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Hardball
September 4, 2025 by Hardball
Lagos-phobia, from panicky Lagos-phobics, has come with own grim humour — even among Lagos-philes trying to fend off the toxic attacks.
Lagos-phobia comes from emotive warriors, pitching nothing but crude sentiments, because they are fast running out of credible facts. Yet, the next polls are some two years away! Long may their despair last!
The latest Lagos-phile, caught in that web is Daniel Bwala.
Now, Bwala’s is a peculiar story. He, it was, that scrammed from the winning camp, on account of the so-called “Muslim-Muslim” ticket. Well, Bwala — poor Danny! — would later make a brusque u-turn. Now, he admirably defends the policies of this same “Muslim-Muslim” ticket, a living proof it was all empty gas, to win or lose elections.
But in fending off the charge that President Bola Tinubu focuses “all” infrastructural projects and investments in Lagos, Bwala made the points (and brilliantly a too): New York (in the United States), London (United Kingdom), and Paris (France) gross more investments than any other parts of their respective countries.
Why? Because they make money — more than any other — for their nation’s till. So, the investments are theirs by right. That excellent parallel makes the Lagos case. Case closed?
Not quite! In the ardour of the moment — it was a TV programme — he lapsed into that verbal howler: “Lagos is a no man’s land …”! But as he clambered back to the Tinubu camp from the losing Atiku’s, he also made a quick u-turn to declare Lagos belonged to the Yoruba! It’s all in the course of a day’s work!
Still, slip or no slip, Bwala was, as they say with that popular cliche, “on point”. This latest bout of Lagos-phobia (just because it’s the president’s home base, suggesting “nepotism”, is hare-brained. It comes mainly from northern lobbies, at their wit’s end, trying to bad-mouth legacy projects. But to be fair, southern lobbies too blackmailed the late PMB with such cynical charges. It shows how toxic Nigerian politics is.
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It’s all a verbal equivalent of shutting your eyes just because you hate what you’re seeing. But that hardly makes it all go away!
That blackmail of Lagos just won’t wash, coming mainly from ex-PDPs (the Atiku faction of PDP that just moved to ADC and are making all the racket) who very early from 1999 sat glum when then President Olusegun Obasanjo declared Lagos was a jungle, and said he had no apologies!
But guess who started the furious race to “de-jungle” Lagos and retool its economy, while the Abuja of Obasanjo and Atiku sneered? It was a certain Governor Bola Tinubu, whose Lagos truly came into its own under his first successor, Governor Raji Fashola!
If these guys think such cheap blackmail would stop any sane government — not the least Tinubu’s — from making Lagos to go back to Obasanjo’s dream “jungle”, they had better start thinking again!
After Blue and Red rail lines, which Lagos cobbled together despite PDP’s Abuja, the Green Line, with the first section of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, is Lagos getting its due, as the nation’s money-spinner. So, Lagos-phobics labour in vain with their desperation.
Eko o ni baje! That’s the spirit — and the logical path to tread too!
English (US)