When Nnamdi Azikiwe, the NCNC and the Igbo State Union tried to take over Yoruba land in the 1952 Western Regional elections, he lost to Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group by a very narrow margin.
I believe it was by two seats in Parliament and Action Group was saved from a Zik victory only because they went into an alliance with the Ibadan Peoples Party which gave them a majority of two in Parliament! That is how close it was.
Had it not been for that Zik, an Igbo man, would have been elected as the first Premier of the old Western Region and the Yoruba would have eventually lost EVERYTHING including their language, culture, heritage, land and values.
After his defeat Zik packed his bags and said the following famous words: “I shall return to the East from whence I came”.
Thereafter he went back to the old Eastern Region to be elected Premier.
71 years later the story appears to have repeated itself.
The Ibo, this time led by one Peter Obi, a trader who was fuelled, strengthened and emboldened by his relative success and gains during the presidential election in the state two weeks earlier, tried to forcefully take over Lagos in the 2023 governorship election by intimidation, threats and propaganda and by fielding a young and impressionable man by the name of Chinedu Rhodes-Vivour who neither speaks nor understands Yoruba, whose family derives from Sierra Leonne and Opobo in Rivers State and who, like his aggressive supporters, claimed that Lagos is a “no man’s land” as his candidate.
Thankfully they failed and the young man was roundly defeated by Jide Sanwo-Olu, a young, diligent, hardworking, civilised, decent and focused administrator and bona fide Yoruba man.
It is now time for Peter, Chinedu and all their Obidient supporters to follow Zik’s noble example, tread the path of honor and either respect us and live with us in love and peace or go back to the East “from whence they came”. They will do far better there. We in the South-West must do a lot of soul-searching and educate the liberals in our midst about the dangers of being too kind, too charitable and too accommodating to the usurpers that have infiltrated our territory.
We can show them charity, love and kindness but this must never be at the expense of our values, identity, dignity, culture or heritage.
We must endeavour to ensure that history does not repeat itself again, that this terrible cycle of our Ibo brothers repaying our good with ingratitude and subterfuge stops and that they never have the temerity and effrontery to claim that Lagos, or indeed any other part of Yoruba land, is theirs again.
• Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation.
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