Politics Of Lagos Igbo Property Demolitions

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The emergence of Senator Bola Tinubu as the “winner” of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, governorship ticket on December 21,1998, unknown to many, marked a major historic turning point for Lagos State.

Ordinarily, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the man in charge of the party’s primaries in Lagos, should have insisted on a rerun. He did not, mainly because Tinubu’s contributions to Afenifere/NADECO struggle for Abiola’s mandate, especially his exile experience, endeared him to the party’s leaders above his co-contestants, such as Funsho Williams, Wahab Dosunmu, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele and Rashid Shitta-Bey.

But that act of favouritism towards Tinubu later came back to haunt Afenifere, the scions of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo political movement. Tinubu is no Awoist, forget that he wears the Awo-popularised round-rimmed glasses. In truth, Tinubu is a thoroughbred practitioner of the late Major General Shehu Yar’ Adua’s Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM, mafia politics.  While the Awoists in AD followed their traditional processes, Tinubu hit them with the Yar’Adua strategy and defeated his opponents, all of whom were hardcore Awoists/Afenifere loyalists.

No sooner had Tinubu assumed office as Lagos Governor in 1999 than he quietly started moving away from the Afenifere oldies. He set about seizing power from them by first taking Lagos (and later the entire South-West) out of their control. Lagos was Nigeria’s capital for 77 years, but with the movement of the Federal Capital to Abuja in December 1991, local politicians started turning it into an ethnicised enclave. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how Lagos catapulted him, with his deft manipulation of political controls, to President of Nigeria.

What has the ongoing demolition of Igbo property in Lagos got to do with all this?

Towards his 2003 re-election bid, Tinubu had approached the Igbo leadership in Lagos for support. They frankly reminded him that most of their members were in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which was in power at the centre and all five South-East states. Moreover, Dr Alex Ekwueme, the founding father of the PDP, was making another bid for the presidency. They, however, assured him that any Igbo who felt like voting for him was free to do so.

In 2007, Tinubu approached them again to support his preferred candidate, Babatunde Fashola for Governor of Lagos. But this time, he squeezed in a hint of blackmail and threat. According to him, the “people of Lagos” had been very generous to the Igbo, “giving them all the opportunity” to grow prosperous, “allowing them” to control all the big markets like Alaba, Alaba International, Trade Fair, ASPAMDA, Balogun, Mandilas and others. Refusing to support “Lagos people’s political aspirations”, he said, was like working against their interests. By then, Tinubu had left the AD and formed his Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, on which Fashola was vying for Lagos Governor. Ndi Igbo still had their hearts in the PDP, where they hoped to eventually secure their own opportunity to lead the country. Supporting Tinubu amounted to abandoning their political interest in pursuit of others’.

When Tinubu started vigorously fronting an alliance between the North-West and South-West, his political interest was swinging in opposite direction from that of the Ndi Igbo in Lagos. Tensions came to a head in 2015 when Tinubu had forged the All Progressives Congress, APC, with Muhammadu Buhari, who was given the presidential ticket in Lagos in November 2014. Almost the entire Igbo nation was physically and emotionally committed to President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid.  Jonathan was almost like an “Igbo president” in the manner he accommodated and worked with them in his government.

By 2019 when Buhari sought re-election, Ndi Igbo, still strong in the PDP, threw all their weight behind Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential flag bearer. Tinubu was desperate for APC victory in Lagos and the South-West to foster his claim to be Buhari’s logical successor in 2023. But his long grip in Lagos had also alienated many Yoruba elements such that by 2023, Tinubu was defeated by Labour Party’s Peter Obi in the presidential election. This frightened Tinubu and his loyalists. Their fear that the large Igbo population in Lagos could torpedo Tinubu’s political kingdom had come true! When I saw them pulling down plazas at the Trade Fair and other parts of Lagos, I remembered where this story started from.

But in truth, the Lagos demolitions are not only targeted at Ndi Igbo. Many Yoruba-populated areas, especially Oworonshoki, are being systematically mown. There is this list of 176 estates reportedly marked for demolition. Most of them are in the Lekki-Aja axis. Officials never bother to explain their actions anymore. A bigger agenda of resharing Lagos could be unfolding.

The Lagos we all knew could be behind us. For Ndi Igbo, home is best!

*Nnanna is a commentator on public issues