A few days earlier in Dakar, the humble capital of Senegal, on the seaside tranquility of one of its tony hotels, I contemplated Camara Laye, the under-song author of Africa’s most realised novel, Radiance of King. The book is a localised rendition of Kafka’s mad work of genius, The Castle. There the German Jew tackles the epic emptiness of search.
I had not resettled here in Nigeria on my return when I picked up the rumble between Lagos State and Anambra State, and I could not but take another journey – mental this time – to Senegal. I recalled another author, Aminata Sow Fall, who wrote an African classic titled, The Beggar’s Strike.
Governor Peter Obi, the feminine-voiced matador of Anambra State, should read that book, if he has not. If he has, he should read it again. It is the story of the revenge of beggars against the patriarchal art of oppression in Africa. In 2011, Gov. Obi did not show much empathy for the mendicant profession. The beggars came from Akwa Ibom State, and Obi did not like them. He ordered, according to the reports, about 29 of them out of the streets of Awka and Onitsha.
Unknown to him, the wraiths and spirits of the beggars would haunt him, just as the beggars stalked the government bullies in Sow Fall’s novella. The alternative title Fall gave her book is Dregs of Society.
Fast forward to 2013. The Lagos State Government of the governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, ordered the repatriation of 14 destitute persons to Anambra State, and Obi is crying foul. The beggars have come home to roost!
No hoopla attended the Akwa Ibom incident from Godswill Akpabio, the ebullient governor of the state. This author does not know if Obi wrote Akpabio and handed the beggars to a government person. The Anambra State Government has not, as Lagos has shown, demonstrated in public any exchange of correspondence with the other government before the repatriation order.
But as documents have evinced, the Lagos State government rescued the Anambra State citizens from the streets. They were not just lunatics but destitute. They were not child beggars as in the case of Anambra State, but adults. Unlike in Anambra State, the destitute received humane treatment. They enjoyed relocation from the severity of the streets to the serenity and comfort of shelter, food and medical treatment. The Lagos State Government also wrote the Anambra State liaison office to inform them that they had the persons under their care and wanted to relocate them. The State replied asking for details of the persons, and Lagos provided the facts. According to the state, the care was costing the state. So a plan was put in place with the knowledge of the state to repatriate the persons.
Officials of the Anambra State Government were, according to the arrangement, to wait on the Anambra end of the Niger Bridge. But when the Lagos State bearers of the destitute persons arrived, the Anambra State Government representatives did not show up. The persons were then handed to a government office nearby. This negates the claim by Obi and some of the mischief makers that the persons were dumped at the bridge. I would concede that the Lagos State officials should have consulted Lagos and should have returned the fellows to Lagos.
But this does not mean that the Lagos officials erred. Any government office ought to have taken custody of them and reported to the appropriate authority. What this shows is that Obi was probably not duly informed of the proceedings up to that point by his officers in Lagos and Awka, or the whispering, solemn-faced governor was doing havoc with the situation.
The issuance of letters from Fashola’s government to Obi’s liaison office reflected earnestness and respect not only for the government of Anambra State but also for the persons involved.
That explains why some Nigerians have expressed dismay at Obi’s irritability and emotive recklessness in his letter to the President as though Fashola had declared war on the people of Anambra State. It shows that Obi and his government do not operate on Fashola’s due process style. A letter from a government to another is sacrosanct, and a governor should not shout hoarse, and Obi cannot shout if he tried. But the virus of accusation has been read in many quarters as opportunistic and defensive.
In the atmosphere of the registration of All Progressives Congress, Obi should be wary not to conflate an innocuous matter into an ethnic virus. This is dangerous and reckless. The Igbo form a significant population in Lagos, and the record shows that the Igbo have enjoyed warm reception in the state. They do business without let, and have earned rights in the state like any other group. It can be argued that other than Yoruba, the Igbo are the most favoured. They also play roles in government that Obi has not given any outsider in Anambra.
In these days of ethnic rage, we do not expect a man like Obi to be what the Bible calls, “the accuser of our brethren.” In spite of evidence of letters, Obi lied that Lagos State did not communicate with the authorities of Anambra State.
As Fashola has noted, why did Obi not call Fashola before escalating the matter into a potential Igbo versus Yoruba matter. Obi’s eyes are also set on the battle for Anambra State governor polls scheduled for November 16. He wants to pour venom into the relationship between former governor Ngige and his people by tagging him with the brush of the friend of the enemy, or the friend of the Yoruba.
Akwa Ibom recently sent two destitute persons to Lagos, and Lagos did not raise any hubbub over it. The letters between both states also tell the decorum between both states. The use of the word deportation is not only wrong but tendentious. This is a federation, and the relationship between Lagos and Anambra is not between nations but parts of a nation.
It is wrong and wrong-headed to exploit the destitute. The destitute is the worst any human can get materially. If Obi reads the Russian classic Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyvsky, he would accompany the old drunk who distinguished the destitute from the poor. The poor may have a little, and survive. The destitute person is like an empty well.
But Obi should be careful not to fall into what is worse than material destitution. That is moral destitution. That wreaks of dishonor, and that was what I saw in a play titled, Three Penny Opera written by German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It is the story of a leader of a beggar’s colony who wants to take advantage of them for profit. He lost the pride of his daughter to the bargain.
Obi should not prostitute the pride of Anambra State on the platform of political and ethnic opportunism.
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