Nigerians still submerged by social welfares borne out of flattering support for régimes or political affiliations would sycophantically speak to favor their personal interests.
Mr. Igbokwe’s recent theatrics causes a quick reflection on David R. Gibson’s well-researched work, Enduring Illusion: The Social Organization of Secrecy and Deception. Gibson notes; “People comply with the dictates of states and other organizations out of self-interest or because of the perceived legitimacy of those in authority. Some organizations, however, are based on lies, or secrets, and it would seem that these should be very short-lived, given how easy it is for the truth to escape.”
He concluded that this lifestyle or behaviour “lays the foundations of a sociology of deception, focusing on lies and secrets successfully maintained for years or even decades.” Couriers of lies and deception are known to deliberately create “barriers to knowing, barriers to asking, barriers to telling, barriers to perceiving, barriers to believing, and barriers to acting.” Igbokwe’s galleria validates Gibson’s study – An Enduring Illusion…a manipulation of appearances for personal gains!
Personally, I am not in the rejoinder business, but after several tags and shares of the piece by the Publicity Secretary of Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, Joe Igbokwe, “My Lagos, My Story”; I felt a rejoinder would further create significant avenues to add to the ongoing discussions about the experience and dilemma of the Igbos in Nigeria.
First impression about this piece is that it is a brilliantly written experience of Mr. Igbokwe’s life’s evolvement – his struggle from just about nothing to something; and thoughtfully, how he cherishes the city that he claimed, made him. From a struggling civil war survivor, he progressed so successfully, to his current social status as “an opinion molder, a writer and an advocate of the peoples’ cause,” and was also quick to acknowledge how he bought his first car in 1990 and became a millionaire.
Mr. Igbokwe’s passion for Lagos could have been well expected going by his own accounts of how the sociopolitical environment benefited him. For instance, in his own account, a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, made him the pioneer General Manager of the Lagos State Infrastructure & Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) in 2006. He served almost 10 years in this position. Mr. Igbokwe also served another governor, Babatunde Fashola for 8years; and, in 2015, the incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode appointed him the Chairman of Wharf Landing Fees Collecting Authority.
Mr. Igbokwe also revealed his political activities – a justification that his love and appreciation for the City of Lagos corroborated his political interests. He was fully involved with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and All Progressives Congress (APC); representing the interests of political godfathers who rewarded his public service career in Lagos. He has also, aggressively campaigned and defended Lagos interests in party political courses and actions, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) where his former boss, Chief Tinubu is a founding father.
With these revelations of his successful stories about his beloved city, Lagos, Mr. Igbokwe has every reason to love, treasure, and fight for this town. Furthermore, for someone who confessed, “Lagos changed my thinking and original thoughts, Lagos emboldened me, Lagos motivated me, Lagos challenged me and Lagos made me”; I would expect nothing less than his current disclosures.
However, he may have either ignored or undermined the fact that his experience does not resonate with millions of Igbos who equally left their various towns for Lagos for several other reasons. Mr. Igbokwe also forgot to note that Lagos was then the Nigeria’s capital city preferentially developed and maintained with Federal resources. In a country of more than 90 million inhabitants back then, Lagos remained the only major city where the Federal Government ‘lavished’ taxpayers’ money in major amenities at the expense of other major towns. Travelling to Lagos then should not be seen as a privilege but a right. In fact, it is a rightful duty to participate in “sharing of the national resources”.
But backing up to the life before Lagos, just like Mr. Igbokwe, I was a child survivor of the Nigerian Civil War. I saw it all. As a child living through a horrific war, I knew what assault rifles looked like; I saw how bombers descended from nowhere and dropped bombs on defenseless women and children; I saw countless dead bodies, wounded soldiers, hungry and sick refugees eager to eat just about anything. But the troubling part was not just this war but what happened after. Igbos were hauled back to cities they left three years back without basic amenities. School buildings, churches, and homes were torn apart by shelling and other destructive devises of the war.
I recall attending school under the trees at times and classes shifted at intervals to secure a comfortable shadowed spot. As Pupils, we brought our desks to school because there was just none in schools at the time. Kids went to school barefooted, while others stayed home because their parents could not afford tuition, books and uniforms. Now, this was the war as Igbos, we saw, and survived. So as Igbos, we must understand that nobody is either more “Biafra” than the other, or claim to a better Nigerian because he owns a plot in Lagos.
Yet, everybody was not as lucky as Mr. Igbokwe in his journey to Lagos in search of greener pastures. For instance, my Parents had properties in Lagos, which were acquired by other owners and occupied by strange tenants without any reasons besides the fact that the government took over the property, as “abandoned.” I really do not know how many properties Igbokwe’s parents lost in other parts of Nigeria after the civil war; but that alone categorizes us differently.
It is also interesting to note that Mr. Igbokwe once worked as a sawdust carrier at seven Shilling, six Pence a day in Lagos, packing sawdust from the Machines to the Lagoon daily. A job he claimed, he kept for nearly two years before he became a bus conductor in the same city. Unfortunately, Igbokwe has failed to explain how those governors whom he now campaigns for frustrated those jobs opportunities. He is yet to reveal how they specifically used the city’s law enforcement and punitive ordinances to clamp down on those businesses operated by the Igbos and other ethnic groups – same menial jobs Igbokwe himself acknowledged as his starting points.
It does not take a rocket scientist to know that Governor Fashola’s traffic law and the vicious war on Motorcycle Transporters (Okada) was targeted against Mr. Igbokwe’s people, the Igbos. Governor Fashola, in fact, ordered those who could not obey his traffic laws to go back to their villages; an apparent reference to the Igbos who were major operators of this commerce. Yet, Mr. Igbokwe is unperturbed by the plight of his people, focusing only on his personal interests and benefits as parameters and justification for his advocacy for Lagos being the city of “milk and honey.” Worse, he would defend Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, one of world’s most dangerous dictators; because in mid-eighties, he (Igbokwe) received a loan from the regime through the National Directorate of Employment.
The psychological posture of Nigeria’s contemporary political and social analysts is understandable. Different experiences underscore different analysis posturing. Those Nigerians who have not truly experienced the wraths of a tragedy called “One Nigeria” would speak from Google and Wikipedia. Whereas others still submerged by social welfares borne out of flattering support for régimes or political affiliations would sycophantically speak to favor their personal and selfish interests.
Mr. Igbokwe’s interests is clear and justified based on his rights of political involvement and association. But the missing links in the account of his Lagos success story must also be addressed. The most salient point is that as long as Nigeria remains a Federation, Igbos or others must, without mistreatment, be accorded their rights of existence in any part of Nigeria. Currently, Mr. Igbokwe must agree with me, that Nigeria past and present has been very unfair to the Igbos. The challenges that Igbo Traders at Berger Auto Market, Alaba International Market, Trade Fair, Ladipo, Tejuosho-Yaba, Marina/Idumota and other major markets dominated by Igbokwe’s Ndi-Igbo are indicative of the depth of Illusion of ‘milk and honey’ picture of Lagos
As positive as Igbokwe might have sounded about his undying love for Lagos, we must excuse those as a promotion of his political paybacks and nothing more. The question that continues to beg for answer is: How many people did Mr. Joe Igbokwe allow to drink from this cistern that makes him almost prideful? I do look forward to hearing his protégées reecho this illusive and fallacious submission of Lagos, ‘the land of milk and honey’.
■ Dr. Ogbo, author of Influence of Leadership, is the Publisher of Houston-based International Guardian News. Ogbo’s latest book, Governance Buhari’s Way mirrors the misapplication of the leadership praxis in political leadership.
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