By Lukman Olabiyi
The natives of the five divisions that make up Lagos State, under the umbrella of Lagos Indigenes Congress (Igbimo Omo Eko), have affirmed that Gbadebo Rhodes Vivor is a bonafide son of a reputable Lagos Island family and cannot be wished away because of maternal lineage as there is no individual that does not have both paternal and maternal lineages.
Igbimo Omo Eko is a network of Lagos bonafide indigenes across Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island and Epe (IBILE) in a communique issued and signed by Dr. Olusola Bangbowu, at the end of its emergency meeting over the weekend, described the discussion on Gbadebo’s identity as worrisome.
The group stated that the issue of Gbadebo’s identity must be nipped in the bud, to avert a potent recipe for election violence “that will do our state, indigenes and none indigenes alike no good”
According to them, the scar of the End SARS imbroglio is still very visible in Lagos even as the state government is grappling with rehabilitation using very scarce state resources. The state cannot afford any such incident under any guise again.
The group claimed it is for this reason that they are stepping forward to speak against the divisive story being peddled about Gbadebo Rhodes Vivor.
“We dissociate from it, we say it is wicked and planned to impair the love and harmony with which Lagosians have lived together in the past, just for the gains of a few”, the group said.
They said further that the claim and campaign of a none indigene against Labour Party candidate must have arisen from the incredible performance of his party in the last presidential election. “We say without mincing words that he is a true son of Lagos and indeed one of us”, the group added
The communique reads further:”
That it is a distortion of fact, wrong, selfish, very insincere, and wicked for anyone to claim or argue that there are no true indigenes of Lagos.
The actual indigenes of Lagos hail from, and have the roots of their progenitors traceable to IBILE, the 5 divisions of Lagos namely, Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos Island, and Epe.
“That, unlike indigenes of other states in the Nigerian Federation, our progenitors handed over to us the culture of humanness, accommodation, and assimilation; of fairness and of equity. This apparently is based on their ill experience with the slave trade. And we have taken this spirit of fellowship further to the extent that even our immediate neighbors, join others to say: There are no Lagosians
“ For the avoidance of doubts, there are Lagosians. Some of us have both parents who are from Lagos, some, are the father only and we also have some who claim to be from Lagos only on a maternal basis. We do not discriminate.”