Lagos, Our Lagos!

 By Alade Rotimi-John

There is on-going, an uneasy fearful sensation regarding a noticeable change in the demographics and in the property ownership profile of Lagos. Many reasoned and unscientific or irrational excuses are being conversely bandied as reasons for the happening of what ordinarily should be explained as an unstoppable sociological dynamics of a rapidly-growing sub-national entity.

Many commentaries about the place of the indigenous population of Lagos are mischievously choreographed in sneers and jeers as if to suggest that claimants to Lagos indigenship are interlopers or, at best, pretenders to the crown of Pontifex.

The contest for the governorship seat of Lagos this season has unfortunately rejuvenated the contrived animosity in the subject matter of the status of Lagos and of the natural or ordained claim to its ownership. Truly, there are people whose heritage is Lagos; whose entitlement is geo-social and steeped in the demographic history of Lagos.

Lagos: Just As I said!

 By Ochereome Nnanna

When strong presidential candidates of Igbo and Yoruba extractions, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, respectively, emerged from the primaries in the just concluded general elections 2023, I knew we were in for some trying times. I wrote on this several times. I warned that Lagos would be the worst hotbed of tensions.

*Peter Obi shakes hands with Bola Tinubu

While the tensions in other parts of the country would be political in nature, I reasoned that that of Lagos would be both political and ethnic. Some of the Yoruba elements would be programmed by desperate politicians who had lost the love of their people to beef the Igbo. The objective would be to unsettle the nationalistic Obidient Movement by stirring anti-Igbo sentiments in Lagos, and hopefully save Tinubu and his APC from losing power in the nation’s economic capital.