8th April, 2015
By KANMI ADEMILUYI
Lagos has always being accommodating to all comers. In its long and rich history, there is no record of violent inter-ethnic strife. Let us hope that this will continue to be so. Exasperating as the place can be at times, its actual a fun place to live.
That’s why it is a melting pot, more like “bring me all those who yearn for a rebirth”. It is an all comers place precisely because those you meet there on arrival are always so enduringly accommodating. Not everyone everywhere else is that all encompassing. In a lot of places, the old bit about `when in Rome do as the Romans` often comes to the fore and not always nicely said.
Often, it carries naked threat. This is seldom heard in rambunctious Lagos, where the freewheeling spirit reigns. It’s not that loose and easy everywhere else. Astonishingly, in contradistinction, there are cities in Switzerland where foreigners cannot buy property.
They can rent for as long as they like, but none of that changing of title business. Most people first come across this caveat through the property pages. It is difficult to comprehend, given that Switzerland qualifies as an “advanced country”. Lagos does not have this kind of caveat-to its eternal glory.
Such is the liberal ethos of the metropolis that no one ever mooted the odious and utterly disgusting concept of “abandoned property” there. Certainly,
that most fair minded of men, the former Lagos State military governor, Mobolaji Johnson, had all the legal instruments to declare property abandoned. However, the Yoruba are not like that.
This is more than you can say for some other people. We must not also forget that a lot of people in Lagos also collected rent for those who were trapped in the East during the civil war. This is a classic case of being your brother’s keeper. It will be most unfortunate if everything now changes due to some insensitive exuberance. It should not come to “OK! No more Mr. Nice Guy”. If it does, it diminishes the very essence of our humanity. Lagos is what we should aspire to be. It is the most civilised part of Nigeria.
It has always been. In the First Republic, P.C Ebudike represented Badagry West in the Western House of Assembly. Mrs. Mercy Eneli, Ibezim Obiajulu and Moronu where councillors freely elected by Lagosians.
It has been a long glorious history of accommodation. Opportunists and sabre rattlers need to be reminded of the words of Bob Marley: “When the rain falls, it doesn’t fall on one man’s house top”. For they reap the whirlwind those who (inadvertently, it is to be hoped) sow the wind. Kanmi Ademiluyi writes from Lagos