Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State threatens to go to court with
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola over the deportation of Ndigbo from Lagos State if the later refuses to rescind the unwholesome action.
However, Fashola has been spitting fire of not withdrawing his government’s noncompliant decision. But, apparently, saying that those who were deported were destitutes, who couldn’t be rehabilitated with the Lagos State funds.
This rambling temperament of the Lagos State Government has been seen as a remark showcasing that the action Fashola took, was a premeditated plan to intimidate Ndigbo in Lagos. Lagos, a place many Yorubas in the recent times see and also say, without hiding their clannish voices, was becoming more Igbo than Yoruba.
Many of the Yoruba who think in that line of action don’t, or refused to remember that the Ladipo Auto Spare Parts Market, Mushin, Lagos, which is the bone of contention among the Fasholas of Lagos State nowadays, was more or less a marshland in 1987. Its developers were Igbo-traders, who were displaced at Tejuosho Market, by Yorubas taskforce. Goods worth millions of naira owned by Ndigbo, were burnt. (Including an uncle’s 10 bales of Okirika clothes).
The annoying side of the story, according to Kalu is that, the people who see Lagos as a place not worth dwelling by Ndigbo in-the-present-day, by using the word destitute, as an excuse for deporting Ndigbo in their own country, did not counterbalance their action with the suffering of Ndigbo, in making sure that the Lagos known to be illuminating, was built.
Dr. Kalu has not stopped wondering why people should be identified by their states of origin before they could live in Lagos or elsewhere. Kalu did not want to say that if that was the case, it would be good states that produce crude oil in the country begin to tell the Federal Government that the oil in their states are owned by them and that they have 100% right to man its exploration.
It is whispered that where such testimonies of deportation or indiscriminate arrest of migrants are heard, were overseas, not in their home countries. Kalu says that he is yet to believe that such is happening today in Lagos. He regrets comments from certain quarters that an interim Lagos State infamous group called Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), runs amok in arresting and detaining people in the state, of which versions have fingered that the many people who were being arrested, are mainly Igbo people. Kalu wonders what discipline Fashola swaggers that he wants to maintain in Lagos, when he is yet to keep to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which grants citizens freedom of association and a place of abode.
Following explanations by many of the deportees, Kalu categorically have said that he is yet to believe that Fashola is anti-Igbo, because some of the victims were neither street beggars, urchins, hawkers or people with questionable characters, but sane and worthy Igbo sons and daughters who were going about their genuine businesses before the notorious KAI bounced on them and singlehandedly christened them beggars, street urchins and what not, in a bid to attract world’s acclamation.
Many of the deported were Igbo workers and traders, who were obnoxiously arrested by KAI, as of last year and early this year, but were recently deported to Onitsha in Anambra State. Kalu says that many of these Igbo persons were not even from Anambra State, but persons from other Igbo states. He, nevertheless, wonders why Fashola should allow the KAI officials and some policemen to engage into this anti-civilisation habit.
It has become palpable that Lagos State would soon become one of the dangerous areas for any sane person to travel to, owing to the inhumane acts that Fashola has meted out against Ndigbo, if this ugly scenario is not checkmated very fast from further escalation.
In-spite-of this, Kalu has said that it might not be the entire Lagos State, but a place like Alausa area of the state, where investigations have revealed that people are prone to arrest by the KAI officials, who are aided by the police in their employ. He has wondered why even persons waiting for bus or standing and discussing would be arrested and dragged into a waiting vehicle and taken to a prison at Alausa or to Ikorodu, close to Ijebu-Ode, by the tarnished KAI.
Kalu questions where the Fashola’s discipline he has claimed to maintain in Lagos is, by this hindering act. Conversely, not sounding dichotomous, Kalu has expressed his concern that Ndigbo should see the need of developing their area henceforth. He also has cautioned Fashola to repeal his action and should not impose a Yoruba person on Ladipo Auto Spare Parts Market; a market that its stalls are owned by 85% Igbo traders. Kalu says that he wonders if Fashola will give a nod, assuming an Easterner is imposed on any of the Yoruba-dominated mosques that dot the region.