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The Lagos State Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, has said the State government will not allow faceless people on social media to promote ethnic bigotry to divide the people of the state.
Naija News reports that Hamzat, in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, described the viral post on X ‘#IgboMustGo’, which threatened a massive protest from August 20th to 30th, 2024, as nonsense, and will not be allowed.
Hamzat said the State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has denounced the social media campaign and will not yield to people’s attempt to create ethnic bigotry.
He said, “The issue of the Igbos, I think, is one of the hazards of Social Media. These faceless people just came up and said Igbos must leave, absolute nonsense. And that’s why you could see what the governor said, the governor immediately denounced it. The Lagos, that’s not who we are, that’s just not who we are. Since we’re all children, we’ve all lived together in the state, and there is no need for people to become ethnic bigots. But again, like we said, some people will try to do whatever to divide us, but we will never allow that.”
Speaking on what he believed led to these issues, Hamzat said, “For me, public commentary is a problem in this country, and we might not all agree, but public commentary is a problem, and I will tell you why. How is it that the most important factor is not what we address in our land?”
“We all did economics, and we said land is a factor of production. When you try to manage land, we ethnicise it in this land. So, that is one thing that is- whatever you want to do, everything you’re building, a house here, it’s on land. So, how is it that we don’t manage our land? When you want to manage land, physical planning is the problem of West Africa, bottom line. We will never be rich if we don’t plan our land. But if we want to plan it, what happens? Oh, you do this because he’s Hausa, or he’s Igbo, rubbish! So, the bottom line is let us focus on the real issues.”
Rachel Okporu is an entertainment and lifestyle journalist with years of experience in the industry. She is a graduate of Linguistics and Communication Studies. Likes surfing the Internet and making new friends.
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