No fight between Igbo, Yoruba in Lagos

The Chairman, Council of Elders, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, has condemned individuals fuelling ethnic baiting in Lagos State.

Describing them as “political rascals”, Iwuanyanwu said there was no war between the Igbo and the Yoruba in the state.

“We are in Nigeria and we have invested in Nigeria. Our investments are so much. We are not going to take the pressure of people telling us to go. We are not going anywhere.

“I want to tell those in Lagos to realise that there is no war between us (Igbo) and Yoruba. They are just political rascals, and we’re going to handle them,” Iwuanyanwu said Saturday at a ceremony in Anambra State to commemorate Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s one year in office.

He said the elders had directed the secretary general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to set up a commission of inquiry to find out things destroyed, saying “people are going to pay.”

The Igbo elder said he convened a meeting of the Ohanaeze Council of Elders worldwide on Wednesday, who assessed the events in Lagos.

He said, “I want to tell you that people who attended from our branches in America, Canada, Europe, London and Nigeria have resolved and I want those from Lagos to go home and tell those in Lagos.”

The PUNCH reports that Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for the campaign team of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, last week, warned Igbo in Lagos against “interfering” in politics in the state.

Onanuga, who is the director of media and publicity of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, issued the warning in a tweet via his official Twitter account, @aonanuga1956, few days after the governorship polls.

He said, “Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business.”