-friends. If the self-made Lagos Eze Ndi Igbo at the meeting had considered their lives threatened by the Oba, they would not have been laughing and applauding their would-be assassinator in the video play.
 
In the online Premium times of April 9.2015, one Mr Henry Okoye, described as the Palace Secretary to the real Eze Ndi Igbo of Lagos, Nwabueze Ohazuluke, made a statement in which the Eze recognised that Oba Akiolu had declared that he was quoted out of context. According to the statement read by the Palace Secretary, Henry Okoye, on behalf of Eze Ndi Igbo of Lagos, Nwabueze Ohazulike, "THOSE WHO WERE AT THE PALACE DID NOT REPRESENT IGBO PEOPLE IN LAGOS." Responding to a question if Ohazulike sent delegates to Oba Akiolu's Palace, he said, "HOW CAN I SEND SUCH TYPE OF PEOPLE TO HOLD BRIEF FOR ME WHE N I AM IN LAGOS? THEY ARE LOOKING FOR MONEY. THEY ARE LOOKING FOR INFLUENCE. THE EZESHIP IN LAGOS, WE ARE HEADING TO 20 YEARS NOW, WE ARE NOT DOING IT FOR MONEY. OUR OWN IS JUST TO DO OUR CULTURE. AND THIS IS POLITICS. I WAS NOT THERE.... I DIDN'T SEND THEM" With the above references, the platform on which Ogugua Anunoby based his assumption of Ambode winning on Saturday because of Oba Akiolu's threat to the entire Igbo population in Lagos is false. Thus, my question to you, Ogugua Anunoby, are: Under what law or constitution was Eze Ndi Igbo of Lagos (King of Igbo in Lagos) instituted? What is the need for EZE NDI IGBO OF LAGOS when there is a branch of the cultural organisation known as OHANEZE NDI IGBO in Lagos?  
 

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From: Anun...@lincolnu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2015 10:16:00 -0500
Subject: FW: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon