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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has narrated how a “prejudiced” landlord some many years in the past discriminated towards him for being an “Ijebu man”, a Yoruba sub-group in South-west Nigeria.
Mr Osinbajo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, mentioned the owner, who he encountered in 1989, had a coverage of not renting his home to “Igbos, Ijebus and attorneys”. The coverage, he mentioned, affected him as a lawyer and an Ijebu man.
The vice chairman narrated this story on Monday on the Maiden Version of the Coverage Making & Good Governance Lecture Sequence of NIPSS.
The lecture was titled “Creating A Homeland for All: Nation-Constructing in a Various Democracy.”
Mr Osinbajo used the story to deal with the ethnic profiling that characterised the 2023 normal elections, the place there have been reported instances of harassment and intimidation of voters based mostly on their tribes and ethnicity.
“In 1989, I used to be about to get married and I used to be looking for a great home to hire. I met my landlord who occurred to be an aged lawyer who clearly did extra actual property than authorized follow.
“He let me know that there have been three classes of individuals he wouldn’t hire property in his care to – Igbos, Ijebus and attorneys. I used to be disqualified on two accounts. He then mentioned to me, pointing behind him at just a few shrivelled-up books on a small bookshelf, that he had the arsenal to destroy any tenant in courtroom if I gave him any bother. He later, to his embarrassment, found that I used to be a Legislation trainer and adviser to the then Legal professional Normal of the Federation and naturally, that I’m additionally Ijebu.
“I’ve shared this story for instance some extent that I feel is massively vital, which is that prejudice and bias are pure features of human nature,” he mentioned.
Mr Osinbajo, who contested the 2022 presidential main of the APC however misplaced to Bola Tinubu, mentioned excessive competitors throughout elections will increase the extent of division within the nation.
“Elections by their very nature, are usually divisive affairs. Partisan democratic competitors compels us to align ourselves with the camps that almost all replicate our beliefs and aspirations. In a various society akin to ours, democratic competitors is intensified by the sociocultural cleavages that exist in society. That is true of any heterogeneous society or democracy.
READ ALSO: Senate strikes to control cost of hire in Abuja.
“In an election cycle by which the most important contenders come from completely different ethnic-regional lessons or zones, there was all the time a way that the competitors was going to be significantly intense. However on the identical time, it will not be correct to scale back the election to an ethnic census,” he mentioned.
Mr Osinbajo additionally spoke on the division alongside non secular strains and urged all candidates to sheathe their swords.
“Faith was fairly clearly made a difficulty, and in some elements of the nation, political biases are launched even between denominations of the identical faith.
“In some instances, ethnic profiling occurred at polling cubicles. A preferred feminine meals blogger and YouTuber referred to as Sisi Yemi, a Yoruba girl, took to her verified Twitter deal with to say ‘My husband and I weren’t allowed to vote, they mentioned we appear like Igbo individuals. I can’t imagine this!’
“Virtually with out fail in each election cycle, politicians have forcefully, both overtly or covertly, sought to steer voters that voting for his or her specific social gathering or candidate is the need of God and that voting for the opposing social gathering was a violation of that divine will. Repeatedly, we hear of prophets who assist political events by hook or by crook,” he mentioned.
“This can be a matter of nice concern as a result of lengthy after an election is over, and lengthy after the main contenders have sheathed their swords, the rhetoric, the phrases and the means used to compete can have adversarial long-term results on society,” he mentioned.
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