By Tony Ogu
Did the Igbos put guns on anybody’s head before buying up Alaba, Ajegunle, isolo and Oshodi in Lagos?
Did they use juju before the Ibadan surrendered Iwo Road to them?
And what were we looking at before the Igbos took over Isida and Adeti in Ilesa ?
Where were the YORUBAS when the Igbos thrived and built 90% of the Hotels in Abuja. Was there a law that excluded the YORUBAS from selling building materials? Dei Dei building materials market in Abuja is 90 % Igbo owned.
So the more we point one finger at the Igbos, the more we have the other four fingers pointing at our laziness and lack of initiative as a society.
The YORUBAS should have been better with all our education, but we may be worse than the Fulanis who just roam around the bush.
Why? Because we lack the entrepreneurship spirit. We just want salaries from doing 8am to 5pm job. We proceed in foolishness and we persist in hoping to reap plenty without sowing hard. The Igbos are different, hence we are now jealous and envious.
We love wasteful parties and Aso Ebi. Just a little business without even making any profit yet, we usually call musicians to spray money like coffetti .
Where are all the Board Members of Ebenezer Obey today? Where is lawyer Omoyinmi and Lanre Badmus? Where is Oroki Social Club of Osogbo? Where is Felates of Ilesa and the likes whose trade mark was to bring Sunny Ade to Ilesa every Xmas, to waste all income gathered for the year?
The Yoruba society wasted their leading lights on excessive consumption and wasteful attitudes. We wasted our capital on frivolous social gatherings.
We took religion to ridicoulous levels, such that the wealthiest pastors and churches are now Yorubas. But all the wealth extracted by the churches from the Yoruba nation is also merely flaunted to show whose God is the most miraculous.
So we have become paupers and destitutes, as the Yoruba nation cannot now pay salaries. Pensions are owed for years.
Tell me, is Osun State filled with human beings or goats to have tolerated Aregbesola, when they rejected Akande. Say it loud, is the Constituted Authority of Ibadan sane to just bring about 21 Obas from nowhere to receive salaries, where there is no money to reopen Ladoja Akintola University?
Are the Ondos so wise to have allowed Mimiko to devastate their terrain as to be now saddled with 12 months salary arrears? What of Ekiti with rabble rousing Fayose and the intellectually arrogant Fayemi?
But the Igbos are hard workers. Let us not continue to deceive ourselves. 20 of their young boys can live in the shop from where they sell goods. There is no place too dirty or remote for them to hibernate and incubate their ideas. Give them 5 years, you will see them buy and take over all shops and lands.
True, some of them are criminals, but majority of the Igbo youths build and build physical structures always, while the YORUBAS are content with looking for salaried jobs, so that they can have siesta in the afternoons and then attend parties on Saturdays. Then spend Sundays in church wishing and praying for divine miracles.
How foolish! As the Igbo youths are meeting and strategizing on Sundays, so that they can gather money and buy the houses and lands owned by our Yoruba fathers, the Yorubas youths are busy in churches on Sundays praying for miracles.
Whether we like it or not, Obokungbusi Town Hall will soon be on concessional PPP sale. The Igbos will buy it. The proceeds will be used to pay backlog of salaries owed to impoverished Ijeshas. It will come willy nilly.
It will happen even in a declared Oduduwa Republic. Afterall, the Chinese, the Lebanese and the South Africans are buying us out with reckless abandon. See how ShopRite is buying up everywhere. I heard that they bought Owena Motel estate in Akure. How come we did not sell it to the Igbos?
We shall continue to grumble and hate the Igbos until eternity. Unless we spy on them, copy their ways and imbibe their ‘can do’ attitude.
The Yoruba nation and society have been pauperised and destituted. In desperation, we shall soon start to behave like the Almajiris in the North.
In grinding poverty and out of jealousy, the Almajiris of the North regularly loot Igbo shops and businesses. Very soon Yoruba urchins will start looting too to show that they hate the Igbos.
Even some of us here will defend it to show our hatred for the Igbos. Whereas, the looting is as a result of hunger and uselessness of our society.