Femi Fani-Kayode, Lagos, the Igbo and the Misinformed – Shola Adebowale

Femi Fani-Kayode

There was an essay written by one seemingly grossly misinformed Ayokunle Odekunle titled ”A Rejoinder On The Igbos- Of Femi Fani-Kayode’s Ignorance and Proud Display Of It”, that I saw on Comrade Biafra’s Facebook wall and in one or two website magazines yesterday.  So many issues were raised as regards the piece written by Chief Femi Fani-Kayode titled – ”Lagos, the Igbo and the Servants Of Truth” and apparently Ayokunle’s essay was a rather futile attempt at a rejoinder. In my view it fell far short of that and most of what he wrote was nothing but irreverent nonsense and disjointed verbiage.  Since I am not given to being taciturn I only focused on one of his many manifestations of silliness in this very short response.

Under ISSUE 3: He pointed out that Lagos was not developed ‘by the Yoruba money’ but rather ‘that Lagos State was built (from ) oil money’.

MY TAKE:

Shola Adebowale “There is only one evil-IGNORANCE”,Socrates.

Apparently, any objective observer would know that the writer has an unbridled issue to settle with Femi Fani-Kayode, on a personal level.

Perhaps, it account for the venom that is herein unleashed to address the person and not the issue..and thereby destroyed the thought process of the writer (from making quantitative research before writing such a sensitive piece), all in a blind bid to tackle the writer and not the issue at hand.

Let me just cite one example and rest my case:

Any contemporary student of history of evolution of city-state in Nigeria, knows very well that the following city-states were not developed from oil wealth from fossil fuel – Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Aba, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Benin, Sokoto, Kaduna, Jos..etc..these are city-states that had developed first class socio-political and economic wealth with transatlantic and trans-Saharan trade (from oil palm, rubber, groundnut, cocoa, coal, tin, hides and skin etc) even before the Bismarck Berlin Confab’s-scramble and colonization of Africa, with structural ,infrastructure and landmarks, as attestation of being dated beyond 60 years old in the least.

Meanwhile, oil was just discovered first in 1952(Ogogoro), 1956(Oloibiri), both by SPDC and it wont be a money spinner for Nigeria  until 1963(triggered by the paucity of supply in the international market ) during the 6 days war and a major fulcrum of global economy, wealth and power in 1973 (Yom Kippur war).

In other words, such issue like this ,shouldn’t have turned into another issue like the proverbial ‘chicken-and-egg situation’ to know which one comes first ,if and only if ,we are really sincere to stick to simple chronology of history.

Simple logic, any state in Nigeria before 1973 oil wealth is made not from oil wealth..unless we are saying that the super-mega structures like Cocoa House or those in Marina/Broad Streets, Liberty stadium, Ilupeju/Ikeja industrial estates(1st in Africa) etc are less than 40 years, i.e when oil became the main stay of our national economy.

“There is only one good-KNOWLEDG E” Socrates.

I ARISE!

I think we have over flogged some of these issues long enough, ignorance ,is the greatest undoing of this nation.