The National President of the Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), Igboayaka O. Igboayaka, has issued a firm warning against voter intimidation targeting Igbos in Lagos State ahead of the 2027 general elections. He declared that Igbos in Lagos would not be deterred from exercising their constitutional right to vote, stating, "We are going to vote. There is nobody born on earth that can intimidate an Igbo man." Referencing the 2023 elections, where Peter Obi won a significant majority in Lagos, Igboayaka said attempts at voter suppression had failed and would not succeed in 2027. He introduced the OYC's election code, "Egwu Suru Gede," and vowed that any use of violence or intimidation would be met with equal resistance. "We are going to follow them eye for eye and tooth for tooth," he said. Igboayaka urged supporters of both President Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi to campaign peacefully through mobilisation and persuasion, not coercion. His statement follows past remarks by Lagos political figures, including former Lagos State Parks Management Committee Chairman Musiliu Akinsanya, known as MC Oluomo, who in a 2023 viral video, told Igbo voters to stay away from polling units if they would not vote for the All Progressives Congress. Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu's spokesman and former campaign spokesperson, also posted on X in 2023 that Igbos should not interfere in Lagos politics, calling it "Yoruba land" and warning against repeat involvement in 2027.
Igboayaka O. Igboayaka warns against Igbo voter intimidation in Lagos while invoking "Egwu Suru Gede" as a response code, yet this stance emerges only after public threats from Lagos-based political figures like MC Oluomo and Bayo Onanuga. The OYC's focus on self-defense rhetoric highlights that Igbo voters in Lagos already operate under conditional acceptance, not equal political belonging. When a state's political actors openly question the legitimacy of citizens voting based on ethnicity, the election environment is compromised before ballots are cast. The 2023 results showed Igbo voters stayed defiant, but their right to participate should not depend on readiness to fight for it.
💡 NaijaBuzz is an AI-assisted news aggregator. This content is curated from third-party sources — NaijaBuzz is not the original publisher and is not responsible for the accuracy of source reporting. The NaijaBuzz Take is AI-assisted editorial opinion only, not established fact. All persons mentioned are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. NaijaBuzz does not endorse the views expressed in source articles.
