Nobody can be more Lagosian than Lekan Ogunbanwo. Yet when those who have no claim to Lagos other than having the privilege of political appointments are instigating needless violence against their bête noire, ratcheting up the noxious Igbo must quit Lagos rhetoric as an existential imperative, a desideratum of sort, this bona fide Lagosian is not only preaching tolerance but actually creating maximum impact by amplifying Igbo voices, not just in Lagos but across the country.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Soon after the disparate states of the Italian peninsula were unified to create a single nation on March 17, 1861, Massimo Taparelli, the Marquess of Azeglio, popularly called Massimo D’Azeglio, a Piedmontese-Italian statesman, famously remarked: “We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians.”
D’Azeglio, who was Prime Minister of Sardinia, was worried about the fate of Italy, which had just become a nation-state, but his famous quip aeons ago resonates loudly in today’s Nigeria.
It is easier to create a country than to unite the citizens around an overarching worldview that defangs toxic primordial cleavages.
In her book, “The Pinocchio Effect: On Making Italians, 1860-1920,” Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, assistant professor of Italian studies and comparative literature at Brown University, explored all the ways that identity was constructed through newly formed attachments, voluntary and otherwise, to the young nation – Italy.
Taking as her guiding metaphor the character of Pinocchio — a national icon made famous in 1881 by the eponymous children’s book, Stewart-Steinberg argued that just like the renowned puppet, modern Italians were caught in a complex interplay between freely chosen submission and submission demanded by an outside force.
That is the same complex interplay that Nigerians are still caught in today, so much so that 110 years after Nigeria came into being with the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates by Lord Lugard, there are hardly Nigerians.
The British made Nigeria but we have failed to make Nigerians. When it suits them, Nigerian leaders preach patriotism. Most times, they stretch their duplicity by quoting the historic words of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” which challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good and it was not difficult for Americans, convinced of his sincerity, to rally round their leader for common good.
But here in Nigeria, the leeches who masquerade as leaders even when they mouth such rhetoric fail to put their words into action. The inability of Nigerian leaders, across board, to walk the talk by practicing what they preach is the primary reason the country is plumbing the depths of misery.
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Because Nigerian leaders blab interminably but don’t care a hoot about walking the talk, nothing changes for good. They manipulate the country’s historic fault lines for personal aggrandizement even when they insist, as former President Muhammadu Buhari did in his August 21, 2017 national broadcast that “Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable.”
After an extended medical tourism in 2017, Buhari, unarguably the most blinkered leader Nigeria has ever had, gave what was, perhaps, his most insouciant, divisive speech espousing a non-existent national consensus on Nigeria’s indivisibility.
“We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble and when things get bad they run away and saddle others with the responsibility of bringing back order, if necessary with their blood,” he boasted.
Coming from someone who elevated bigotry to an art explains why a century after, we have a Nigeria but hardly Nigerians. It is also important to remember what Buhari said on national unity in a 2021 television interview.
Asked how he intended to resolve the crisis in the South-East, Buhari’s answer smacked of sheer sadism.
“Well, South East em…. I was encouraged by what I heard, nobody told me, two statements from the South-South, one by elderly people – they said this time around, there will be no access to the sea. I am sure you will understand what they mean,” he told his interviewers.
“Again, the youths made the same statement and such encouraged me. So, that IPOB is just like a dot in the circle. If they want to exit, they will have no access to anywhere. And the way they are spread all over the country, having businesses, having property, I think IPOB doesn’t know what they are talking about.
“In any case, we say we will talk to them in the language they understand. We will organize the police and the military to pursue them. That is what we can do and we will do it,” he concluded leaving his interviewers dazed. But it wasn’t only the interviewers that were stunned. So outraged was the American social media network, Twitter, now X over the inherent cold-bloodedness that they suspended Buhari’s account.
But in giving such bone-chilling answer to a question that demanded statesmanship, Buhari was only being clever by half, pretending to be talking about IPOB when he was sending an unambiguous message to Ndigbo, knowing full well that it is not IPOB members that are spread all over the country and having businesses and property.
That was why in the eight years of his presidency, he unleashed mayhem on Ndigbo. Unfortunately Bola Tinubu has continued on the same trajectory, refusing, for instance, to politically resolve the Nnamdi Kanu conundrum even when Sunday Igboho, a Yoruba nation agitator like Kanu, who recently submitted a petition to the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, on the need for an independent Yoruba nation, is a free man. Kanu, a prisoner of conscience, has become a pawn on Tinubu’s political chessboard, whose continued incarceration only serves the sinister purpose of those that took him hostage.
Such double standards are recipe for disunity. Unity helps a society stay strong and deal with challenges better. But Nigerian leaders deliberately promote conflict, thereby failing the people who they claim to lead.
Do Nigerians want to stay together? Maybe! But that is in a country where there is equity, fairness and justice, a society that does not deliberately promote discrimination as a governance art. The reality here is that on the issue of unity, Nigerian leaders have refused to walk the talk.
But it is not all gloomy.
Why?
Some Nigerians have taken the initiative of uniting where narcissistic and self-serving malcontents who masquerade as leaders divide, loving where leaders hate and promoting inclusiveness where those at the helm of affairs exclude.
That is exactly what Mr. Lekan Ogunbanwo, a veteran broadcast journalist, who retired from the Lagos State civil service after serving as a permanent secretary for 13 years, is doing with his radio station, Kwenu 93.9 FM.
Penultimate Saturday, the radio station which is known for delivering a unique blend of Igbo and Pidgin content through both digital and traditional platforms, marked its one year anniversary – a celebration of its role in fostering cultural integration.
That occasion afforded Ogunbanwo an opportunity to tell Nigerians what inspired him to set up Kwenu 93.9FM. And the lofty goal is remarkable even in its consequentiality: to promote unity and give the Igbo community a voice in Lagos.
“Before Kwenu 93.9FM, there were no stations dedicating up to seven hours daily to the Igbo culture and business in Lagos,” Ogunbanwo noted.
“Research shows that Igbos control about 60% of distributive trade in Nigeria, with 70% of this trade centred in Lagos. Today, there are between four and six million Igbos living in the state.
“We wanted to give the Igbos a platform to ensure there is no fear of Igbos ‘taking over’ Lagos… This is our country, and we must focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. Nigeria binds the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and others as one people. We all have a responsibility to maintain peace and avoid misunderstandings, as chaos hampers business and growth. Promoting oneness is crucial for our progress.”
This is all it requires to make Nigerians after the British made Nigeria decades ago, a task that Nigerian leaders have refused to carry out since Independence in 1960, particularly since the end of the 30-month fratricidal war in 1970.
And this is all the more remarkable because of who Ogunbanwo is. An authentic Lagosian from Ikorodu, the ace broadcaster who was born in 1962 had his primary education at Surulere Baptist School, secondary at CMS Grammar School, first degree at Lagos State University and Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Lagos.
He spent 35 years in the Lagos State Public Service, working at various times in the old Lagos State Broadcasting Corporation. At the time he bowed out of public service in 2015 at the relatively young age of 53 years, he had been Permanent Secretary Radio Lagos/EKO FM, Lagos State Television and Parastatal Monitoring Office (PMO).
Nobody can be more Lagosian than Ogunbanwo. Yet when those who have no claim to Lagos other than having the privilege of political appointments are instigating needless violence against their bête noire, ratcheting up their Igbo must quit Lagos rhetoric as an existential imperative, a desideratum of sort, this bona fide Lagosian is not only preaching tolerance but actually creating maximum impact by amplifying Igbo voices, not just in Lagos but across the country.
What Lekan Ogunbanwo has done with his Kwenu 93.9 FM is to walk the talk on national unity. If only the desperadoes who masquerade as leaders, including those at the highest reaches of government, can emulate the example of this Lagos son of the soil, knowing full well that no amount of inveigling can guarantee unity, we may finally be on the road to making Nigerians more than a century after the British made Nigeria.