OPINION BY JULIUS OGUNRO: Lagos and the quest for a Nigerian identity | TheCable
allowed electoral opportunities in the former federal capital. This time, the debate is around the gubernatorial candidacy of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party and whether he can be considered an authentic Yoruba and therefore a Lagosian in light of his ancestry, which includes Sierra Leonean and Igbo blood, in addition to Yoruba.
That has raised the possibility that the Labour Party may also win the gubernatorial election and makes Rhodes-Vivour, who — before Obi — lacked gravitas and popular support, a frontline candidate. With that has come closer scrutiny for him.
This is in fact an ongoing national problem. In Jos, the Hausa people who have lived in the area for more than a century face the challenge of integration and are resisted especially with regard to opportunities to run for political office by the Berom and other aborigines of the area.
It is the reason that even though Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, he started his political career in Chicago, Illinois, becoming a senator and finally president. Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister of the United Kingdom, is regarded as a Briton despite being non-white and of Afro-Indian ancestry. Were Obama and Sunak Nigerians, it is unlikely both men would be able to kick off their political careers the way they did and in the places, they started from.
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