Postcard to Babatunde R. Fashola, SAN

The Executive Governor

Lagos State Government

Governor’s Office

Lagos State Secretariat

Alausa, Ikeja

Lagos

Nigeria

ANTHONY KILA

London, United kingdom

anthonykila@email.com

Friday, December 14, 2007

Dear Governor,

There is an open sore in the Island of Lagos that you can and must heal or at least lead the initiative for healing. It is a symbolic sore that hurts the sights and hearts of many. It is in form of the street called Louis Farrakhan.

Like in a street-naming tug-of-war, it was renamed, or shall we say disfigured, during the bad old days of the Abacha regime, two weeks after the American authorities named a street after Kudirat Abiola.

This Louis Farrakhan Street embodies a token to sycophancy offered for misunderstanding Nigeria and in contempt of the feelings of Nigerians. It is a sore that still hurts.

In the international community, that street is one of the most known in Lagos; it should be named after someone we know and are proud of. Such names abound amongst present and past indigenes and residents of Lagos. We urgently need to choose one of them to rename that street. Fela Kuti, Femi Falana, Hakeem Olajuwon, Beko Kuti and, of course, Wole Soyinka are some worthy names we ought to consider.

No, (Mr and Mrs Cynic), renaming this street will not solve the more mundane problems of infrastructure, law and order and employment that beleaguer Lagosians; it will, however, help restore some dignity and sanity and allow us showcase some humanistic and democratic values.

It is a simple thing to do and if you, Mr Governor, succeed in doing it, you will help us send a message to the world that thinking is not foreign to us, that we can correct our mistakes and other states in Nigeria might start to heal their own street sores.

Greetings