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| City Of Lagos |
Following
the controversies and unceasing condemnations trailing the internal deportation
of 72 Nigerian citizens of Igbo-Lagos extraction by the Government of Lagos
State and its ruling party, now called
All Progressives Congress, the
International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law, the Movement for the Actualization of the
Sovereign State of Biafra and the
Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization, today in Onitsha
Nigeria, call for immediate decentralization of the age-long concentration of
socioeconomic activities in Lagos State and de-monopolization of same as “the economic capital of Nigeria”.
Our joint
call is made after critical assessment of circumstances on the ground including
defenses put forward by the Government of Lagos State and its APC in which it
among other things, blamed the Nigerian citizens of Igbo extraction for
flocking, flooding and stressing Lagos State and its population. The State and
its APC party also submitted controversially that Igbo-Lagosians are
responsible for 100% of violent and syndicate crimes committed in the State. It said that Igbo-Lagosians are involved in
advance fee fraud (419), kidnapping, armed robbery, assassination, etc. It is
in view of this that this joint hallowed and informed call is made. The conclusion drawn by the spokesmen of the
Government of Lagos State and its APC also raises serious fear over the
possibility of inclusion of violent criminals among 72 citizens dumped in Onitsha at 3: am, at
the hours of blue law, especially the 54 escaped deportees.
However, our
joint call is in no way extricating the Government of Lagos State and its APC
from its malicious, atrocious and grossly unconstitutional act. “The
hallmark of a modern government, as espoused by Thomas Hobbes, is not measured
by a number of high rising buildings or tarred roads with flowering roadsides
or number of exotic cars driven by its infinitesimal rich/privileged class.
Rather, it is measured by how the welfare of the downtrodden including citizens
with disabilities is being catered for through government humane social
programs and actions. It is in no way measured by government inhumane social
programs and actions such as internal deportation of citizens from one
federating unit to another. A country without downtrodden is not a country.
This is because it is the welfare of the downtrodden that originally brought
government into existence. Another name for government is Destitute Social
Welfare “.-Says Emeka Umeagbalasi today in Onitsha Nigeria.
Evicting
hawkers, petty traders, beggars and the physically and mentally challenged from
the streets and roads in order to beatify them is like deforestation that
destroys the only source of oxygen meant for human survival. Their presence in
well-secured public places is the real beauty of a country and the traditional
monument of the origin of government. Social living condition is propelled not
by man, but by nature. A less privileged
citizen today can become a privileged citizen tomorrow and a privileged citizen
today can be less privileged citizen tomorrow. The issue of being a destitute
or less privileged also has individual and corporate connotations. In other
words, there also exists corporate destitute and corporate privileged. For
instance, China is a corporate destitute of yesterday and a corporate
privileged country of today. Nigeria was a corporate privileged State in the
1970s, today, it is a corporate destitute.
“Punishing a citizen because he or
she is a destitute is a crime against humanity and amounts to playing God. In
the major streets of the USA, for instance, destitute including lepers, the
mentally challenged and beggars still abound. In all her airports, the
physically challenged are treated as primus inter pares or first among equal.
They are placed in the category of vulnerable class, cared and catered for at
all times. During sightseeing visits organized for international visitors in
the USA, “destitute in the streets” including drug addicts, lepers, beggars and
mentally challenged are shown and introduced as part of the great US society
and foundation upon which the US Government exists. Their resettlement and
rehabilitation centers are also included as part of American great monuments
for sightseeing visitors”.
“The great civil rights struggles of
1960s in the USA were also propelled by people hitherto called “American
Destitute Class”, from which the present US President emerged. The Catholic Destitute Rehabilitation Center
in Huntsville, Alabama, the Destitute
Food Center in Seattle, the Washington State and the Girls Incorporation in Huntsville, Alabama, to mention but a few, are all part of
the US great monuments and epitome
of her greatness. The white section of
the South African society, which leads the African Continent in terms of
socioeconomic governance transformation, was founded by the European destitute
and prisoners. Sadly, the Lagos State
version of destitute welfare, which has spread to River State, is the Onitsha Upper Iweka Flyover, which was
randomly and militarily created at 3:
am, at the hours of blue law”-further
says Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board of Trustees Chairman of Intersociety Nigeria
In view of
the foregoing, therefore, it is about time Lagos State’s age-long monopoly of
Nigeria’s socioeconomic hegemony got broken and decentralized. To this extent,
it is our demand that the Southeast Governors Forum and other core stakeholders
should hold talks with the Federal Government of Nigeria so as to get the
foreign missions in the country particularly those of Europe, North American,
India, China and other Southeast Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council to open
their consulate offices in Enugu for visa procession and obtainment and related
issues. A situation whereby the South-east and the South-south Nigerian
citizens have to travel to Lagos to obtain visas for international travels is
not only condemned but also amounts to diplomatic enslavement. Also traveling to overseas through Lagos is
not only death-prone, but also harsh and wicked policy that must be reversed.
The upgrading of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport is a welcome
development, but it is not enough. Efforts must be made to equip it and make it
to wear the outlook of a modern international airport so as to meet
international aviation qualities to be able to attract not cabin coffins but
internationally certified healthy aircrafts.
Having an
international airport is not enough if access routes to it are not provided and
maintained at all times. To this extent, it is our joint call that the
Onitsha-Enugu and the Enugu-Port Harcourt Dual Carriage Ways, which are now
death-traps, should be reconstructed as a matter of uttermost immediacy. For
immediate and effective utilization of the international airport, the five
States of the Southeast should jointly fund the reconstruction of the two
important roads and seek for refund from the Federal Government of Nigeria
later. There is also need to decongest and decentralize Lagos wharfs. In view
of this, cargoieing container goods to Port Harcourt wharfs, which are more friendly
and convenient for traders of the Southeast and the South-south zones, should
be encouraged and intensified.
There should
also be proper dredging of the River Nigeria and construction of medium size
wharf in Onitsha as part of the decongestion and decentralization of the Lagos
economic capital monopoly. For easy conveyance of goods and services to
Onitsha, Nnewi and Enugu, a connecting bridge should be built between the
Ogwuikpere- Ogbaru part of Anambra State and the Ndoni part of River State,
which, when built, will shorten the distance between Port Harcourt, River State
and Onitsha, Anambra State to about one and
a half hours as against seven hours drive from Lagos to Onitsha, Anambra State.
In addition
to existing industrial layouts in the Southeast zone, there shall be
established new ones to be decentralized and sited in Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu
and Ebonyi States and they should be provided with modern industrial incentives
such as roads, power station, human, physical and policy security as well as
tax concessions. Entrepreneur Igbo-Lagosians should begin to divest and invest
in their ancestral zone. This is in line with the spirit and letters of the
Constitution, Federalism and their ancestral norms, which empower them through
freewill to move, reside and invest freely in any part of Nigeria. It is in
view of this that we wish to commend the likes of INNOSIN Group of Companies,
Orange Drugs Nigerian Limited and JUHEL Pharmaceutical Limited for taking a
bold step in establishing industries in their ancestral zones. That Lagos State
that today tags poor Igbo-Lagosians as “destitute”,
survives economically today, is evidenced by 40% contributions made monthly
by prosperous and enterprising Igbo-Lagosians into its internally generated
revenues, which records monthly benchmark of about N23.5Billion.
We wish to
reveal to the world that the Igbo-Nigerians are not only targeted for pogrom
and ethnic cleansing by their Hausa-Fulani federating partners, but we are also
pursued through media warfare and economic enslavement by our Yoruba federating
partners. For instance, the averted
plane crash that nearly killed the Anambra Governor and others about three
months ago has to do with a distress call that he received informing him of malicious
efforts of some political interest individuals from the Lagos axis of the
Southwest to confuse and corner a world largest brewery domiciled in South
Africa to divert its planned mega brewery project slated to be built in a
Southeast city to an area in Lagos called Epe Industrial Estate. This would
have made the company to pull out of a Southeast city where it just completed
and opened a bewaring site. Its proposed mega brewery is said have been
designed to be three times larger than
an existing brewery located at the Ninth Mile area of Enugu State. The same
Igbo-Nigerian enemies were fingered as brains behind those discouraging foreign
investors that have chosen to invest in Anambra State to turn their back on the
State and its people.
Further, the
immortal vision of the late Obafemi Awolowo that necessitated the first
introduction of television device in 1955 in the old West, which signaled its
media access, ownership and control in Nigeria, has been defeated and brutally
bastardized. The hitherto “gong of
social emancipation” is now an
instrument of institutionalization of falsehood and ethnic jingoism. Our
tribute to the inventors of the electronic/
social media knows no bounds. The Southwest loss of the ownership and
control of the media including the print media is clearly evident. An effective
counter-force is herby established. The era of concoction of theoretical
falsehood and barefaced ethnic interest masqueraded in federalism theory and
their imposition on all federating units and their constituents through
ethnically breaded media is gone for good. The fame, with which the Southwest
media was known for, died after anti military and pro democracy struggles in
1999.
Finally, we
wish to restate our firm position that no amount of warfare by an obsolete
section of the Nigerian media and concocted defenses and falsehood will water
down the abominable and grossly unconstitutional action of the Government of
Lagos State, which is now christened “Lagos
Disease or Lagos Constitutional Tuberculosis’. If the Lagos State Government
and its APC is afraid of losing any forthcoming elections in Nigeria including
the Anambra 2013, then it serves it right so that next it will never embark on
such unconstitutional and illegal acts especially during the election season.
It is laughable to observe those canvassing that 14, not 67 or 72 citizens were
internally deported from Lagos to Onitsha at the hours of the dead. We wish to repeat what we said before that by
convention, liars use passive voice, while truth tellers use active voice. It
is a case of forged and unverified document manufactured by the LASG versus testimonial
pieces of evidence obtained from some mentally coherent deportees. By
testimonial pieces of evidence in our custody, the number of deportees, which
is 72, is incontestable. Also the number of citizens deported is immaterial and
has nothing to do with the unconstitutionality of the act.
Signed:
1. Comrade Uchenna Madu
For: Movement for the
Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra
2. Emeka Umeagbalasi
For: International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
3. Comrades Aloysius
Emeka Attah & Justus Uche Ijeoma
For: Civil Liberties
Organization, Anambra State Branch
