Prime Business Africa
By Fred Chukwuelobe
When we thought that reasonable people among the two dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria – the Igbo and the Yoruba – would rise up and condemn the growing ethnic tension between them, the Bokku supermarket ad came knocking, driving a nail deeper into the socio-political divide.
Claims by a number of people that the hatred against Igbo people, particularly in the cosmopolitan city of Lagos, is not an official state policy, has paled following recent events. If properties owned by mainly Igbo people are not being demolished for unconvincing reasons, the Igbo are being warned not to dare repeat what they did in 2023 presidential election when the incumbent President Bola Tinubu lost in his own state – Lagos to Mr. Peter Obi. It doesn’t matter to such ethnic bigots that even many Yoruba people voted against the candidate. The Igbos must be scapegoated for their actions as a way to check their growing influence in Yorubaland.
Everywhere you turn in Lagos, a situation that is amplified on social media, tension and fear reign supreme. Many Yoruba people want the Igbos out of Lagos or if they must stay, they must ‘do as they wish’ by voting their candidates and by keeping their mouths shut when political issues are being discussed or when decisions are being made.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelBefore the Bokku marketing Jiu-jitsu, many prominent Yoruba people had voiced tribal sentiments against Igbo people even petulantly. From the First Lady Remi Tinubu declaring publicly that “the Igbos are ungrateful people” and asking rhetorically, “what’s wrong with Igbo people,” to presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga unashamedly declaring that Igbo people “are an existential threat to the Yoruba” and they must be subdued. Even before that, boss of social miscreants Alhaji Akinsanya popularly known as Oluomo had not only issued his own threat against Igbo people but also carried it out by ensuring that Igbos were not allowed to freely vote their choice candidates in areas they dominate.
Even in our hypocritical organized religion, the ethnic divide is palpable. Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) GO Biodun Fatoyinbo once took to his pulpit to criticise Igbos for being too stingy. His counterpart in Latter Rain Assembly Tunde Bakare told his own story of how late first republic prime minister Tafawa Balewa cursed Igbos after the first republic coup, which was erroneously branded “Igbo coup.” He claimed that the Igbo coupists put alcohol in the prime ministers mouth before he was killed and that he cursed them because Muslims do not drink alcohol. Bakare was a Muslim before he converted to Christianity. The story he told had never been heard or written by any of the participants in the coup. Not even the Muslim North which felt sufficiently provoked by the killing has ever made such allegation. Yet, Tunde Bakare remembered it and the ‘man of God’ revealed it at a time of worsening ethnic tensions between his people and Igbo people.
Futhermore, on religion sub-sector of our country such etninc stereotypical utterances are rife. Many Pentecostal churches pastored by Igbos are openly branded “Igbo church,” forcing many Yorubas to avoid them like a plague. Lazarus Muoka’s Lords Chosen; Mike Okonkwo’s The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM); Ebuka Obi’s Zion Ministry; and many others. But, the Igbos being republican in nature do not make such discriminations. They may dominate these churches for obvious reasons, but they openly profess religious loyalty and attend Pentecostal churches pastored by Yoruba GOs. From the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) to the Winners, COZA, Mountain of Fire, Deeper Life, among others, you not only find Igbos; you also find Igbos building churches in Igboland and donating to the cause. They see such gestures as furthering the work of Evengalism.
Now, let’s return to the Bokku Mart Jiggery-pokery. The supermarket chain set out to boost its patronage. It sought the help of a social media influencer to market its products. The management sat down, wrote a script (or at least saw the one written by the influencer) for the advert. The copy passed through all the vetting process and agencies, and was approved for production. It was submitted to the vetting agency dominated by Yoruba people, and nobody saw the ethnic slur it contained. It went public, casting the whole Igbo nation as “cheats.”
Following a public outrage that greeted the indiscretion, the young lady walked back and apologised. Bokku Mart pulled down the offensive ad. Good.
But there’s a greater tragedy: it is the fuel the ad offered to ethnic jingoistic people and tribal bigots. Rather than condemn the obvious gratuitous insult on a people by a reckless young lady and her handlers, the social media went up in flames literally. Igbos called on their people to boycott Bokku Mart as a protest to the stereotype in the ad. Boycott Bokku calls went out. The Yorubas went on counter-offensive and called on their kit and kin to ignore “Omo Igbo.” They queued in Bokku Mart outlets in solidarity with their own. Those who didn’t need Bokku popular bread had to buy them in quantities. ‘We must teach these “Omo Igbo” lessons,’ they chanted. Others vowed to protect their own. Fair enough.
READ ALSO: Hardship: Long Queues For Bokku! Bread In Lagos
Like an ill wind, these ethnic tensions do not do this country any good. It festers and spreads because government and public figures had patronised such hate rhetoric and suffered no reprimand. The government at both the state and federal levels controlled by Yoruba people have refused to rein in on such bigots. In fact, it can safely be concluded that the hate against Igbo people has become somewhat unofficially official (pardon the oxymoron).
Landlords who are bigoted – and this time they are found in the two tribes – now refuse to rent their properties to those they hate. In the streets of Lagos in particular, your traffic offence is judged as serious and enforced to the full extant of the law depending on your ethnicity. I once confronted a LATSMA official extorting somebody and when I reminded him that what he was doing was against the calls of his duty, hearing my Igbo accent, he retorted: “Go back to your state.”
As we approach the 2027 presidential election in which incumbent president and his main challenger in the 2023 one, Mr. Peter Obi, are expected to contest, such ethnic tensions are bound to escalate and exacerbate the crisis.
We are fast losing our friends. On social media platforms and groups, among old school mates, the ethnic tensions is easily felt. Once a matter between the two ethnic groups comes up for discussion, hate speeches and vile temper erupt. Things that had been hidden in ethnic closets and brought out in the open. Reasonable and responsible dialogue take flight and educated and exposed people display unbridled hate and abject ignorance.
As the tensions increase and more people are recruited into the fight, let us remember the Rwanda genocide and remember too that it didn’t erupt from nowhere; it festered over time and was fuelled by the sort of hate we are witnessing right now between the Igbo and their Yoruba hosts. Messages of hate were spread through the media dehumanizing portraying the Tutsis as a threat to Hutu survival. Political power struggles reached its height and those who ought to weigh in and douse the tension either kept silent or acquiesced.
By the time the genocide dust settled, about 800,000 people mainly from the minority Tutsi had lost their lives.
The ethnic tensions between the Igbo and Yoruba, particularly in Lagos, is driving us to the road to Rwanda and all men and women of goodwill should rise up and quench that raging fire.
Politicians and public officials must not be allowed to continue to encourage ignorant and bigoted people to toe this political and tribal jiu-jitsu just because they don’t like a people.
Let us remember that times do and must always change and nobody has monopoly of power and instruments of coercion forever, and this advise is for both sides.
Chukwuelobe is a Lagos-based analyst
