LEKAN SOTE FROM PUNCH
Far-right or right-wing extremism is radically conservative, ultra-nationalist and authoritarian, with nativist or tribal tendencies. Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg say that the far-right worldview is of a society that “functions as a complete, organised and homogeneous living being.”
The far-right, with a sense of entitlement, want society to be based on ethnicity, nationality, religion or race, justification of their rejection of people they regard as “the others.” It’s the “we” against “them.” They emphasise differences between nations, races, individuals and cultures; the “purity” of groups from “contamination” by others.
Socialist economics theoreticians think the whole argument of the far-right, sometimes manifested as apartheid or segregation within the same geographical space, is about the economic advantage of the far-right.
With hashtag #IgboMustGo on its X (formerly Twitter) handle, Lagospedia, with an imaginary Yoruba far-right agenda, published a nonsensical message of hatred and bigotry, threatening a protest between August 20 and 30 if the Igbo did not vacate Lagos within one month.
The directive says the Igbo “have (one) month to leave and relocate their business from all South-West states,” adding, “We urge all Yorubas living in the South-East to return home,” as if they have an economic lifeline for those who will be foolish enough to take the counsel of a faceless group and return like refugees.
The Lagos De Rennaisance 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 to 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.
Ku Klux Klan, sometimes simply referred to as the Klan, is a white supremacist and hate group, whose targets are usually Black Americans (who are mostly descendants of African slaves), Jews and Catholics.
While QAnon, formed in 2017, thinks that President Trump fought a secret battle against paedophiles, Proud Boys, made up exclusively of far-right North American males, is a fascist organisation that also hates left-wing politicians and their politics.
Though the English have a superiority complex over their Scottish, Welsh and Irish compatriots, British discrimination is more manifest against immigrants. The anti-immigrant demonstrations ongoing in Britain have been described by Prime Minister Keir Stammar as “far-right thuggery.”
For context, the immigration problem of Britain, which partly led to Brexit, was fuelled by recent illegal immigration of Blacks and Moslems, across the Sahel, the Levants and Asia, usual victims of wars, famine and bad governance. Earlier, the search for the Golden Fleece of Western education drove many to Britain.
Surprisingly, generally xenophobic French, deliberately voted to prevent the Le Pen family National Rally political party from winning the recent General Elections because of its far-right, nationalistic, Eurosceptic outlook. NR’s all-time pitch is to “defend the average Frenchman,” perhaps a Freudian slip of its inward outlook.
The argument of the far-right Lagospedia is that the violence against lives, limbs and properties in the Lagos wing of the #EndSARS protest of 2020 was instigated by the Igbo, who also wanted to rule Lagos State through Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, whose mother is Igbo, though his father is Lagos Yoruba.
So the Lagospedia folks figure that this these time around, any Igbo, who wishes to protest against the policies of President Bola Tinubu should go back to their homestead, and destroy the place in their fit of anger, if need be. The slogan, “Not My Lagos,” summarises the sentiment.Related News
Well, Sections 41(1) and 42(1,b) of Nigeria’s Constitution respectively promise that “A citizen of Nigeria is entitled to more freely throughout Nigeria,” and “A citizen of Nigeria, of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, or political opinion, shall not… be subjected to… disabilities or restrictions, to which other Nigerians… are not made subject.”
However, Section 45(1,b) of the same constitution categorically insists that these rights, and others, cannot “invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable… for the purposes of protecting the rights and freedoms of other persons.”
So, neither Lagos indigenes nor Nigerians from different states have the legal capacity to deprive each other of their rights of residence or peace of mind, unless they are prepared to face the wrath of the law. That is fair enough.
What is needed now is the political will to throw the book at any offender, and find the sagacity to achieve it. Some wise people have said that talk is cheap, and anyone, or political system, that makes a pledge must walk the talk.
But this xenophobia happens in other parts of Nigeria. After receiving extremely genuine love, care, respect and friendship that endures till today, as well as discrimination on account of ethnic origin, when living and working in another state east of River Niger, one can confirm the two sides of the coin.
If both sentiments could happen to an individual within the same region and period, it shows that human beings of both orientations abound everywhere, regardless of who they are, or where they come from.
But before the Lagospedia phenomenon gets out of course, the government should not accept the story that those who created the X account and the hashtag have absconded. They must be hounded, prosecuted and sanctioned promptly.
After all, the police swiftly picked up the gentleman who threatened to invite the militia of the Indigenous People of Biafra to wreak havoc in Lagos State, ahead of the 2024 General Elections. The Lagospedia folks too must be made to face their own music.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has rightly distanced himself from what he described as “the reckless, divisive and dangerous rhetoric,” and “an attempt to sow discord between the Yoruba in the South-West and other tribes, especially those who have made Lagos their permanent abode.”
On its own part, the Yoruba Afenifere pressure group asks “Nigerians living legitimately in any part of Yorubaland to entertain no fear about their safety or be afraid of being forced out of the (South-West).
Afenifere asks “the security agencies to round up those behind this unpatriotic move,” and instead emphasises that “those who are being called out to be ousted from the South-West are the herders… making life difficult for our farmers and rural women.”
Afenifere assures “Igbo brothers and sisters living in Lagos and (the) South-West that they should not entertain any fear of expulsion.” The message from Afenifere, that chose Igbo Peter Obi, over Yoruba Bola Tinubu, as presidential candidate, is that aliens who will live peaceably in the South-West, are welcome.
Indigenes and aliens should live peaceably with their neighbours. Yes, the Igbo, other ethnic nationalities and foreigners came to make a living, but there are no doubts that they’ve all contributed to the economy of Lagos.
But let the centrifugal forces, identified by Dr Reuben Abati of Arise TV’s “The Morning Show,” yield to centripetal forces throughout Nigeria.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN PUNCH