The Kings Speech:

Reflections On Oba Akiolus Comment To The Igbo Community

By Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA
On Saturday, if anyone of you, I swear in the name of God, goes against my wish that
Ambode will be the next governor of Lagos State, the person is going to die inside this water."
Ever since Oba Akiolu, the King of Lagos said the above words to leaders of the Igbo
community, the incident has become one of the most talked about topic in Nigeria. Some
people have called for the king to apologise to the Igbo people, others have threatened to
take him to the International Criminal Court, and others have created various memes on
social media, which mock the king. Some people are still in denial and refuse to admit that the
king made such a comment, while others are supportive of the comments.
To get a better appreciation of the significance of the event, it is important to examine the
incident from a holistic point of view rather than focusing solely on what the king said. In the
next couple of pages, I will try to analyse the event from a multi-dimensional viewpoint by
examining a) The Speech b) The King c) The Venue d) The Supporters e) The Target and f)
The Others
Before I proceed, I know some members of my ethnic group may be outraged with what I
have to say. I may be called an idiot or a bastard, however, if this is the cost for pointing out
injustice, then I consider it a prize worth paying.
THE SPEECH
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To recap, on Sunday the 5 of April 2015, a group of Igbo leaders paid Oba Akiolu a courtesy
visit. During the visit, the king advised the Igbo community to vote for his candidate
Akinwunmi Ambode in the forthcoming gubernatorial election. He warned the Igbos that if
they did not vote for his candidate, they would perish in the river within seven days. He said
that the Igbos would prosper in the state if they heeded to his instructions. He pointed out that
when the Igbos came to Lagos, they did not have houses but now they have properties.
During the speech, Oba Akiolu also made reference to God and the ancestors of Lagos and
swore in the name of Allah that the Igbos will die if they disobeyed him. He also warned the
Igbos that they must not do in Lagos what they cant do in Onitsha and Aba otherwise they
will perish.
The comments made by Oba Akiolu has all the hallmarks of an extreme form of hate speech
bordering on an incitement to commit genocide against the Igbos resident in Lagos State. The
kings speech dehumanized the Igbos and they appear to have been singled out for PDPs
strong showing in Lagos during the recently concluded general election. This is despite the
fact that people of other nationalities also voted for PDP and the actions of OPC probably
dissuaded people from coming out en-mass to vote for APC due to fear of violence. The
assertion that Igbos came to Lagos without houses and now have houses can be construed
to be a threat that their properties are not safe if they go against the kings wishes. In addition
the statement that Igbos will perish in water is inflammatory and could possibly lead to
violence. The speech breaches Chapter IV Section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution which
states, Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person, and accordingly -no person shall be subject to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. It also breaches
Article 25 (3) (e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which states that a
person who directly and publicly incites others to commit genocide has committed a crime
against international law. While Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide states Direct and public incitement to commit genocide is a
punishable event.

THE KING
In Yoruba culture, the king is given the utmost respect. Oba Akiolu as the king of Lagos is a
high ranking king and a man full of authority. His influence extends to the 17.5 million people
that live in the state. What he says carries a lot of weight and this was evident when people
were clapping as he threatened the Igbos with sudden death. Since the king boasted that he
should be called a bastard if his threat does not come to pass, this could motivate some of his
subjects who revere him to attack the Igbos in order save the kings face. Furthermore, in the
event of an attack against Igbo people, the attackers can easily evade personal responsibility
by appealing to the kings authority.
THE VENUE
Even though the speech was made at the kings palace, Oba Akiolus area of influence
covers the entire Lagos State. Lagos is a melting point where people of different cultures
congregate. As the economic capital of Nigeria, it attracts people from the four corners of the
country. Many Igbos have come to Lagos to live the Lagos dream. Igbos are very
entrepreneurial and have been able to make a success of their sojourn in Lagos. They have
set up shops, businesses, built houses, climbed the corporate ladder and are also making in
roads into politics. From history up to the present, we learn that very often, when foreigners
prosper in a foreign land, sometimes the host community becomes wary, especially in times
of economic hardship. From Scripture, we learn that when the Jews began to prosper and
multiply in Egypt, King Pharaoh stirred up the Egyptians against the Israelites saying, Lets
figure out a way to put an end to this. If we dont, and war breaks out, they will join our
enemies and fight against us and escape out of the country. In the 1930s, the Jews living in
Germany were prospering as the nation was in economic hardship. A King by the name of
Adolf Hitler instigated the Germans by accusing the Jews of causing Germanys economic
depression and the countrys loss in the First World War. In most parts of Europe, immigrants
are currently being targeted as the continent recovers from the ravages of the Great
Recession. In 2013, the Lagos State government deported some alleged destitutes of Igbo
origin and dumped them in Onitsha.
THE SUPPORTERS:
When the king made his vitriolic speech, there were two categories of people listening,
namely the supporters and the targets. As the king told the Igbos that they will perish in the
Lagoon within seven days if they disobeyed his orders, some people were clapping and
praising him saying Kabiyesi. Those cheering the king are the open supporters. They are a
proxy for those who are prejudiced towards Igbos and do not hide their bias. Outside of the
palace, there are other open supporters. There is another group of supporters called the
closet supporters. Like the open supporters, the closet supporters also hold similar prejudiced
sentiments towards Igbos, however they dont express these sentiments in the public arena
for fear of being called a bigot or tribalist.
The kings speech resonates with many of these supporters and it has now provided an
opportunity for closet supporters to openly express their prejudices. Shortly after the
elections, the blame game began with our Igbo brothers and sisters at the receiving end.
Comments like, These Igbos voted for Goodluck; The Igbos are outnumbering the Yorubas
in Lagos; Soon we will have an Igbo Oba or Governor in Lagos; The Igbos are buying
properties even in Ijebu; Lagosians have sold their birthrights; My street is named after an
Igbo man; Igbos keep saying Lagos is no mans land, has become the norm.
This is why the kings speech is dangerous. In Scriptures, Jesus spoke about a farmer that
went out to sow some seeds. He said some of these seeds feel along the path, some fell on
rocky ground, some among the path and some fell on fertile ground. The kings comments are
like a seed, some people have brushed his comments aside while others have taken his
comments as a joke. However, the kings comment has found a home in the hearts of the
open and closet supporters. Their hearts are fertile for the vitriolic statement to germinate and
produce prejudiced and tribalistic fruits some a hundredfold, some sixty fold and some

thirtyfold.
THE TARGET:
When the king addressed the Igbo leaders, he was also addressing all Igbo people living in
Lagos State. The Igbos are the most persecuted ethnic group in Nigeria. Three million Igbos
died during the Nigerian Civil War, out of which two million (mainly children) died from
starvation resulting from the air blockade. A global audience watched in horror as images of
the kwashiorkor-inflicted children of Biafra were beamed on TV. The use of starvation as a
weapon of war against the Igbos led to the formation of Mdecins Sans Frontires (Doctors
Without Borders) an NGO, which provides medical facilities in war-torn regions. As a result of
the civil war, 40% of Igbos died.
In the build up to the Civil War, comments like, The Igbos are taking over Nigeria; The
Igbos are clannish; The Igbos eat people; The Igbos are not human became the norm.
The Igbos saw their neighbours grass them up. As the civil war intensified, our Igbo brothers
and sisters ran to their base and lost all hope as they tuned to their radios and heard
influential Nigerians say, All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't
see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder; and I want to see
no Red Cross, no Caritas, no World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary and no UN
delegation. I want to prevent even one Ibo from having even one piece to eat before their
capitulation. We shoot at everything that moves and when our troops march into the centre of
Ibo territory, we shoot at everything even at things that do not move. The Igbos woe didnt
end with the cessation of hostilities. They saw their properties confiscated in the Northern,
Western and Southern parts of Nigeria. The wealth of a whole generation of Igbo wealthy
people was wiped after the war.
In todays Nigeria, the Igbos have been key targets in the Boko Haram insurgency. So one
can only imagine what our Igbo brothers and sisters are going through when they are told that
they will perish in the Lagoon or when they hear that they want to take over Lagos. They must
be experiencing dj vu.
THE OTHERS
The others fall into two categories namely the activists and the bystanders. The kings speech
has generated a national outrage and many people have come out to condemn the kings
speech. A positive development has been the youths condemnation of the speech on social
media. This is a possible indicator of a future where I hope that people will begin to be judged
by the content of their character rather than by their ethnicity. A number of Yoruba people of
influence have come out to condemn the kings action and the two main political parties have
expressed its dissatisfaction with the kings speech.
However, there are many who are still standing by the sidelines and refusing to make a
statement. For instance, the Lagos State Government should be able to do more to allay the
fears of our Igbo brethrens. The State Government should also condemn the utterances of
the king and make it clear that every citizen irrespective of tribe has the right not to be
discriminated against. Evil prevails when men and women of goodwill chose to act as
bystanders in the face of great moral conflict. It is therefore time for all bystanders to unfold
their arms, stand up and say tribalism should no longer prevail in the land.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
When we look at the king's speech in isolation, it can be easily dismissed as either a joke or
as an intervention in the political process. But we should not look at it within this narrow
prism. The combination of a powerful and influential king who makes a vitriolic statement
targeted at a marginalised ethnic group (within the historic context of a genocide that took
place nearly fifty forty years ago) listened to by a supportive audience and ignored by passive
bystanders in an environment of scarce resources is a toxic mix. We can't afford to be silent.

In the next couple of day, the gubernatorial elections will take place, the outrage in social and
mainstream media will simmer. People will go about their normal business and just as we
swept aside the atrocities of the Biafra War with the No Victor No Vanquished concept, the
king's speech will be swept aside.
But as Edmund Burke once said, "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." So
the Federal government needs to put in place a legal framework to address the issue of hate
speech and incitement to commit genocide. Nigeria sits on a fault line of religious and ethnic
tension. A misguided statement from the mouth of a person of influence could be the fuse that
ignites the whole religious or ethnic powder keg. Furthermore, its time to address the Biafra
question once and for all. I know this will be uncomfortable for many, but we cannot move
forward as a country if we continue to sweep the atrocities of Biafra aside. As I have argued
before, the issue of reparation for crimes against humanity inflicted at our Igbo brothers and
sisters during the war needs to be considered.
A detailed account of the Nigerian civil war should be included in the school curriculum so
that children can have a better appreciation of the importance of ethnic harmony. If there is
space in our educational curriculum for Mungo Park, William Wilberforce and Lord Lugard, I
see no reason why we shouldnt create space for the root cause of the Civil War, the numbers
of death during the war, the human sufferings as a result of the war and the lessons learnt
from the war.
Finally, there needs to be a revolution in our collective thinking. Tribalism should have no
place in our country. Ethnicity and nationality are not mutually exclusive concepts. It is not an
either/or; it is a both/and. We can be proud of our Yoruba/Urhobo/Igbo heritage and still be
proud to be Nigerian. Every Nigerian has the right to live in any part of the country without
fear of harm. Lagos will always be in the South West so people should not be afraid that
"outsiders" are coming to take the land. There is enough room for all of us to live in perfect
harmony. We should also realise that we are all interdependent on each other. The South
relies on the North for its beef; The rest of the country relies on the Niger Delta for oil; Our
Igbo athletes and footballers bring joy and pride to all of us when they excel in global sporting
events; our Yoruba financiers help lubricate the Nigerian economy. Nigeria is greater than the
sum of its individual parts. So let's put our differences behind and work towards making our
great nation Nigeria greater.
I began this article by quoting a king and I will end this article by quoting another king-- Martin
Luther King who once said:

"WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER

BROTHERS OR PERISH TOGETHER AS FOOLS."
Eko O ni Baje
Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA
suleaos@gmail.com
April 2015

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