”It has become a recent habit by a number of our young Igbo brethren to refer to Lagos as a ‘no-man’s land. The great Zik, Mbadiwe, Mbonu Ojike, Ajuluchukwu, Opara etc would never have made such statements as they knew better. It is not only unfair but in extremely bad taste apart from the fact that it is historically false. How can you call a land that has had over 400 years of traditional rulership and cultural definition as a no man’s land.? It shows contempt for the indigenes, ingratitude of hospitality and a betrayal of ones host. The late Herbert Macauley( a Yoruba Lagosian) on his dying bed endorsed Zik as successor leader of the NCNC because of his nationalism, intellectual sagacity and it was endorsed by a group of Yoruba elders and not by any Igbo population who is anycase were infinitesimal as at the time, for Chinua Achebe records in his book, and we can roughly confirm that there were not more than a few thousand Igbos in Lagos before the civil war. So after having been received, accomodated by their host Yorubas since the 1940s a generation that is ignorant of history and careless of historical relationship refer to Lagos as no mans land, this attitude is the cause of the perenial Jos crisis amongst others. When the military stopped the teaching of history in schools in the 1980s, we knew that by allowing them we courted confusion, but it was deliberate. ".............. FFK
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 00:17:29 +0000