By Ugoji Egbujo
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In 2023, after Obi defeated Tinubu in Lagos, MC Oluomo addressed the state. He warned the Igbo to sit at home on election day if they wouldn’t vote the APC. He wasn’t subtle. In that live broadcast, he framed non-APC votes as a punishable betrayal. The police invited him for questioning, but the “chat” was more photo-op than accountability. He was released after a half-hearted apology that many saw as scripted.
A few days later at the polls, the Igbo were beaten black and blue, chased away from the polls. Many Igbo voters were hospitalized in Eti-Osa, Ojo, Amuwo-Odofin, and beyond. Oluomo’s agents had performed their task. The police did nothing. INEC said the election was credible. Oluomo and his principals celebrated the triumph of hooliganism. MC Oluomo’s street enforcers had turned words into wounds, and the lack of repercussions emboldened the playbook.
In early 2023, MC Oluomo was the state chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers. The NURTW controls all the agberos in Lagos. That membership makes the union a rich source of thugs. In late 2023, Oluomo handed the reins over to a man called Sego, one Alhaji Adekunle Mustapha. Sego, a veteran enforcer with his own history of clashes, inherited not just the chair but the expectation of loyalty to the APC machine.
Now Chairnan Sego has announced that come 2027, the state would only accommodate one party, the APC. He warned that nobody would be allowed to vote any other party. Sego was explicit—anyone who decides to vote against Tinubu and the APC will be killed. Sego has sent his message to Tinubu’s opponents. Unlike MC Oluomo, his brand of hooliganism wont take prisoners. That message was primarily for the Igbo in Lagos. Sego said: “What happened in 2023 will be child’s play… Anyone who refuses to vote APC in 2027, we’ll deal with them decisively.” He didn’t name the Igbo explicitly, but the context screams it: Lagos’ non-APC base is disproportionately Igbo.
Sego and his puppet masters weren’t just awakening old demons. They were employing the old playbook. The 2023 script is playing all over again. After Sego made the dangerous and criminal pronouncement, the DSS promptly invited him to grill him for ‘insulting some groups’. But before the public knew of the invitation, he had been released. And following the MC Oluomo choreography, Sego , wearing a DSS visitors tag on his chest, denied the naked threats he had issued before cameras and tendered a dubious apology.
He said he was misunderstood. The DSS did not bother to comment. With the wounds of 2023 electoral violence fresh in their minds, the Igbo in Lagos know that the Sego saga is just beginning. Sego’s threat wasn’t mere street talk. It wasnt the growl of a lone wolf . It’s a flare-up that’s reignited fears from 2023, especially among the Igbo community. Sego has proposed ethnic cleansing at the polls.
Sego mentioned Aregbesola, but he did not need to mention Igbo by name. After the 2023 attacks, Onanuga, Tinubu’s spokesman, warned the Igbo that their rejection of Tinubu in Lagos would not be tolerated in 2027. A few other Lagos traditional rulers have voiced their opposition to free and fair elections in Lagos, citing an attempt by settlers to usurp and dominate their hosts through economic enterprise and free and fair elections. Sego’s outburst therefore wasn’t a thoughtless pronouncement by an otimkpu. It was a declaration of intent by a political family using a mouthpiece which, though potent, can’t be subjected to scrupulous moral scrutiny given his professional background.
So while Sego is formidable and his threats might be more potent than MC Oluomo’s, Sego isn’t the problem. Though Sego has primed the hounds and they may leave more carnage in 2027 than they did in 2023, Sego is not the danger. The problem is the seeming apathy of the president, the ‘eternal don’ of Lagos politics. While the wounds of 2023 are still bleeding, the president’s lackeys are left loose to encourage political hooliganism and fan the embers of ethnic strife.
The violence against the Igbo was never addressed. The hooligans were never prosecuted. Those who instigated it were never punished; rather, since 2023, the president has watched inter-ethnic tensions rise between the Igbo and Yoruba on social media, and the government did nothing to douse it. The only conclusion left is that Sego has said in public what his masters are saying in their bedrooms. And that is why Sego, as carnivorous as he may be, is not the problem. Sego isn’t the principal villain.
Tinubu is the president. Tinubu isn’t just the father of all; he is the godfather of Lagos politics. Lagos isnt just the microcosm of Nigeria, it is the heartbeat. Tinubu has a duty to promote democracy in Lagos. The godly and lawful way to win Lagos is to win the hearts and minds of Lagosians of all ethnic hues. The cheap recourse to political hooliganism to disenfranchise one group will ultimately lead to a national disaster.
The exclusion of any ethnic group from the polls anywhere in the country undermines the peace and unity of the country at its foundations. So when presidential spokesmen or lackeys come into the open to threaten the extermination of Tinubu’s opponents in 2027, they make Tinubu morally liable. When Tinubu hesitates to use these offenders to teach others a lesson, he validates the dangerous and divisive tendency.
A president’s moral authority to govern is damaged when his supporters seek to win in his home state by disenfranchising an ethnic group through the use of violence, and he responds with silence, nonchalance. The Igbo in particular might cheap targets – vanquished in a previous civil war, scattered all over the country, most vulnerable to widespread confusion, and lacking decisive numbers like the Hausa- Fulani. But Tinubu should be mindful of what our ancestor said of little feces and its oversized capacity to damage the anus. Lagos must remain the melting pot of tribes and theatre of dreams.
In the last local government elections in Lagos, many people stayed away. The Igbo in particular chose not to participate for fear of targeted violence. The credibility of any future elections in Lagos was already in doubt before Sego took matters into his hand. After Sego issued his fatwa to the loud cheer of his men and other ethnic chauvinists , the Igbo must demand special protection from the president.
If One-Nigeria is a farcical concept used to mine taxes and resources, the president should tell the Igbo. If it’s a cosmetic balm to soothe the wound of domination, the president should tell the Igbo. The best interpretation of the President’s continued silence is irresponsible negligence; otherwise, it borders on criminal complicity. The Igbo and other ethnic groups in Lagos aren’t asking for favors—they are demanding protection of their constitutional rights.
The forceful exclusion of an ethnic group from the polls anywhere is a crime against humanity in electoral form. It is an electoral fraud of apocalyptic dimensions. It has the capacity to turn the polls into pogroms. The ball is in Tinubu’s court. History waits to judge him.
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