Whether the Governor of Lagos State realised it all along or not, his government’s bizarre policy and programme of deporting Nigerians from Lagos to other states have reinjured the unhealed wounds of ethnicity in Nigeria. There is no doubt that the political leadership of Lagos State has realised the enormity of its mistake on this. Despite the exterior calmness and even bravado exhibited by the Governor, he seems to understand that he has placed himself on a questionable side of history, though he still has the opportunity to reinvent himself and reset his political vision for the country.

As a lawyer, the Governor must have understood that these deportations are probably in violation of the constitution of Nigeria. You have no business forcibly removing from Lagos State somebody who has the constitutional right to return with the next bus. And if he doesn’t return, it would not be for lack of legal right to return, but rather because of the physical and economic limitations the act of the State has imposed on him. Any action of the Government that so drastically guts the fundamental rights of the citizen must require a compelling necessity to survive any judicial review.

What was this compelling necessity to justify the actions of Lagos? None, really. It all boils down to the incompetence and lack of imagination on the part of the administration. Every government, be it county or municipal administration, should have a programme on how to alleviate poverty and reduce destitution among the most vulnerable part of the population. Such programme must involve a genuine cost and some wealth redistribution formula, however minimal. Never before has a government with any claims to responsibility resorted to removal as its choice programme for poverty alleviation and prevention of destitution. It is a mark of a total lack of vision on the part of Lagos State Government.

To highlight the complete inability of Lagos to justify these removals, it is important to consider the explanations or justifications that Lagos has advanced so far. First, Lagos claimed that it notified Anambra State Government of the deportations. But the evidence shown by Lagos suggests nothing other than a confusing and irrational government programme. There was a letter that spoke of 14 detainees/deportees. Yet, there was no further explanation for the deportation of 72 people to Anambra State. There was no indication that Anambra State Government concluded the confirmation process intended in the correspondence from Lagos. No indication of the date of deportations. No indication of the manner of the deportations. No indication of who would take over once the deportees were in Anambra State. No arrangement whatsoever on what would happen to the deportees beyond the River Niger Bridge. It showed a poorly considered and thoroughly dehumanising protocol for the handling of the Nigerian poor.

The second attempt by Lagos to justify these deportations was some equally confusing and distorted account of correspondence from Akwa Ibom State Government, concerning two mental patients rescued and treated initially in Akwa Ibom and who indicated that they had families in Lagos and who could not be left alone without care. In any event, Akwa Ibom State has openly refuted Lagos’ account of what transpired between the two states and actually went further to distance itself from the Lagos deportation programme.

A third justification by Lagos was to explain away these deportations by claiming they were a form of family unification programme meant to unite the deportees with their “families”. But looking at what happened to the 72 people deported to Onitsha, it was clear that there was no attempt at unifying them with their families. The handling of the Onitsha deportees was nothing other than a clear endangerment of the health and lives of the deportees. And quite troublingly, Lagos State Government defined “family” to mean nothing more than the “presumed state of origin” of a deportee.

The fourth justification by Lagos was to resort to some vague but virulent reference to the ‘legendary generosity” of Lagos to “foreigners” who live in Lagos State. The Government agents spoke of the hospitality of the Lagos people. The shift from a reckless government action to the collective will and desire of the millions of people who might, if provoked enough, attempt to trace their ancestral origins to Lagos State territories could only be alarming. It looked like a complete last resort for a government that has lost the argument.

The final justification to date was the continued deportation, this time to Osun State, to avoid any ethnic underpinnings of the deportations to Onitsha coming to the surface. The fact that the next set of deportation after the one to Onitsha had to head to Osun State was predictably disturbing and coming at a time that the government continued its argument on the generosity of Lagos people to “foreigners”.

The greatest problem emanating from all this is definitely not the pain and suffering endured by the deportees, as bad as they may be, but rather it is the fact that these events have unleashed among Nigerians the ugly monster of ethnic disunity and the hostile language of breaking up the country. In a sophisticated world, people would have resisted the temptation to slip along ethnic lines on this matter. They should have understood the wisdom of not playing the ethnic card, which an apparently misguided government has dealt them. But the people are not sophisticated or the leaders of these divisions have a different agenda altogether. Politicians and such other provocateurs have used these events as a justification to pounce on the highly inflammable sensibilities of dissatisfied Nigerians.

The first to fire a shot in response was the Governor of Anambra State, who wrote to the President of Nigeria on the matter without first a phone call to his colleague in Lagos and without any explanation why his Government did not take the matter seriously since April of 2013 when it first became aware of the programme. The second person to fire a shot was former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who threatened legal action and escalated the ethnic argument to some obvious fanfare. Then came the most rabid of them all in the person of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode who has used these incidents as justification to unleash a deep-seated hatred and bigotry toward the Igbo people, hoping in the process to give himself some new relevance as the warrior of his tribe.

Nigerians must deny the politicians and the provocateurs the opportunity to exploit this problem and plunge the country back into the hostilities of the ’60s. The national unity that has been preached, perhaps in words only, by Nigeria is much damaged by the things said or written on both sides of the divide. The fact is that Lagos is about the largest city in Nigeria. It is also among the largest cities in the world per population. It was once the political capital of Nigeria, and presently the commercial capital of the country. Naturally, it would become the most diversified city in Nigeria where Nigerians from all parts of the country would settle and make their homes. It is in that context that Lagos could be rightly referred to a no-man’s land.

The duty is on all sides to pull back from the precipice and reconsider their arguments. It is counter-productive to use this as a justification for waging an ethnic warfare. The whole matter could be addressed squarely from human rights point of view without reaching the ethnicity angle. Let this matter remain the policy and programme of a State Government versus the Constitution of Nigeria. Let no one make this a Yoruba versus Igbo affair. That would be most unfortunate and serve the interest of only those who want to divide the country for personal gains.

•Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire, whose photo appears alongside this piece, is an international lawyer practising in the US and Nigeria. He is the Group Founder/Principal Administrator of Due Process Advocates (DPA).