 The Boogeyman arrives, the 2023 Lagos Gobernatorial Election. The elections of 2023 has come and gone. The last of the elections was the Lagos Gobernatorial Elections. Lagos is of course the first federal capital of independent Nigeria and on the hills of a rural to urban drift that reached its crescendo in the oil boom of the 70s, people of many ethnic origins within Nigeria and even from outside troops to Lagos. In the kind of exodus that has been replicated many times in history in the world's greatest cities. It is as if Lagos had issued an opening invitation to a great unending fist and it has indeed been a wonderful host in its liberality, extreme in its social, commercial and political life. The worst aspects of parochialism that has hobbled the nation as a whole since its birth. In the last elections it seems to do a new phantom. A Boogeyman, if the political tail bearers are to be believed, has arrived after a few years, still tillie sticking its toe in inch by inch. One of the guests has become an invader seeking to drive out the indigens of the home. Lance Moru, the one-time editor of Time magazine and preeminent columnist, warned us long ago that the secret of much evil doing is the ability of man to treat his fellow, not as a human being like himself, but as the other. In other words, to do evil we must first dehumanize the other human being. Otherwise evil is impossible. Throughout history this has been the case, the Jew had to be rampantly evil, heartless and greedy for the Holocaust to be justified. The Gypsies had to be dirty, deceitful and lazy nuisances for robbers to be more welcome than them. The Hutu had to be different from the Tusi to justify genocide in Rwanda. All these fine resonance in the early years of our independence in the history our nation wants to remain in Amnesia about. But this was never so in Lagos. Lagos is the place to paraphrase the Brazilian novelist Paolo Coelho where it was possible to walk in the streets and mistake the approaching stranger for your brother. But this bogeyman has arrived in the politics of Lagos and will without question work strong for a while. Still we must hope that all men of good will recognize that the bogeyman is just a phantom. It has no substance. Okay, so let me start. For those that don't know what a bogeyman is. I think in the present. So the bogeyman is a kind of mischievous spirit in fables we used to frighten children. So in this context we are being frightened by the bogey of tribalism. We are being correct. Oh he wants to take over my land. He wants to drive me away from my land. Let's call it what it is when in Lagos they say the Igbo man wants to come and take over my land including his land. So that's a kind of fable because you and I know it. How do you do that? It's not true. But you can say it to children. Children will believe anything. So it's a fable detail to people who should know better. But they don't know that it's untrue. Now I start with a preamble. Our constitution in the qualifications for who should be the governor of a state does not provide for indigene. That's the truth. If you go and read the qualifications for being a governor say of Lagos state it does not have in it that you must be an indigene of Lagos state. This is the truth. All it says is you must be a citizen of Nigeria. So what it means is that I am from a state. I could go to Sokoto state and contest for elections. That is really what it should be. It doesn't matter where I am from. So we were in these elections these campaigns were based on a moot argument. Something that in fact we were discussing unreal things. Some campaigns were based on unreal things because the truth is that even if I am Igbo I can contest in Lagos for governorship of Lagos state. Even if I am Hausa I can do the same in Akwaibon in Cross River. That is what the framers of our constitution did. In that they were very mature and forward looking. There is no in our constitution definition of indigene of any state. They sent it under one of the contestants now Senator Omoa Gege and his committee. Did in 2020 try to propose an amendment of our constitution to include such a provision for indigene. So that then you would have to go to the local government of your state. If you had paid tax for 10 years or so and all that you could then get a certificate of indigene and all that. But the makers of our constitution didn't go to these levels. So it is like they say sometimes engaging in democratic or constitutional backtracking. We are going back to do in the indigene. Thankfully that provision has not come to light. It has to go through all the state house of assembly. So Stephen you are very sweet ideally. The joy too which I am surprised that you are such an idealist. Because this is our very sweet. The makers of our constitution are idealist. So there are two things I would say to that. One in that I can't remember which state it is but there is a governor who just won who is a Euroban man in a non-European state which I think is brilliant. But essentially when we are still filling out forms and still saying where you are from. Like I still have to say I am from my own state. But really I have never lived in my own state. I have been there many times. And my name is clearly from that side. But I am a negotiator. Second is probably a protocol baby. That is it. So we still have the basic forms. Why do we need to put that? So it is still very much inbuilt into our system of where you are from. And you have to put that on actual documentation. So until we are able to even remove that. It surprises me that you don't have to be honest. That you don't have to be from the state that you are from to run which is brilliant. I think that is excellent. I don't think it should be like that. I think it should be the best man or woman for the job. Who can get us what we need. Let's put them there. It doesn't matter where they are from. Yes, they should have not just come into Ligos like yesterday and then be running for governor of Ligos. You have to show that you have cared about the place where you are living. You have worked with the grassroots. You have put out into the community. You have done the work. That is what would qualify you to run. Not whether you are from that state or not. It is how have you committed to giving back to that place where you live. To the people where you live. To the system where you live. To say that you think. Because it is very much an ego thing. You think that you can stand here and run this state. So you have to prove what you have done. Not where you are from. I think that is the low level conversation that we always keep having. It is just pretty low. Where you literally, I think like Alder did that voter segmentation. People who vote based on this, based on that. Religion, ethnicity. There is intelligence. There is in my own person. Things like that. And you see that oftentimes how we make decisions. We do not have quality of depth in our thinking process. We just make very shallow decisions. And like Tanya said. What is where are you from? What has that got to do with your pedigree? What has that got to do with your track record? So I want to look at your track record. Have you done granular work that can be verified? That is trackable with evidence, success. You can show traction, right? I mean when this is one of the investment startup, because I play in that space, they will ask you what is your traction? You have traction. Okay, so if you don't have traction, they are not going to want to talk with you. So they will say, oh wait, are you building an Igbo startup? Or your robust startup? They will ask you that. They will say what is your traction? They will fund it. If your traction is good, they will fund it, right? If Netflix wants to hire, they will say, oh are you Dubai? Are you from Kenya? Are you good? You can do this work? That's it. So I think really we need to just change all of this orientation and begin to look at what really matters. I think it's super important. You see what I think. Okay, first of all, constitutional drafters have to be, and our constitutional drafters have to be idealists for the future because you want to build the nature and aspiration. But the drafters of the American constitution, which you copy now, for instance, they didn't see it imagining that America will always be in the 18th century. They imagined that down the line America will progress. Our constitutional drafters did the same. They imagined we will progress. What I agree with you, there is something beneath the constitution. Like I said, laws can't implement themselves. There's nothing, something beneath the constitution that is not working. The constitution doesn't handle by itself. It can't implement itself. There's something beneath it that is not working. And that's where I say that there's no agreement between our ruling elite classes about whether Nigeria should move forward. You see, I say to people, Nigeria is many Nigerias. You go to Sokoto, they say Nigeria. You go to Akwaibom, they say Nigeria. You go to, you come to Lagos, they say Nigeria. It's not necessarily one as in many places. But to make one Nigeria, you have to have the most important people wanting to be so. Just as we are saying about education, if you really want Nigeria educated, you have to want the people who matter to want it like that. So what you had in America, you had people like that who sat down and wanted progress. We need to have people in our ruling classes sitting down across the Niger to decide Nigeria must progress. That's what we have not had. Alright. The end always seems to come too soon here on the advocate. I trust you enjoyed today's show. However, the advocate continues on our social media platforms on Facebook, plus TV Africa with the hashtag the advocate NG. And on Twitter and Instagram at plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate NG. You can catch up with our previous podcast by going to plus TV Africa dot com forward slash the advocate NG. Do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel plus TV Africa. See you next week, same time on this station. Let us keep advocating for a better society. Bye for now.