FASHOLA'S DEPORTATION APOLOGY, UNAPOLOGETIC?

Icheoku says reading the so called mea culpa of the Alaayee Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State concerning his illegal and unlawful act of deporting citizens of a country from their country, any discerning mind would surmise that either he was compelled by his boss Bola Tinubu to clean up his mess or he reluctantly tried to placate a wounded people to avoid a political retribution across the Niger with APC's Ngige's possible rejection in Anambra State because of association with Igbo haters. Hear him - "If those people have misunderstood me or the actions taken by my government, I offer an unqualified and unreserved apology."  

Icheoku says it seems that this man does not get it that he denigrated the entire Igbo people by deeming some of their own as unfit and improper persons to inhabit that part of their fatherland called Lagos. A Lagos State Nigeria, which by virtue of their being part of Nigerian territory, entitles any other Nigerian to live there and call it home as would any other one hundred Fasholas. Governor Fashola does not have any superior or preeminent right to lay claim to Lagos State nor is he or any of his ilks more entitled to Lagos or the right to reside therein more than any of those destitutes so called, whom he deported therefrom. This flagrant infraction of the citizenship rights of those deportees is why Icheoku took umbrage at the governor and nothing more, nothing personal. 

Lagos State is a Nigerian territory and no one, Icheoku repeats no one, including Governor Fashola, has any exclusive right therein to be deemed more Lagosian than any other Nigerian citizens who decides to live in Lagos State and see him or herself as a Lagosian("Omo or Sisi Eko.") The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes this equality of citizenship of every Nigerian imperative; hence the action of July 24, 2013 whereby Governor Fashola took the laws into his hands by kidnapping Nigerians citizens and deporting them out of Lagos in the dead of the night is illegal, unlawful and a breach of the peace. Moreover immigration matters in Nigeria is still within the exclusive purview of the Federal government, thus making the Lagos State government of Fashola's act ultra vires the constitution. In any other law-abiding and civilized society, what Governor Fashola did was enough to trigger his recall; lead to his arrest and prosecution for violating fellow citizens' right to freely live, unmolested and undisturbed, anywhere in their country.  But in Nigeria, the jury is still out on how far civilized behavior has developed therein and whether the law perches on the tip of their pyramid as obtains in many other functional places? 

Now lets examine the merits of Fashola's belated "unreserved and unqualified apology to those people who misunderstood him and his actions?" Icheoku says by delineating the sphere of the Igbo-offended, the governor failed to acknowledge that the entire broad Igbo spectrum was offended by his action. The governor tried to use the legendary divide and conquer tactic to divide the Igbo people by classifying them into those who "understood and clapped for him and his actions" and those who didn't. This is totally a wrong approach and the attempt woefully failed as no true son or daughter of Igboland except for the sellout Joe Igbokwe, who found Governor Fashola's illegal action funny or a laughing matter. It is both reprehensible and deplorable. It is not a joke for anyone when another tries to alienate him or her from his fatherland just like with Shugaba in the then Shagari's NPN, hence the entire Igbo nation frowned at Fashola's action. Icheoku says Igbo people condemn the deportation of their people from Lagos by Governor Fashola as a classless attack on their general right to be full Nigerian citizens with inalienable right to reside anywhere and wherever they may deem fit within Nigeria.

Icheoku also has issue with the forum wherein the alleged apology was tendered as Aka Ikenga does not represent nor do they speak for the Igbo nation. Aka Ikenga is a cloister of some Igbo professionals in Lagos who hardly visit Igboland; they congregate to propagate their personal/private business and professional interest but definitely they do not act for the Igbos as a whole. They also do not speak for nor are they mandated to act on behalf of the Igbo people, hence cannot hold brief for the Igbos or mediate any Igbo cause or disputation like the current face-off the Igbo people have with Governor Fashola over his illegal deportation of their people from Lagos. If indeed Governor Fashola sincerely wants to reach out to Igbo people to placate them for his provocative action, the preferred and rightful forum and as is also indeed well known to Fashola, is and still remains either the Igbo Governors Forum or the Igbo umbrella representative organisation, Oha na eze Ndigbo. What Governor Fashola did by using the platform of Aka Ikenga to try and reach out to the Igbos is akin to trying to enter a house through the backdoor and this is unacceptable. Icheoku queries why would a "deeply sorry and sincere Fashola," desirous of atoning for his sins of perfidy, not use the proper Igbo channel to communicate his apology to the Igbos? Instead the governor resorted to a very confined group who are not broadly representative of the Igbo people nor do they command any followership in Igboland. A group made up of chiefly Lagos and Abuja dwellers, who hardly visit their ancestral homes in the East and who do not for every intent and purpose speak for the Igbos nor represent them or their interest can hardly be said to be a medium of and for the Igbo people. 

Governor Fashola went to Aka Ikenga to literally 'thank them for helping out with his father's funeral with their largest "herd of cattle?" Therefore, it is safe to assume that Fashola was just palling around with his Aka Ikenga friends when he decided to try and play a fast one with his so called apology, but he definitely was not honestly trying to reach out to Igbo people whose interest he violated by that deportation. For an action which took place on July 24, 2013, he waited until September 27, 2013 before he found it meritorious and convenient to apologise for it; and after repeatedly previously denying that it took place as well as its illegality and/or his culpability in it. Icheoku asks was the governor forced by to change his course by his boss Bola Tinubu or prompted by the floundering Ngige campaign in Anambra State or did he merely used the opportunity provided by Aka Ikenga event to seek rapprochement with the Igbos? Where was his contrition and at what stage of the controversy did he realize that what he did was both wrong and illegal and that an earlier, much timely apology, would have gone farther than this belated attempt to explain an unexplainable action. Hear the governor in his own words "I came here to say thank you for the honor done to my family and the memory of my late father. People who clearly do not understand the actions taken and words spoken are the people I owe an explanation." Icheoku asks, is the governor now telling the rest of majority Igbo people that the Aka Ikenga understood and approved his actions? 

Icheoku asks if the governor as he claimed "cannot take the Igbos for granted", why did he not seek a more humane approach to solving the problem those unfortunate Igbo people had in Lagos instead of the Nazi-gestapo styled manner of rounding them up, literally kidnapping them, and shipping them to a "concentration camp" in Onitsha and in the dead of the night without even intimating the would be receiving governor or their next of kins? If as the governor claimed, "a relationship of tolerance, mutual respect, love and trust with the Igbos has been built over the years," why was all of these in short supply when he executed his clandestine act of deporting Igbo citizens of Nigeria from within their own country? Where was his tolerance when he could not tolerate less fortunate members of the Nigerian society who happen to call Lagos home? 

Where was the governor's mutual respect for humanity, knowing fully well that all persons are not equally well endowed with resources and that those unfortunate Nigerians did not choose to be so impoverished? Icheoku asks where was Fashola's love for God's children or is he now questioning God on why those deportees were not as rich and as affluent as those who in his eyes merit to live in Lagos? If Governor Fashola believes in trust, why did he not trust the Governor of the would-be recipient Anambra State to intimate him of his planned kidnapping, asporting and dumping of Nigerian citizens in Anambra State? Icheoku says if indeed Governor Fashola valued the relationship which existed across the Niger, why did he not treat those deportees as he would treat those area boys (alayees) of Lagos and not un-needfully distinguishing between this two types of indigent Nigerians - those from Lagos and those from the other country, Igboland? 

To add insult to an already festering deep gash, the governor qualified his apology with the word "IF", yet it is an "unqualified apology" in his jaundiced view; which goes to show that he still does not get it - the gravity of what he did. So by necessary implication, the governor did not show remorse as he stated that it was the form and not the substance of his action that was the fall guy here? According to the governor, "I offer an unreserved apology IF the actions had been misunderstood." icheoku says there is nothing to either understand or be misunderstood here as the blatancy of the action is very clear and speaks volume for itself. To reiterate icheoku admonishes that there is nothing else needing or requiring additional understanding or misunderstanding in the fact that some citizens of Nigeria were kidnapped and deported from their own country. 

The governor further made allusion to a Ben Akabueze, an Igbo, serving in his government to further show that he has no beef with the Igbos and that he couldn't have 'looked Ben in the eyes after deporting his people,' right? Icheoku says if indeed Fashola's love for the Igbo people is Romeo and Juliet like, how many other Igbo persons did he employ in his administration aside of that Bola Tinubu's mole and financial gatekeeper, who was put there by Tinubu and forcibly imposed on and inherited by Fashola? Icheoku says if Governor Fashola thinks he has power as governor of Lagos State, in addition to being in power therein, let him fire Ben or redeploy him to another ministry and watch himself consumed by the wrath of Bola Tinubu through impeachment from office. 

Icheoku is indeed stupefied at the gullibility of Igbo people who like children are easily pacified with a simple candy despite possessing a potential clout that they could easily harness to get whatever they want in Nigeria but fail to do so due to motley of disorganized, dysfunctional, wildebeest-like incoherent divergent pursuits to issues affecting them as a people. The Igbo people have become pawn in everybody's chess board game in Nigeria, including Fashola's; and they are being individually easily manipulated simply because they lack a collective common purpose as a united people. Practically, every Igbo person wants to make it and be the it in their enclave as the man who must be feared and respected by all at the pain of using corrupt contacts to inflict untoward hardship on anyone who is not singing the chorus of their infallibility and God-like quality? In this rambling atmosphere, other Nigerians are cashing in to rubbish the Igbo people further and so easily that Icheoku cries out WHY can't there be an Igbo people that spoke with one voice -a collective voice force. Icheoku questions what this Fashola was talking about when he used the word "misunderstanding" to describe what he did or state that the number of those he deported was over exaggerated? According to the governor, those people were just seventeen and not seventy; to which Icheoku says one deportation of a people from their own country is simply one deportation too many or is the governor waiting until he deports about one million Igbos from Lagos to accept or acknowledge that what he did was both wrong, illegal and highly deplorable?

Further, Icheoku says there is nothing wrong with people moving from one part of their country to another provided it is to an area still within their country's geographical entity. It is called demographic mobility and people do it throughout the world. The United States Clinton family for example saw Hillary from Illinois marry Bill from Arkansas and relocated to Little Rock where he became a governor's wife and thereafter, moved to New York and later became a State's Senator. Ditto the Bush family that migrated from Connecticut where their grandfather was a Congressman to Texas from where two Bushes won elections to and served as presidents of the United States; after one served as governor and another son Jeb moved to Florida where he also became governor and where he still calls home till date. Personally, Icheoku has also personally moved through so many states too; so for the governor of Lagos State to see this imitable trait among the Igbos as a bad omen is indeed truly very disturbing. The worst of it being the governor's questioning of whether the Igbos are being more Nigerians than Igbos? Is the governor expecting the Igbos to be tribal bigots like his ilks and was he indeed asking where Igbo peoples' loyalty lies? Icheoku says if Governor Fashola thinks that he does not have problems with the Igbo people as a result of this deportation, then he has another thing coming. Imagine his arrogance not appreciating the magnitude of his caused injury to a people irrespective that some carpet-beggars, favor-seekers and contract seekers of the Igbo stork flooded his father's funeral with the largest "herd of cattle".  

Finally, Icheoku says this governor must be delusional in thinking that kidnapping and shipping some less fortunate members of the Nigerian society out of Lagos is going to make Lagos better. The solution to making Lagos better by this people would have been to upgrade their lives to a state where they could meaningfully contribute to Lagos State's economy and upkeep with their taxes and by performing other good citizens' duties and obligations. Any governor or government, not primarily driven by tribal bigotry would have seen these deportees as his fellow citizens with unreserved rights to inhabit any part of the geography called Nigeria, hence not deportable. Thereafter, the governor or government would seek ways to rehabilitate and reintegrate them back into the society as gainfully employable part of it. By empowering them with some skill acquisition or trade and backed up with some soft loans to jump-start their sputtering lives once again, these deportees would have eventually realized their Lagos dream or at least headed in that direction. But what did the alaaye governor of Lagos State do? Like a thief in the middle of the night, he kidnapped these unfortunate Nigerians and shipped them away to their own land so far-away from the "foreign" land where they hitherto lived? Icheoku says there is no policy exhibited or implemented here that tasks human fallibility as claimed by the governor whatsoever. 

What the governor did is reprehensibly wrong and absolutely illegal, period. The governor would have said "I am sorry" but he did not. It is irrelevant whether an explanation or defense was intended with his Aka Ikenga visit; the basic thing is that an illegality should not have happened under a supposed Senior Advocate of Nigeria's watch, period. It is also noteworthy that the governor during his apology Aka Ikenga's visit, did not call the rascal Femi Fani Kayode to order or at least denounce him as not speaking for Lagos State or on behalf of him in this matter. So what does the governor's silence on the diatribe drug-addict Femi Fani Kayode is piling on the Igbos, says or tells the Igbos? Icheoku says if only Governor Fashola had put on his SAN's thinking hat pre-deportation and appreciate the illegality of his then planned action. may be all these would have become mute? This would have been the right thing to do and this is what would have saved a more sober Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola from the agonies of the moment and by extension take care of his belated non apologetic apology. 

But in a country given to unnecessarily braggadocio and where people think that the act of showing humility is a sign of weakness, Governor Fashola is now being hailed as magnanimous enough to tender an apology to the Igbos and that his sins have been forgiven? Icheoku says not too fast as those people he dumped in Onitsha have not been compensated or recalled back to Lagos or at least given some stipends for their inconvenience. Until Fashola remorsefully atones for his sins against the Igbos and their unfortunate-deported, Icheoku maintains that the forced apology was a little too late and should be ignored as not genuine and germane enough. The deportation was wrong , illegal and uncalled for and those victims of Governor Fashola's high-handedness should be brought back to Lagos and adequately compensated. Icheoku states that Aka Ikenga does not represent or speak for the Igbos, hence whatever they are doing or "understanding" with Governor Fashola is their private business. Governor Fashola offended the collective sensibilities of the Igbo people and if he wants to apologise for that he must go through the recognized igbo representatives channel - either the Igbo governors or the Oha na eze. Until then, Governor Fashola in the eye of icheoku, remains an avid Igbo hater who must be shunned by every true blooded Igbo person.