It is not the intention of the columnist to stoke any ethnic particularities in the essay below. On the contrary, I will be exposing the very underpinnings of Hon Benjamin Kalu’s Indigeneship Bill, a bill he coyly presented as one to unite Nigeria. Nigerians must simply open their eyes.Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, CON, of the All Progressive Congress(APC), is an Igbo politician and current Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He represents the Bende federal constituency ofAbia State. It is, therefore, not surprising that he is the sponsor of the Indigeneship Bill now before the House of Representatives. The Bill seeks to grant indigene status to individuals who have resided in a state for 10 years or married a native for the same length of time.It is deftly proposed as a progressive bill intended to cohere the country like the National Youth Corps which mandates Nigerian University graduates, below a certain age, to serve for one year in a part of the country other than theirs as a way of fostering inter – ethnic unity in the country. But nothing can be further from the truth.Given Igbo’s rather tiny piece of territory which, besides its miniscule size is landlocked, and thus impedes their truly industrious proclivities, they are spread so thin all over the country that there is hardly a community in the entire country where you will not find an Igbo community. Such is their gregariousness! While this in itself is not bad, Igbo’s inexplanable, and totally uncontrolled, desire to own things which belong to others, especially land, is the elephant in the room. This abhorrent Igbo characteristic tend to make others dislike them because they demonstrate it wherever they sojourn.But do not take my word alone for that allegation.Instead, see below, its typical and vivid demonstration in a WhatsApp dialogue involving some Igbos and moderated by one Okonkwo. It is only one of several, concerning how they must expropriate Yoruba land, especially Lagos, which they see as a ‘No Man’s Land’, and for which they would kill without batting an eyelid. THEIR BOAST. Ndigbo Will Conquer and Rule Oduduwa Republic:”We must take Lagos. We must. Those who want to keep it are fighting themselves.Those of us who want to take it must fight harder.The people who want to keep it are threatening. We that want to take it must be prepared for that threat.There”s no new thing they are going to do now in Lagos. We already know what they will do. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves in large numbers …Because if we do not take Lagos, I do not know if you can still stay in Lagos.To stay in Lagos, you have to take Lagos, to remain there we must win Lagos; to do that your business, for your parents to go to that church, for you to enter that estate, to enter that bus (Marwa) we just must take Lagos – (Mind you, they don”t even want to win, but TAKE Lagos)…. the only way is to defeat them; so we can lock them up.The only way to defeat them is to send them to jail”.Who will believe these are the words, and plans, of TOTAL STRANGERS IN YORUBALAND, a totally foreign land?Not only that, the speaker was hectoring in a stentorian voice reminiscent only of Ojukwu’s effete boasts before he led millions of them to their early graves in the Biafran war, and promptly fled abroad.But that is not all to their plan to consummate which Hon Benjamin Kalu is now ferociously at work in the Peoples’ House.So they went on:”We will join Afenifere and soon be part of the powerhouses that will be eligible to be crowned Obas.We will get married to the daughters of Oduduwa , build mansions in their towns and villages and only visit our country home in the land of the rising sun, once a year, as usual.Gradually we will turn Oduduwa Republic into one of the most ethnically mixed countries in the world”.Can a war plan be more detailed?What Igbos are saying, put simply, is that they would do anything to TAKE Lagos state – rig, burn, kill etc, come the next election.This is where, and why members of the National Assembly must be extremely careful, and not permit themselves be hoodwinked by any seeming dogooder/s. They already have their job cut out for them in the matter of the Indigeneship Bill.What all these poignantly remind me of is my article of 16 February, ’25 which, for lack of space, I shall only briefly summarise below.Titled: Non – Indigenes Should Be Barred From Contesting Governorship, Senate, House Of Representatives and State House Elections, I wrote: If for the sake of equity amongst Nigerian states, representation in the senate is set at 3 members per state, and constituency, based on population is the basis for allocating the number of Reps seats a state can have, why are non- indigenes allowed to contest for these positions outside their state of origin or geo political zone? I consider this practice grossly unfair in a country where, for instance, some states in the Southeast geo- political zone would not accept a cleric, even of the same Igbo ethnic stock, as their parish clergy – where so appointed by the Pope himself – if he comes from outside their state.This we have seen severally.It could, in fact, be worse as happened when the entire indigenous peoples of Aba Ngwa not only rose, like one man, to reject a non- indgene as the Aba Mayor, but dared their governor, Alex Otti, to dare try – see Vanguard October 19, 2023. These are the same people who come loaded with money, from all kind of sources, to try everything to contest elections in Lagos. I could barely hold myself when this past week, on television, Muiz Banire,a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, glibly described this practice as signifying political freedom.What manner of political freedom? Why should this freedom, applicable to the geese, not also apply equally to the gander? Or where in Igbo land can a Yoruba man contest a senate seat?Whoever likes may call me an ethnic bigot but where, in all honesty, has this been allowed to happen in the East?During the 2023 elections Peter Obi, not only ensured that Igbos predominated his party executives in both the North and the West, many of the party’s candidates for election, all over Nigeria, were Igbo.You can only imagine where a politician from Aboh Mbaise LGA (Imo state), representing Amuwo -Odofin(Lagos state) in the House of Representatives, would consider first for a project between his Imo state and Lagos?If this is truly freedom, as Banire put it, then it should apply equally everywhere in the country.The National Assembly must move, with all speed, therefore, to abrogate the misnomer. It could, in future, be reversed when all Nigerians consider themselves brothers and sisters enough to jettison primordial considerations, the type these Igbos wanting to capture Lagos, and jail its citizens have abundantly shown us in their dialogue.In Nigeria, unlike in the U.S, the UK or the West in general, primary loyalty is to one’s place of birth as well as to one’s people, while scant attention is paid, if at all, to people from far fetched areas regardless of any domicile status.Kalu’s bill should nicely be returned to him while the National Assemblyproceeds, proactively, to make laws prohibiting non – indigenes of geo-political zones from contesting elections, in states where they are merely domiciled, but neither know well nor love.Igbos should be encouraged to go and develop their land of the rising sun and vote, and be voted for, there. As Gloria Adebajo – Frazer put in a well written piece on the subject:”The bill poses a serious threat to Nigeria’s federal structure, and inter-ethnic coexistence. It reopens ideological wounds from the past, threatens ancestral sovereignty, and risks sparking political and ethnic conflict under the guise of inclusion.Nigeria’s identity as a federation is rooted in the recognition of its diverse ethnic nationalities. Indigeneity is not a matter of administrative convenience—it is a sacred cultural and historical bond between people and land. Granting this status based on mere length of stay or marriage undermines this bond and sets the stage for future conflict.This bill will not bring harmony. Instead, it will pit communities against one another. Allowing non-indigenes to vote or run for office in states where they are not ancestrally connected would lead to serious political complications. Non-indigenes should vote in their states of origin, where their cultural and historical identity lie. To do otherwise is to create a situation where outsiders may legislate or govern communities they neither fully understand nor belong to, leading to resentment, unrest, and even violence”.A word should be enough for our wise men and women of the National Assembly as Nigeria already has far too many challenges for them to allow one Kalu, cladenstinely fighting a primordial ethnic cause, to add more.