For all the uproar the Oba’s comments have generated, one man who attended the meeting has said the Oba’s remarks were made in jest and the atmosphere at the venue of the meeting was one of conviviality.
The Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, has come under plenty of fire from politicians and voters alike for threatening the Igbos with some time in the lagoon if they go against his desire of seeing Ambode emerge the next Governor of Lagos State.
Lagos-based lawyer and Industrialist, Chukwudi Atueyi who was at the meeting, said it was all friendly banter between the Oba and the Igbo representatives at the palace.
“All the Eze Ndi Igbo honorary chiefs in Lagos went to pay the Oba a solidarity visit on Sunday and I was fortunate to be among those present”, Atueyi disclosed to The Nation.
“What the Oba said was fully and simply directed to only the Igbo present at the meeting who his majesty considered to be very close to him and should understand him well enough.
“You know when one talks to his very close friends and subjects, he tends to be very free with them, so he was being very free with those present at the meeting and wanted us to realize how serious and close he takes us and our votes, because he cannot imagine us giving him our words only to turn back and do the very opposite.
“He did not force us to the meeting, we were the ones that went to him on solidarity visit, so it would be very evil of us to only go and deceive him there. He only jokingly (at least as it appeared to me then) warned the people present at the meeting who he considers his own people. The said warning that we are supposed to be very conversant with since we have all the “Ëze Ndi Igbos” present there, as that was not the first time we visited him, we are all already aware of the Yoruba culture and understood perfectly what he meant. There was no specific place he referred to “all the Igbos in Lagos.”
“He was only addressing the Igbos with him present there whom he considers his own people and he simply observed his culture which we all quite understood very well and this explains why there was applause and laughter at the end of his speech. We were expected to, thereafter, talk to our people in civilized manner to convince them and canvass for their votes if we truly believe we are capable of doing so.
“The tradition of lagoon water threat was directed only to those present there at the meeting jokingly as culture demands, though he appeared serious but we all understood it as a joke, that was why we all applauded him and made fun of it there.
“So I suspect serious politics at play here. I wouldn’t know who recorded the speech and decided to play politics with it. It is most unfair to his majesty to be portrayed in this manner and I think I owe it as a duty to speak up before things get out of hand.
“I strongly suspect that all this is being portrayed in this manner simply to curry votes for the Saturday’s coming election. This is capable of making the people who could have been initially indifferent in performing their civic responsibility to now go out of anger and vote against the Oba’s advise in order to dare the Oba.”
Oh well…
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