The 2023 general elections in Nigeria have come and gone but the scar it left on Nigerians will forever remain indelible in the minds of people.
Some of those scars will turn to history and will be passed on to the generations unborn.
In the time memorial, Yoruba and Igbo used to be the closest in terms of business, co-existence, politics, etc.
But the 2023 elections has polarized the two major ethics and it has further caused a major constraint between the two.
In the past elections, Yoruba and Igbo used to have a common ground especially when it comes to issue bothering them and how the government at the federal should operate. They never have a significant issue or bias as to who becomes the president. But the 2023 presidential election brought out the beast in them. Both Yoruba and Igbo.
The most provoker is the recent Labour Party’s Peter Obi’s victory in the last presidential elections. Since Obi is Igbo, and Igbo people saw this as an opportunity to win Nigeria’s presidency for the first time, they went all the way for him.
The result is that for the first time since 1999, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who was on the ballot as a candidate of the All Progressives Congress, lost an election in Lagos State. His supporters were angry with the Igbo and determined to stop them from getting the better of the APC in the governorship elections.
There was a man in a viral video who claimed that only Igbo voted for Peter Obi in Lagos and that got alot of Yoruba angry and they also went on to say they want to claim Lagos for Gbadebo; someone who has Igbo blood in him and this didn’t go down well with many Lagosians who voted for Peter Obi in the presidential election.
This singular act which many Yoruba termed betrayal, didn’t go down well with many Yoruba. And this is why the likes of Bayo Onanuga issued a statement shortly after the gubernatorial election in Lagos. In his statement: Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business,” Onanuga said.
Amid reports of violence including loss of lives, election disruptions, voter suppression and intimidation by political thugs and hoodlums across the state, Onanuga on Saturday evening said that the owners of Lagos State emphatically made a loud and clear statement, he said that Lagos is not ‘no man’s land’.
“I hope the Obidients and their LP have now realized that Lagos is not ‘no man’s land’. The state has indigenous owners and today they emphatically made the statement loud and clear,” he said.
Onanuga’s tweet was reported to Twitter management for being inciting and racially discriminatory, but after the microblogging app said the tweet does qualify for removal, the APC PCC media director made another tweet saying he owes no one an apology for what he said.
He said, “My traducers dragged me to Twitter. Twitter ruled I have done nothing wrong.
“Let me make myself abundantly clear: the views I express on Twitter are my personal views. I don’t owe anyone any apology for addressing the existential threats of our people. I am after all, first of all a Yoruba, before being a Nigerian.”
Since the build-up of the 2023 general elections, there has been ethnic profiling against Igbo people in Lagos State as some Yoruba people including some traditional and political leaders have accused Igbo people in the state of plotting to hijack Lagos politics from the indigenes.
Such ethnic profiling has led to attacks and the destruction of businesses owned by Igbo people in the state.
It has been said in many quarters that the 2023 election is an eye-opener to many Yoruba who want Igbo to become Nigeria’s president.
Before the recent election, the distrust between the Yoruba and Igbo is not only age-long but deep-rooted but the new generation don’t know much about it. The subdued animosity dates back to the pre-independence era but was aggravated during the unfortunate civil war (1967-1970) and the perceived role the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, played during the war. The South-Easterners believe (till date) that Awo’s primed ingenuity gave the Nigerian forces the edge to scuttle their secession bid.
This can be said to be the beginning of a crisis between the two major ethnic groups. But the recent happening in Nigeria is so disheartening.
Many Yoruba who were on the side of Igbo are regretting their support because of what they have exhibited after the election. There was a trending video that was on circulation during the election where a group of people from the south east were threatening Yoruba in the states with IPOB. There was a video to be specific where some set of people were protesting in Ikeja, Lagos with the Biafra flag. And recently, one Eze Ndigbo in Lagos was threatening to invite IPOB to Lagos so that their businesses can be secured. He said: “IPOB, we will invite them. They have no job. All of the IPOB will protect all of our shops. And we have to pay them. We have to mobilise for that. We have to do that. We must have our own security so that they will stop attacking us in the midnight, in the morning, in the afternoon”.
“When they discover that we have our own security, before they will come, they will know that we have our own men there. I am not saying a single word to be hidden. I am not hiding my words, let my words go viral. Igbo must get their right and get a stand in Lagos State,” he said in the video”.
This has further caused disunity between the Yoruba and the Igbo. Many Yoruba believe they can’t be trusted with power if elected as president.
Before the governorship election in Lagos, the Igbos had vowed to take over Lagos. According to a viral video from Anambra, one of the supporters of the Labour Party was saying one of the key state they were planning to take over is Lagos state and that will really help their agitation. This didn’t go down well with many Lagosians and other Yoruba in Lagos. Some Igbo were even boasting that they will appoint Igbo in sensitive posts if their candidate emerges as the Lagos State governor. They boasted they wanted their own king who will be an Igbo. They threatened to appoint Igbo as market leaders etc. Even when the incumbent governor begged them for votes, they insisted they won’t vote for him. This infuriated many Lagosians to react by voting massively for Governor Sanwo-Olu.
According to an online analyst: To allow millions of people into Yorubaland without regulation is very, very sad. We are losing our culture and identity. The unregulated movement of the Igbo in Yorubaland began over four decades ago when Aguiyi Ironsi suspended the regional government in 1966 and imposed the unitary system in the country. The Yoruba leadership that preceded us did a terrible job in terms of the control of the migration of people to Yorubaland. The Igbo in Yorubaland have not been hospitable. They are sticking to a fraudulent unitary system that takes money from Yorubaland and shared it with the Igbo and the Hausa and Fulani in a bid to keep the Yoruba nation and her people poor and miserable. We are cracking down on the fraudulent unitary system because the parasitic Igbo and the Hausa and Fulani have failed to treat the Yoruba nation fairly in terms of income distribution.
For instance, the Nigerian federal government derives 90 percent of its revenues from seven major sources: the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA); the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). The Yoruba nation contributes 20% of the revenue of the NNPC; 90% of the revenue of the NCS; 80% of the revenue of the FIRS; 90% of the revenue of the NPA; 60% of the revenue of the CBN; 95% of the revenue of NIMASA; and an insignificant contribution to the revenue of NLNG. From all the levies paid to the Federal Government of Nigeria as revenue, the Yoruba nation pays 49% of the total revenue accruing to the Federal Government every month but receives about 8% of the monthly allocation from the Federal Government. The North, an area that contributes less than 5% of total federal government revenues, receives over 55% of the federal government’s shared monthly allocation. It is likewise the same scenario with the Igbo nation. The Igbo nation contributes only 1.5% of all the levies paid to the Federal Government as revenue every month, but receives about 5% of the monthly allocation from the Federal Government.
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