Oba of Lagos Should Not Have Threatened Ndigbo, Says South-west Assembly

Says emotional outburst damaged Akiolu’s message

The South-west Peoples Assembly (SWPA) yesterday said the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu should have persuaded the Ndigbo descendants living in the state during a meeting he had with them on Sunday rather than threatened them.

The assembly, however, blamed what happened on the emotional outburst of Oba Akiolu, which he said, damaged the message he wanted to pass across to Ezes Ndigbo in the state at the meeting.

The assembly’s

National Chairman, Mr. Lai Omotola, expressed concerns over the monarch’s temperament during the Sunday meeting at a session with journalists, noting that it should not be Ndigbo that read the endorsement of Lagos candidates for Lagos people.

Omotola said attention should not be diverted from Akiolu’s message, saying his message was that the Ndigbo should allow the leaders of thought in the state to endorse a candidate they wanted and give him their support.

At the session yesterday, the national chairman explained that already majority of Lagos leaders “have come together and said this is the direction that we are taking. We just need the complimentary action of Ndigbo.

“Now that Ndigbo did otherwise, that created the outburst of Oba of Lagos. It is too unfortunate. But the truth must be said that being part of Yorubaland, majority of Yoruba leaders dictated the direction of the candidates that contest elections. We can only ask other people to join us.”

Omotola said the practice was not peculiar to Lagos State and South-west at large, noting that it also “happened in such states as in Enugu. It happens in Abia. The outburst of the king damaged the message. It is a matter of emotional outburst betraying the value of the message. The message was simple.”

He, thus, argued that it was the leaders of influence put together that “determine the direction we want to take based on consensus. There is nothing wrong being non-indigenes into the calculation and that we want them to participate in it. What has gone wrong is that the emotional outburst has damaged the message that the king wanted to convey to the Ndigbo in the state.”

He said the Oba of Lagos “speaks for all other Obas and Baales in the state. If all of them decided the direction they want to take, why should it be changed? Do not forget that it was Oba of Lagos, late Oba Adeyinka Oyekan that initiated Eze Ndigbo to promote community relationship.”

“If there is any conflict in all parts of the state, there is always Eze Ndigbo they can always relate to and resolve it. It is the creation of Oba Oyekan. The leaders of thought have come together and decided the candidate they want. We have advanced our hands to the Ndigbo to come and make complementary effort because we have worked together in the past,” the chairman added.