Yoruba: Beware of invaders

By Reno Omokri

Invest In Lagos At Your Benefit

The indigenous population of Lagos must always be good hosts to other Nigerians and foreigners. However, they must never allow themselves to move from hosts to hostages. Lagosians must be tolerant to, of and with those who relocate to Lagos from other parts of Nigeria and the world. But they must understand that when a handshake goes beyond the elbow, it is no longer a handshake.

When others leave their ancestral lands to live with you and make an effort to adjust to you, your culture and land, they are neighbours. However, when they leave where they are originally from to move to Lagos and expect Lagosians to adjust to them, their culture, and the land they left behind, they are no longer neighbours. They become invaders. And if you succumb to them, they graduate from invaders to conquerors.

The Oba of Lagos and the city fathers of the metropolis, as well as governmental leaders, should not take it lightly when those who were welcomed into Lagos make utterances and take actions to make Lagos unwelcome for tourism and investment. Do not underestimate how far such reviews can go. Especially when it involves people with powerful local and international clout.

Some people are unable, as of yet, to build a shining city on a hill like, Lagos. And in their sour grapes, they can sink the ship because they cannot be the captain.

Lagosians are the real mothers of the child that would rather surrender it to the usurper rather than have it dismembered in front of Solomon. That is why some persons are pushing a narrative of ‘Lagos is bad’.

Lagos, not Nigeria, Lagos, is now the number one recipient of health tourists of any city in Africa. This is the second time it has happened to a Nigerian town. The last time it happened was sixty years ago when Ibadan was the favourite health tourism location of the Saudi Royal Family, who frequented the University College Hospital.

With a GDP of ₦41 trillion and the enviable reputation of being named the 19th best place to live on planet Earth, Lagos is vulnerable to malicious de-marketing.

And when people with such intent have a long-term strategy, while the indigenous people do not, then Lagos may end up like many cities in Western Europe. Cities like London, Amsterdam, and Brussels, where internal and external immigration has wrested municipal control of those towns from their original inhabitants, thus fulfilling Ecclesiastes 10:7, where Princes of the city walk, while those who relocated ride on horses.

Lagos has been good to all of us. It was in Lagos that Aliko Dangote became a billionaire and the wealthiest Black person in the world, not in Kano. It was in Lagos that Isyaku Rabiu became a Dollar multimillionaire, paving the way for his son, Abdulsalamad, to become a Dollar billionaire, also in Lagos. And it was not for nothing that Patrick Brown, the Mayor of Brampton, eulogised Lagos recently and said it made him want to revisit Nigeria.

People like Dangote, Rabiu, and Brown are the type of residents Lagos needs and should court. However, Lagos must not be shy to put the stick down on anyone who wants to undermine Lagos after benefiting hugely from the city and state.