By Obi Nwakanma

Rilwan Akiolu, Oba in Lagos claims to be the “owner of Lagos.” He presumes, of course, because the throne which he says is an “undivided throne” is no more than papier mache. The Oba of Lagos, under the guarantees of Nigeria’s republican constitution and in the dispensation of its constitutional democracy, is no more the owner of Lagos than the Akara seller on the streets of Lagos. The Nigerian constitution grants equal citizenship and the rights pertaining to that citizenship to all its citizens without prejudice to gender, ethnicity or status.

Oba Akiolu

For Rilwan Akiolu to therefore claim to be the “owner of Lagos,” and to summon those ratty pretenders called “Eze Ndi Igbo in Lagos” to his home, and to put it directly to them, is on a good occasion, lovely theatre, were it not for the precise implication, and the occasion in which this comedy was staged. Leading to the gubernatorial elections, Rilwan Akiolu had, like the great majesty he thinks himself to be,threatened to drown the Igbo in the Lagoon if they did not vote for his chosen candidate, the now elected governor of Lagos, Mr. Ambode.

The threat soon went viral. It has rightly generated a debate about the true status of Lagos as Nigeria’s own “big apple” from which everyone presumably takes a refreshing bite. If you are of the biblical mind, that “big apple” might be the very same that tempts, and lures many a Nigerian to it, in search of all kinds of adventure and illicit consolations. So, Lagos has become in many ways, what I once called a “no man’s land.”

But Oba Akiolu rejects that, and swears in the name of his god, Allah, to drown any Igbo who goes against his will in the Lagoon in seven days. Well, here’s the deal: Oba Akiolu does not “own” Lagos and is incapable of drowning any Igbo in Lagos without consequence. In fact, Iga Iduguran, where he lives, is no more than a lovely museum in Nigeria’s modern edifice, in which the Oba himself is only just part of the décor.

The federal republic of Nigeria is the owner of Lagos, and the constitution of the republic is the only sovereign document to which Akiolu and his likes must subscribe or there is no nation. When Rilwan Akiolu talks about an “undivided throne,” I ask, what throne? Since 1861, when Akiolu’s ancestors ceded Lagos to the British, the Oba of Lagos has been like the rest of us, a tenant in the city of Lagos. He has no power to determine who comes in and out of Lagos; he has no control of customs and exercise, or the police, or the administration that governs Lagos. His position is, at best honorary and pointless.

He is paid rent to entertain himself; every now and then lead a comical parade called, “preserving our culture,” but otherwise steer clear of the real business of governing Lagos, which happen mostly in Alausa, and in all the municipal Headquarters of the various Local government authorities in Lagos. Those who determine who governs at Alausa, the electorate, are the real “owners” of Lagos. The rights of suffrage is a sacred right of citizenship in a democratic republic, and it is the call on the real stake holders within a given territory to exercise their conscience individually, or even in blocs, to determine those to whom they’d hand their mandate for a given number of years. Oba Akiolu’s threat to drown the Igbo in the Lagoon smacks of presumption. It is the kind of overreach that signals for me, the very subjective condition in which the man lives: the illusion of grandeur. The man actually believes that he is the owner of Lagos, and therefore can do anything! I think that the Nigerian police must arrest Rilwan Akiolu for threatening citizens of Lagos with violence, and for an attempt to force people, using the death threat to secure the election of his candidate. It amounts to an attempt to corrupt the electoral system by threat of force. Nigeria needs to enforce the rule of law, and thus clean out the kind of impunity that distorts the power of the law to contain errant citizens. Rilwan Akiolu must be made an example of the force of Nigerian laws. There is that other part that rankles in Akiolu’s rather grand presumptions: the fact that the Igbo in Lagos are “visitors” under his protection, his goodwill, and that their prosperity has something to do with his benevolence. This is not true. No Igbo person, indeed no Nigerian from anywhere who came to live in Lagos wrote Rilwan Akiolu a letter first seeking his permission to settle in Lagos. None has asked Akiolu to pay his rent, or his tax, or to lend him money, or get a job for him, or pay his bus fares, or for those who have felt the need for it,pay for their fleeting relief in the warm thighs of Ayilara.

The Igbo are Nigerian citizens, and therefore not “visitors” to Lagos. They have a constitutionally guaranteed right to go and come as they please in Lagos. There are Igbo indigenes of Lagos – born, bred, and perhaps even confused by Lagos. The Igbo are not “economic refugees” but rather powerful catalysts in the Economic and political life of Lagos, and in the transformation of Lagos, from a small colonial town, to a polyglot mega-city of the 21st century with global capabilities. Remove the Igbo factor in Lagos, and Lagos ceases to be Lagos as we know it. Riwalnu Akiolu therefore has nothing for which the Igbo should be grateful to him, or for which they should submit to his will. And this brings me to the other important issue that this Lagos palaver throws up.

It is about the relevance of such anachronisms as the “traditional monarchies” that continue to dot the landscape of this republic. It is a contradiction in terms that Nigeria describes itself as a “Federal Republic” while still maintaining the appurtenances of the monarchies, and the old principalities and powers that were subdued to create the republic.

Conservative and right wing defenders of these institutionsof the Obas, Obis, and Emirs, say they are there to “preserve our cultures and traditions.” Again, I ask, what culture and what tradition? Is it the tradition of laws? Well, we choose to live in a modern nation with the new laws of nation. I choose to stand before a judge or magistrate in a properly constituted court with a jury of my peers, rather than before the court of the King and his minions; I choose the rights and freedoms of a modern republic that grants all persons equality before it, than the law that speaks of the “divine rights of kings,” and therefore these “traditional rulers” do not speak for me. In the 1970s, India, with a longer tradition of ancient monarchies, abolished them all constitutionally, because these tend to create distractions and divisions within a modern democratic and republican state. It is about time Nigerians did the same: we are either a modern nation or we are not. We do not have to “preserve” the worst aspects of the traditions we inherited in the name of “culture.” These medieval institutions must be fully retired in the museums if this nation wants to establish coherence. Nigeria must meld under one culture of respect and toleration for the individual rights of the citizen and respect for difference in gender, food, religion, language, ethnicity, conscience, etc. As for the so-called “Ndi Eze Igbo” in Lagos: I hope the video clearly showed them exactly for what they are: court jesters pretending to be “leaders” of the Igbo in Lagos. No Igbo sent these men to Oba Akiolu.

These men do not embody the will of the Igbo. If the Lagos government must know, the only “Eze” that the Igbo know is in their congressional forces when they gather in their various Town Unions. Beyond that, it is all pretense. The Igbo have no kings anywhere, particularly in Lagos. Yet, the Igbo must be seen clearly for what they are: a vital economic and political bloc in Lagos, where their burgeoning interests must be respected and protected. No threat can stop this.