By Akinwale Kasali
“Both Ahmadu Bello and Ozumba Mbadiwe were Yoruba arch enemies” – AOKOYA
A Yoruba Self Determination Group, Apapo Oodua Koya, AOKOYA, has called on the Lagos State Government to rename the popular Ozumba Mbadiwe Road and Sir Ahmadu Bello Way, both in Victoria Island Lagos, with Yoruba names.
While Mbadiwe was a Minister in the First Republic, Ahmadu Bello was the Premier of the defunct Northern Region.
This followed the mixed feelings which trailed the renaming of Charly Boy Busstop to Olamide Badoo Busstop by the leadership of Bariga Local Council Development Area in Lagos State.
The Pan Yoruba Group said it was necessary for the Lagos Island Local Government to rename the said Ozumba Mbadiwe and Ahmadu Bello Way, saying the Streets represents the worst form of internal imperialism in Yoruba indigenous territories.
The Group commended the the Bariga Local Council Development Area for recently naming Charly Boy Bus Stop to Olamide Badoo Bus Stop.
In a statement, AOKOYA said Ozumba Mbadiwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello were arch enemies of Yoruba people. It pointed out that Ahmadu Bello way leads to the Atlantic Ocean, which is the longest Street in Lagos and was named to signify the wish of the Fulani to conquer Yorubaland to the Sea as pronounced by Uthman Dan Fodio.
It added that the two streets are threats to Yoruba spiritual strength, xivilisation and heritage.
The Group, in the statement, dismissed reports that Charly Boy donated 2,500 Okada to people in Lagos. AOKOYA said the reports are figments of imaginations and a dust of lies.
The statement signed by its Lagos Coordinator, Medinat Ojora, disclosed that in year 2010, Bajaj Motorcycles was making inroads into Nigeria, in which they made Charles Oputa popular as Charly Boy its Ambassador in order to reach a lot of customers.
Ojora said Charly Boy was alleged to have received N4million from Bajaj and 100 Motorcycle as gifts.
“Charley Boy handed over the 100 Motorcycles to Riders in Lagos.
“Majority of the beneficiaries were alleged to be from Igbo extraction. The beneficiaries were asked to pay back five times the amount back to Charly Boy.
“He gave them as hire purchase. The name of the company used was called Code-Red which can be confirmed by any serious and truth searching Journalist.
“No authority ever gave Charly Boy any Bus Stop, so the question of Charly Boy Bus Stop does not arise.
“The name of the Bus Stop was called Second Pedro. Each time, Charly Boy would pull down the signpost and put his own.
“Charly Boy also did not rent the house initially, the house was rented by the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, who lived in the house after his retirement and any time he was in Lagos.
“Charly Boy stayed in the House with his father who was a very responsible tenant.
“After Chief Oputa left the house, Charley Boy retained the house. He lived in the house without paying any rent for 17 years.
“He was eventually ejected through a Court Order. The woman who owned the land had to quickly sell the land but the trauma from the 17-year engagement with Charley Boy led to her death”, AOKOYA stated.
AOKOYA urged the Lagos State Councils to focus on defending and promoting the heritage of the people of Lagos and not to listen to saboteurs and enemies of Lagos who believe that Lagos is a land that belongs to no one.
AOKOYA added that the Lagos State Councils need to correct historic injustice in Lagos.
“It is inappropriate to name one of the longest streets in Lagos State after Mbadiwe who spent the larger part of his life assaulting and destroying Yoruba legacy.
“Yoruba States need to employ the philosophy of minimum tolerance and the diplomacy of proportional response in dealing with a string of historical injustice perpetrated against the indigenous people of Lagos spanning decades”.
AOKOYA said it rejects the situation where monuments in Lagos were named after the arch enemies of the Lagos indigenous people.
“Charley Boy is a nuisance who goes nude on the internet, spent most of his time promoting drugs and anti-social behaviour in Lagos all through the time he lived in the city.
“He constituted a threat to the younger generation that live in the environment, he was a bad influence”.
AOKOYA said his presence in the Bariga area led to the flourishing of violent cultists which today remains a major source of social instability in the whole of Bariga.
The Group recalled that Mbadiwe was the former Minister of Lands and National Resources following the alliance between the National Council for Nigerian Citizens, NCNC, and the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, which led to the isolation of the Action Group, AG, led by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
AOKOYA said during this period, indigenous land and territories were misappropriated by the ruling Party while Nnamdi Azikiwe was the President of Nigeria and Tafawa Balewa the Prime Minister.
Mbadiwe later became Special Adviser to Balewa and was one of those who insisted that Chief Awolowo be tried for treason.
“There is no justification for naming one of the longest streets in Lagos after such Igbo extremist”, AOKOYA said.
Late Chief Awolowo once said this about Azikiwe and Mbadiwe; “It seemed clear to me that Azikiwe’s policy is to corrode the self-respect of the Yoruba people as a group; to build up the Igbos as a master race; to magnify his own vaunted contribution to the nationalist struggles to dwarf and misrepresent the achievement of his contemporaries and to discount and nullify the humble but sterling quota which older politicians had made to the country’s progress”.
This could be seen and read in Coleman, Background to Nigerian Background to Nationalism on page 265.
It said Mbadiwe was responsible for the naming of the longest streets in Lagos after Ahmadu Bello and himself being a Federal Minister, inspite of the opposition from Egbe Omo Oduduwa which kicked against the decision.
AOKOYA said Mbadiwe and Azikiwe set up Yoruba Federal Union to rival Egbe Omo Yoruba set up by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and launched in Lagos in 1947.
“Azikwe and Mbadiwe held a meeting of the Yoruba Federal Union on June, 1948 at Glover Hall under the Chairmanship of one Reverend J.O Lucas, a Yoruba man being used by Igbo.
“Glory be to God that Egbe Omo Yoruba outshined the Federal Union which died in few years that followed”.
AOKOYA further accused those supporting Charly Boy of ignorance and playing to the gallery.
“These set of people are themselves fascists who wish to suppress the Yoruba people in our own land and impose their own civilisation.
“We ask Femi Falana, El Rufai, Oseni and one Farotimi to show us their own Igbo equivalent in Igboland who defend Yoruba interests.
“The only justification is that their actions are not motivated by human rights but by personal gains.
“It is an irony that Monday Ubani, the Lagos lawyer who condemned the Lagos change of name has never, for one day, condemned IPOB or their violent activities extended to Yoruba territories.
“There is no Igboman that would behave the way these people do because the Igbos are more conscious and determined in their desperation to conquer and subdue Yorubaland which they already reflect in their Biafra Map which includes some parts of Ondo State and the whole of Itsekiri and Edoland.
“Those people supporting Charley Boy lack any sense of history and that is why their genes should be investigated as we had Jews who supported the persecution of fellow Jews by Adolf Hitler”, the statement reads.
