Our attention has been drawn to an article authored by Lekan Sote and published in The PUNCH of Wednesday August 7, 2024, when he wrote that, “The Lagos De Renaissance Patriots want to develop indigenous culture, use indigenous language and allow indigenes to reclaim the Lagos government. Ethnic Eko, who think other Yoruba are “atohunrinwa” aliens, should know that Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja and Epe divisions were excised from Western Nigeria by General Yakubu Gowon to join Eko that was colonised in 1861.
“And that the Western Region Governments led by Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola developed Ikeja, Apapa and Ilupeju industrial parks of the Western Region that the military further splintered into unviable beggar states. To be sure, far-right politics is not peculiar in Nigeria. The Make America Great Again movement, led by former American President Donald Trump, is the antiseptic public face of racist and far-right Ku Klux Klan, Proud Boys and QAnon.”
First and foremost we take an exception to the tag of far-right on De Renaissance Patriots Foundation. As a socio-cultural group of very senior eminent citizens of Nigeria that have been culturally and constitutionally blessed with indigeneship of Lagos State, we consider such uncharitable, wicked and unguarded use of vulgar language as unacceptable.
The ruling elites in Lagos State, whom we suspect are doing the hatchet job, belong to formative association of narcissists, who have seized the state for themselves, family, and friends. The writer got his historical information and its linkage with Obafemi Awolowo wrong. If he could not understand what the outcome of the constitutional conference in London in 1952 was, we would avail him the details at the appropriate time.
It is a shameful and irresponsible act to link the faceless hashtag #IgbosMustLeaveLagos (Lagospedia) with De Renaissance Patriots Foundation, a highly responsible and respected socio-cultural organisation in Lagos.
In a progressive clime, common sense dictates that political, social and economic benefits, among other things, should be the purpose of governance. De Renaissance Patriots Foundation is always ready to stand up against the mean-spirited policies that are considered detrimental to the progress and development of the voiceless indigenous people. The indigenes deserve a fairer allocation of state resources for their well-being; Lagos being the only state they can claim.
It might be worthy to express the fact that the most acute consequence of the political machinery in Lagos State is denial of the natives in reaching topmost positions in the state administration and the House of Assembly – two-third of whom are non-indigenes. This is a deliberate policy of desperate group of leaders, designed to marginalise and dominate the natives with very few opportunities, which are not commensurate to their true entitlements as natives of the state. The only excuse the defenders of the people in power usually give is that the natives don’t have the qualities and skills to fill top positions. This is their normal propaganda because it is unproven and not empirically tested in any form. We have more qualified, skilled and professional indigenes.
We, De Renaissance Patriots, are not far-right in our demands and we welcome the Igbo in our midst. On the issue of Igbo leaving Lagos State, the Igbo have the right to live and work in any part of Nigeria and can engage in legitimate business of their own choosing. Authorities of the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force should fish out the faceless group masquerading as Lagosians and prosecute them.
- This piece was written by the media office of De Renaissance Patriots Foundation
