The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • Nigeria’s bloody hand in Palestine

    Nigeria’s bloody hand in Palestine

    History is naturally all ears. It also has a retinue of reminders in human memory. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict that has been ongoing for 73 years, since 1948, is a typical example of this assertion.

    It will be recalled that since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, she has consistently maintained a progressive diplomatic tradition that makes her a reputable African champion of liberation of people in bondage from the shackles of oppression. For instance, the cases of Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Southern Sudan, among others, are not yet lost on the track of African history.

    That Nigeria’s diplomatic policy remained intact until 2014 when Dr. Goodluck Ebele  Jonathan decided to change that trend by dancing sentimentally to the tune of religious bigotry, in the case of Palestine, did not come as a surprise to well-meaning Nigerians who have flare for international diplomacy. For a long time to come, that unfortunately miscalculated decision may remain a scar on the flesh of Nigeria’s diplomatic history, which will be very difficult to obliterate.

     

    Unforgetable Date

    The contemporary diplomatic world will not forget Tuesday, December 30, 2014, in a hurry. That was the day that Nigeria ridiculously displayed a landmark diplomatic goof to her own embarrassmentThe date will remain an indelible memory of a deadly sore throat for generations of Palestinians whose destiny of existence became tied to the oppressive apron of the iron fist of the Zionists at the instance of Nigeria.

    For long, the incident which makes that date an indelible

    Memory will continue to confirm Nigeria’s bloody hand in the saga of Palestinian/Israeli perennial conflict. And, here, in Nigeria, as far as international diplomacy is concerned, the designer of that bloody hand President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will also not be forgotten.

     

    The Incident

    On the mentioned date (Tuesday, December 30, 2014), Nigeria openly and ridiculously threw away the garland of dignity which had fetched her an  incomparable reputation as the African leader of international diplomacy. It was an incident that simply amounted to a country’s betrayal of conscience. That incident which occurred at the United Nations’ Security Council meeting, far away in New York, seriously exposed the diplomatic hypocrisy of Nigeria and replaced her garland with a crown of thorn.

    Before that meeting, the United Nations’ Security Council had proposed an historic anticlimax solution to the then 66-year-old Palestinian/Israeli conflict with a view to paving way for a two-State UN resolution. If that resolution had scaled through as expected, it would have served as the final solution to the the Middle East rises and, by implication, a lasting catalyst for the entire world in fetching peace.

     

    The Voting Pattern

    In the ‘YES or NO’ voting rule to be followed by the 15 member-nations of the Security Council, on the mentioned proposed resolution, nine votes were required as the simple majority to determine the liberation of the Palestinian people from Israel’s political and economic strangulation of Palestine. The immediate concern of the Security Council, at that time, was to stop the suffocating siege laid on the West Bank/Gaza Strip by Israel. But out of the 15 member-nations, in the Council, at that meeting, only eight voted in favour of Palestinian liberation while two voted for continuous Israeli oppression on Palestine. The eight nations that voted for  the liberation of Palestine  were Argentina, Chad, Chile, China, France, Jordan, Luxembourg and Russia. Those that voted for continuous oppression by Israel were the United States and Australia. The five remaining countries that opted for abstention were Lithuania, South Korea, Rwanda, Britain and Nigeria.

     

    Antecedent

    Meanwhile, two years before the above narrated incident (2012), Nigeria’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Prof Joy Ogwu, had passionately supported the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood, based on her understanding of Nigeria’s diplomatic tradition. She also reiterated Nigeria’s recognition of the State of Palestine. That was just about one year after Nigeria confirmed her diplomatic relation with Palestine on October 31, 2011. At that time, Professor Ogwu voted in favour of UN’s admission of Palestine into UNESCO as a full member-state, despite a fierce opposition from the US and Israel.

    During her speech on that occasion at the UN General Assembly in 2012, Prof Ogwu, a highly disciplined and conscientious professional diplomat, underscored the right of the Palestinians to live in freedom. She enthusiastically expressed her country’s stand as follows:

    “It was quite fitting that the international community had given Palestine a non-member observer state status in the United Nations. This was not only timely but also right and just.” She then went ahead to pledge Nigeria’s commitment to working towards Palestine’s admission into the United Nations as a full member state.

     

    Dramatic U-Turn

    However, apparently acting on the instruction of her big boss in Abuja, Professor Ogwu, a reputable diplomatic personality of international repute, dramatically made a somersaulting u-turn that made a ricule of Nigeria’s diplomatic status in the comity of nations. Rather than living by her words of two years earlier (2012), as a dignified diplomat representing a dignified nation, she cheapened out with a hallow face and threw the supposed conscience of Nigeria to the winds, apparently in exchange for a surreptitious agenda built on a clandestine foundation, which is generally known as “Nigerian factor”. Thus, to the amazement, and, perhaps, disappointment of most members of the then UN Security Council, including those that voted to block the Palestinian right to a home, Nigerian government destroyed her decades of diplomatic glory with a self-damaging decision to scuttle the UN’s long awaited pivotal resolution that would have brought permanent peace to the Middle East and even the entire world.

     

    Implication

    The implication of that surreptitious decision, today, is that the Middle East, in which Nigeria has tremendous economic interest, as well as the rest of the world, cannot sincerely sleep with both eyes closed.

    This is because, the Middle East conflict especially between Israel and Palestine has consistently been the major determinant of global insecurity since 1967 when Israel, aided by the imperialist West, further occupied the Arab lands which she has since refused to relinquish, despite all global efforts. It should be noted that Donald Trump’s unilateral declaration of the entire Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of Israel, in 2020, further compounded the conflict in multiple ways.

     

    Focus On Nigeria

    Before the time of the above mentioned voting date, the anxiety created by the impending abstention of certain member-states had put a global diplomatic focus on Nigeria, being a legendry African champion of liberation movements in the past. The tenacity for such a diplomatic role, during the cold war years, as a vital part of Nigeria’s foreign policy that aided the independence of countries like South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Algeria and others had once pitched Nigeria’s tent against that of the  imperialistic tendencies of some Western countries. And, many serious-minded countries had expected the continuity of that role by Nigeria.

     

    Observation

    By deviating from her well known respectable foreign policy, and, by pitching tent with the imperialist West, to stifle the lives of the Palestinians, in 2014, Nigerian government, under the Presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, only sacrificed her conscience on a platter of religious sentiment which was a reflection of an unstable conscience and a dangerous diplomatic summersault. This could be linked to a fortuitous diplomatic visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, to Nigeria in June 2014, in preparation for the above mentioned betrayal of conscience by the so-called Giant of Africa. Thereafter, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, openly thanked and praised President Goodluck Jonathan ‘for carrying out a yeoman’s job’. Despite all these Christi-religious shenanigan,

    Nigerians, irrespective of their faiths and political ideologies, are hereby urged to forget about that diplomatic catastrophe and wait for another chance, bearing in mind that diplomatic policy is an arena in which formulators of come and go like weathers. God bless Nigeria!

     

  • Seven takeaways from Apero 1

    Seven takeaways from Apero 1

    Apero Phase 1 focused on the analysis of our challenges as a people by looking back at where we were, examining where we are and what has become of us, and mapping out a future that is desirable for our great grandchildren. To the extent that is humanly possible, it achieved its goals and some more, thanks to the dedication of the Planning Committee, invited speakers, chairpersons, moderators and rapporteurs, and the inspiring example and support of Ori Ade Apero, Kabiyesi Oba Adedokun Abolarin, Orangun of Oke-Ila.

    Apero Phase 2 is action-oriented, to walk the talk, so that the passion generated by Apero 1 is fully exploited for the benefit of our people and our heritage, bearing in mind that we had a glorious past because some individuals made enormous sacrifices, using their mental and material resources to create for us an enabling environment in which we thrived. When we see the degeneration of our youths, we cannot but shake our heads in disgust. This is what moves us.

    Between the conclusion of Phase 1 and the beginning of Phase 2, it is useful to take stock and share some lessons learned. In Welcoming Apero on this page on June 10, 2022, I quoted from the presentation of one of our Planning Committee members, a man of science and medicine, who has proved an indispensable team member, Professor Funsho Famuyiwa, as follows:

    “Chief Obafemi Awolowo, an Avatar of the Yoruba Race, who through the grace of God, carried the equivalent of their “Abrahamic Covenant” has provided the TEMPLATE for our Self Governance. At its core is the Principle of Egalitarianism—The Greatest Good for the Largest Number. An “Equal Opportunity” dispensation. Good Governance married to Sound Moral Values and the Fear of God! Ethos of OMOLUABI, BIBIIRE and ALAJOBI.”

    Professor Famuyiwa then asked the question: what will Awolowo do if alive today?” This question was the strength that we needed to carry on our deliberations. It sustained us even in the face of adversities.

    The first takeaway for me then is an appreciation of the track record of Egbe Omo Yoruba, North America (Egbe) in its selfless dedication to the homeland. Since 1994, when Egbe took on the task of defending and promoting democracy in the face of scurrilous attack from impostors, it has never looked back. Even when its intentions were misconstrued, it labored on in the hope that others will see the goodness of its intent. Even when those that Egbe considered its partners in the struggle abandoned the principles they jointly embraced in the course of the struggle, having tasted the forbidden fruit of naked power, Egbe continued to insist on the justice of its cause in the spirit of that old saying, “one with God is majority.”

    That Egbe still stands firm is a testament to its solid foundation on principle. Tried and tested quite a few times, it soldiers on. At a point in the height of the struggle, some breakaway faction adopted the name Afenifere USA, unfortunately tricking our elders back home to support them. That Afenifere USA has long vamoosed and, ironically, it takes Egbe’s leadership to form an authentic Afenifere USA branch. Pretenders cannot displace Egbe Omo Yoruba North America as the umbrella Yoruba organization in this hemisphere. I salute the outgoing President Durojaiye Akindutire for his leadership. I congratulate the new President, Dr. Ayodeji Famuyide, and his executive. Godspeed!

    Second, Apero benefited immensely from the topnotch quality of our presenters from the beginning to the end. That we were able to assemble such an array of talents in every session is remarkable and the credit must go to our Program, Content and Logistics sub-committee led by Professor Famuyiwa. From university dons, to SANs, from medical professionals, economists, award-winning writers and film producers to journalists, agricultural specialists and practicing farmers, we had our fill of talents. Yorubaland is blessed and its future is bright.

    Third, Apero covered a lot of very important topics, from education to healthcare, from agriculture and rural development to governance and leadership challenge, restructuring and Yoruba Sovereign Nation, women empowerment and youth agenda, and there is a broad consensus on the action that must be taken on the state of the nation. Indeed, our panelists gave us a roadmap to the development of our land, provided there is the will to move forward.

    Fourth, the matter of security was the most challenging for our people and it was what they kept coming back to. This is understandable in view of the prevailing situation. Farmers cannot go to their farms because of fear of killer herdsmen and kidnappers for ransom. Indeed, as early as our first session, many participants challenged us and forced us to defend our decision not to make security our first topic for discussion.

    Some unfairly thought that since we were in the diaspora, we didn’t care about the security challenges our people were facing back home. They didn’t buy the argument that security specialists were not available until later. Well, that turned out to be true, and when they did show up with their expert presentations, we could discern a sense of relief on the part of many participants. This experience demonstrated to us the importance of placing security at the top of our agenda going forward.

    Fifth, Apero 1 exposed a deep-seated division among our people on the question of the political pathway for Yorubaland. Recall that the original objective of Apero was to provide a forum for debate and dialogue over this crucial issue. It was going to be a platform for coming to a consensus about what Yorubaland must pursue, whether restructuring or Yoruba Sovereign Nation.

    For some reason, some of our people, again unfairly, assumed that Apero members were inclined to one side or the other. Some prominent patriots refused our invitation to speak because they either believed that we are advocates of “mere” restructuring, or “extremist” Yoruba nation State. Indeed, at our last Committee meeting, a friend and colleague asked pointedly, “are you guys for Yoruba nation or not?”

    We invited Professor Wale Adeniran, Deputy Leader of Ilana Omo Oodua, and Mogaji Adegboyega Adejumo, an Afenifere chieftain, representing the two sides of the debate. Others, including youths, were on the panel. There were passionate arguments on both sides. In subsequent panels in which Barrister Femi Falana (SAN) and Dr. Wonu Ogunkoya participated, we also had more insight into the issue.

    From their inputs, a majority of Apero 1 zoom audience wanted a Yoruba Sovereign Nation. The question is how to get there. The UN states clearly that the “recognition of a new State or Government is an act that only other States and Governments (presumably including the mother State) may grant or withhold. It generally implies readiness to assume diplomatic relations.” Recognizing this is important for the Yoruba Nation struggle.

    Sixth, Apero exposed the best and the worst of our cultural heritage. Our speakers and panelists were some of the best that our culture has to offer the world. So are many of our participants who demonstrated the abiding virtues of Yoruba cultural heritage. But we also saw some of the worst among us, those with a “my way or no way” mentality; who see nothing good in an opposing view, whose first and last resort is curse and abuse. With a stronger claim to the Omoluabi ethos, we warned ourselves not to get in the mud with them.

    Seventh, Apero had a cathartic effect on its audience, thus directing their minds to the possibilities that they can effect in light of what others had accomplished for the nation in the past. With an average of 200 participants at each session of Apero, and most of them youths in their prime, wondering what the future had for them, the real life examples of success in farming by JR Farms, in cybersecurity by Dr. Banji Adegunloye, and in e-learning and entrepreneurship by Professor Oyinkansola Jinadu have attracted the curiosity of many. If Apero succeeds in directing the attention of these folks to such opportunities, it would have fulfilled an important aspect of its mission.

     

  • The Gordian knot

    The Gordian knot

    Since its inception, Apero Planning Committee has been inundated with demands for a discussion of Gordian knot of political leadership. The opportunity came on August 20 at the 28th National Convention of Egbe Omo Yoruba North America.

    Honorable Olawale Oshun, seasoned political leader, and practicing Omoluabi, whose exemplary leadership of Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), led to some outstanding initiatives including the Yoruba Academy and the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, chaired the session, with a distinguished member of Apero, Agba Akin Rotimi Kuteyi, as Moderator/Rapporteur.

    In his opening remarks, Oshun posed the question: how is it that succeeding generations of leaders are worse than the preceding ones in Yorubaland? Oshun referenced the study done by Yoruba Academy some years back on the challenge of net migration, which predicted, as it turned out, accurately, the security challenges that we now face. A proactive leadership, sensitive to, and serious, about its responsibility, would act to forestall the danger predicted. But nothing was done. That reference was a shocker!

    Barrister Dele Farotimi, progressive analyst and celebrated author, didn’t pull punches. Addressing the audience on “Post-Military Intervention and Political Rulership in Yorubaland: From Oselu to Ojelu”, he gave our audience an insight into the background to our present predicament, insisting that for a clue to what ails our politicians, we must go back to the beginning, especially the military that birthed our civilian democracy.

    That military, according to Farotimi, was a subjugation agent, with the connivance of the British. Chief Awolowo, always thinking ahead, also identified the menace the military was going to pose for federalism when, as newly appointed Yoruba leader, he urged that military personnel must go back to their states. As Farotimi recalled, things changed again in the post-1979 dispensation and the military takeover of December 1983.

    Furthermore, as Farotimi explained, between 1952 and 1966, Western Region had the largest number of local governments because the Awolowo-led Action Group saw local government as the vehicle for the transformation of rural areas. However, between 1984 and 1998, when local government assumed a larger role in the distribution of the proverbial national cake as basis for revenue allocation, there was an explosion in the military-created local governments. Now the most populous Lagos state has 20 federally approved local governments while Kano has more than double. It’s the same pattern with the creation of states with 36 states created by military fiat. But, as Farotimi observed, our own people were collaborators with the military in its atrocities. Death from external enemies is impossible without inside help.

    For Farotimi, the 2003 election was the reversal of the slogan that power flows from the people because from then, there emerged a new crop of politicians who didn’t need approval of the people to rule them. It’s the feudalization of leadership.

    Where do we go from here? For Farotimi, ignorance and poverty have been weaponized against the people. As long as people are contented with N5000 for a vote, we will always have the entrenchment of locusts in our land. We must therefore get rid of human locusts ripping off and softly killing their people while pretending to be their savior.

    Dr. Wonu Ogunkoya, a highly talented specialist in International Law, spoke on “Whither the Future of Yoruba Political Life? Signposts, Ground Markers, and Insights”, with a specific focus on the agitation for Yoruba Sovereign Country.  While Dr. Ogunkoya is vested in the success of the agitation, she is critical of the effort thus far because she thinks that it lacks coordination.

    For Dr. Ogunkoya, the efforts toward the creation of a Yoruba Sovereign Country must be imbued with democratic legitimacy and must avoid the dead end of violence that is bound to yield failure. Highlighting her understanding of international law with regard to declaration of Independence, she insisted that while no one can prevent unilateral declaration of independence by anyone, agitators must know that there can be no legitimate independence without recognition by other countries. And for that recognition, steps have to be followed.

    Referencing Article 75 of the United Nations, on the right to self-determination, Dr. Ogunkoya insisted that self-determination must be achieved in a democratic way, with the breakaway entity following the constitution of the mother country. This means that there must be a referendum, the alternative being war, which is costly and deadly.

    Dr. Ogunkoya highlighted four phases in any struggle for self-determination: Awareness, Coordination, Implementation, and Enforcement. For her, agitation for Yoruba Sovereign Country has been stuck in the awareness phase for a long time without moving to the phase of coordination because of the selfish motivation of many in the movement. She pleaded that everyone cannot be leader because people have different destinies and different talents.

    Of the four conditions for recognition, namely, population, territory, effective government, and capacity for international relations, according to Dr. Ogunkoya, proponents of Yoruba Sovereign Country can boast of at least the first three. Now they must focus their attention on the capacity for international relations.

    Our big masquerade that always ends up as the last in the grove was Professor Adebayo Williams, aka. Tatalo Alamu, who spoke on “Political Life in the Southwest from Independence to 1962: Lessons for the Future.” As Professor Williams’s contribution has appeared in his column in The Nation Newspapers on Sunday, August 21, 2022, I only here highlight a few salient points from his presentation.

    First, Professor Williams observed that while our politicians don’t appear to see the coming iceberg on the path of the Titanic of state, this ship is just a little bit from hitting the iceberg. He likened the appeal from our politicians to move the nation forward to the situation of the war General who, noting that his right flank was collapsing, his left flank wasn’t moving, still insisted that he was advancing! This mantra of “moving forward” cannot self-fulfill without human agency.

    Second, on Yoruba struggle for freedom from the shackles of oppression and tyranny, Professor Williams noted that every Apero on Yoruba self-determination and development must be mindful of our neighbors. What is needed, for him, is wisdom and prudence, an ever present quality in Yoruba mindset and worldview.

    Third, for Williams, Nigeria today is analogous to a big fish uncaringly hungry for the small fish. The devil out there is willing and ready to dine with us even when we are reluctant because we know it cannot be good for us. In 1962, 1963, and 1965, our efforts to bypass the Nigerian state and focus on our developmental goals were confronted and we know how it all ended.

    Fourth, while there was party discipline in the First Republic, now it’s free for all. Then, there was party ideological orientation; now, there is a total collapse of ideology and, therefore, no difference between the political parties. The highest bidder prevails.

    Finally, to the question, “what do we do?” Williams recalled the case of Spanish Catalonia, a people with wealth but without power. A region of 7.5 million people, Catalonia is semi-autonomous, with its own parliament, control over some of its public services, a police force, flag, and anthem. But they wanted independence and struggled for it with a referendum which the Spanish central authority rejected with the connivance of some Catalonians! “How do we solve the Catalan conundrum?” was Professor Williams’s question.

    In his closing remarks, Hon. Olawale Oshun observed that it was the Unification Decree 34 that created our Catalan conundrum and to solve that conundrum, and the feudalization process that it spurned, we must refederalize the country along the lines of the 1963 constitution. To this end, Apero must resolve on how the important contributions and submissions so far will get to stakeholders, including political leaders in Yorubaland.

    Now the real task begins. Apero is not a talk shop. It’s an action-oriented and purposeful gathering of concerned patriots. It will go to the drawing board and come up with actionable items to further pursue. On behalf of the committee, I thank all our panelists, chairpersons, moderators and rapporteurs, many of who have become resource persons for the further work that must be done.

    Stay tuned.

  • To where from Here?

    To where from Here?

    ‘‘…And beware of a calamity that may afflict not only the transgressors amongst you to the exclusion of others and know that Allah’s retribution can be severe.” –  Q. 8:25

    Preamble

    Writing a drama is like conceiving a pregnancy. For the drama to be practically actable the writer must take into consideration not only the theme, the setting, the characters and the complications that may build up spirally to the climax in such a drama. He must also think of the anti-climax of the drama as well as its possible denouement.

    A Playright’s Ingenuity

    Nothing shows the ingenuousness of a playwright as vividly as the crew of actors who put into action the script that gives birth to the drama in question. It is like delivering a pregnant woman of her pregnancy. If the delivery process is not carefully handled, the deliverer may end up becoming an undertaker. And that is when a drama is said to be tragic.

    The World as a Paradox

    The entire world today is a paradoxical theatre in which over seven billion human beings including Nigerians are watching a drama. Whether for ecstasy or dismay the viewers of the drama  may randomly roar into controversies as the drama progresses. But the main concern of each viewer is what may become of his favourite character.

    In the current global drama against which we had been admonished in the Qur’an as quoted above, the concern of this columnist is the ‘colony’ called Nigeria. This is not just because the colony is my immediate constituency it is also because Nigeria is the heart of Africa. And if anything negative happens to her the whole of Africa will cease to be at rest.

     

    Hidden Agenda

    A clandestine script was unveiled in respect of Nigeria in 1995. Its contents revealed that this heart of Africa called Nigeria was heading for a break up by year 2015. The designers of this devilish agenda had set a timeframe of 20 years for its execution without suggesting any solution. And to portray their dream as a realizable one they kept hammering the probability of the success of that obnoxious project using some hazardous occurrences in the land as evidence.

    For students of International Relations, such a prediction could not have been strange. It was part of the strategies often used by the imperialists either to re-colonize some old colonies psychologically or to scoop on and dominate their economies in a typical capitalist manner. They had done it successfully in some other countries none of which is now firmly on her feet. Vietnam, Korea, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine and lately the entire Arab nations all of which have had their bitter testes of the pillage can testify to this assertion.  It is a modern day equivalence of the 1884/1885 partition of Africa carried out in Berlin, Germany, by the European imperialists, which led to the colonization of African continent. If any of the above countries had resisted the evil project and stood their ground, perhaps the world would have been spared of the throat-cutting threat posed today by the United States and her allies against what they perceive as lesser nations.

    The Cult of Capitalism

    Incidentally, the US which now champions the imperialists’ cult had also been a victim of this same imperialists’ guillotine especially in the hands of Britain. Yet, the cult of capitalism which has become their common bound would not allow the duo of US and Britain which had been mutually antagonistic to dwell differently today because it is only in such connivance that the gains of their common interest can be accomplished. Unfortunately, Nigeria doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from countries that had toed the imperialists’ path.

    Rather than looking inwards for solution to our domestic problems as the US did before the two World Wars, our governments do not only look up to ‘Uncle Sam’ for solution even to a minor problem but also cry out to the President of America for help in minor hitches. It is just like the situation of a baby who has so much adapted to being spoon-fed that he would hold the ladle in his mouth even while asleep.

    Today’s Nigerians

    Today, Nigerians can hardly think on anything without reference to America. Whereas some progressive countries like Japan, China, India, Brazil and even the United States in their days of search for growth and development shut their doors to the world and made do with whatever they could produce internally which was why their sudden zoom into the limelight came to the world as a surprise. This has never taught Nigeria any lesson. Rather, all that matters here is empty and monotonous noise about becoming one of the biggest economies in year 2020 even when there is no concrete plan for such. No truly progressive country has ever indulged in such a senseless propaganda with success. What would have ordinarily justified such propaganda is a surprising zooming into the global economic stage as the listed countries had done. But Nigeria’s endemic corruption that has become a culture would not allow such a progressive leap.

     Propaganda

    It can only take a shameless country like Nigeria with so much wealth but lacking to embark on such a hopeless propaganda. Now, how our previous  government spent about $16 billion allegedly budgeted for revamping our electricity remains a question which many generations of Nigerians may not be able to answer. Yet, the focus of some evil aggitators is to ensure the continuity of corruption for personal and ephemeral benefits. Even as of today, patriotic Nigerians have not been shown any blueprint that could qualify them for such empty slogan being echoed about year 2020 without our input or mandate.

    In retrospect

    In the 1980s, under the self-styled military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the slogan was ‘Housing for all or education for all or jobs for all in year 2000’. And the foremost megaphone at that time was  Professor Jerry Gana of MAMSA fame. That propaganda ended up in sheer deception. And in the 1990s, under the maximum despot called General Sani Abacha, the slogan was changed to ‘VISION 2010’. It also ended up in sheer fiasco after spending billions of naira.

    Then came a former military Head of State, Chief Mathew Aremu Okikiolakan Olusegun Obasanjo who claimed to have become a democrat without any tutelage. He started his democracy with a slot of the presidency and fooled Nigerians for eight years that became a wasted period in the history of Nigeria. It was on this man that Nigeria’s premium was hopefully placed albeit aimlessly because of his military antecedent and prison experience. His own invented slogan was that of hitting the top echelon of global economy in 2020. And the slogan was continually re-echoed until his exit from government in 2007 a few years away from the target mark. As at the time of his exit, Nigeria, like now, was without electricity, drinkable water, pliable roads, national airline, functional refineries and standard education programme that could propel any possible hope in the deceptive slogan. The pilots of that hopeless odyssey included northerners and southerners as well as Muslims and Christians. But the result, as usual, was an absolute failure. Thus, today, as an OPEC member nation, Nigeria remains the only country that exports crude oil and imports refined fuel for domestic consumption. Where are will going from here? In all OPEC countries, Petrochemical industries are a major point of hope for the citizenry. In petrochemical  industries, thousands of trained youths are employed and economic growth is vivid. But this has no place in the economic dream of Nigeria even as the noisy slogan for hopeless dream sounds louder.

    Rather, what our successive governments often  perceived as the problem was the backlash of their ineptitude which paved way for misrule. But none has ever thought of a possible solution.

    Implications        

    By relying on imperialist countries such as the US and Israel to help resolve the problem of insecurity  Nigerian government headed by Goodluck Jonathan did not only admit its incompetence to protect the citizenry it  also surrendered its authority and thereby those countries and thereby compound the existing problems of the country. After all, those invited countries were the manufacturers of the instruments of insecurity in our land. Security of a country is like the heart in human body. Handing it over to someone else is like paving way for one’s own death. No serious government will ever trivialize the existence of its nation to that extent. We all know that whoever pays the piper must surely dictate the tune. And in diplomacy, there is neither permanent friend nor permanent enemy. A government is said to be of essence and in control of affairs only if it is believed to be capable of protecting its citizenry and defending the territorial integrity of its nation. Any government that is incapable of doing this and would rather decide to throw the gates of its nation open to foreigners for whatever reason is unfit to be called a government. That was the prevailing situation for many years before the current government came on board. But despite all efforts by the current well-intentioned regime to rectify the situation, the forces of evil are bent on the continuity of their evil machinations facilitated by indemnified corruption. Where are going from here?

    Partners in Crime

    Globally, the tripod of the US, Britain and Israel are known for their unprovoked belligerence and implacable transgression against nations that refuse to comply with their imperialist policies. And it is probably in reference to such imperialist powers that Allah had warned mankind over a millennium and a half ago that: “…When imperialists encroach on a territory they audaciously pillage and brutally destroy it even as they subjugate the juggernauts therein to the level of servitude”. Q. 12: 22

    Nigeria’s Vintage Position

    The real problem that Nigeria constitutes in Africa is that of serving serve as a regional incubator of corruption and yet connives with the engineers of Africa’s problems for unrealizable solution. In a logical poetic stanza many centuries ago, an Arab poet once opined thus: “We all blame our time for our misdemeanour; when the misdemeanour blamed on our time is actually in us; We smear time with all types of iniquities and yet expect time to cleans us of any blame; Were time endowed with mouth to comment on us, it would have blamed us for generating all crimes; Certainly no hyena eats a fellow hyena; as some of us humans openly eat our fellow human beings”.

    The Truth of the Matter

    The truth of the matter is that the roots of the multi-dimensional problems staring Nigeria on the face today are traceable mostly to the corridors of our government. Of all the vices that constitute seemingly insuperable problems for Nigeria today particularly corruption, none originated from a source other than that of the government. Even where such corruption happens in the private sector, it will be discovered to be a derivative of the public sector either through obnoxious policies or deliberate nepotism or religious irredentism. How, on earth, can we classify the case of a notorious so-called frontline cleric who was contracted by the government to smuggle arms and ammunition into the country from South Africa in the name of political patronage in a multi ethnic and multi religious society like Nigeria? Yet, the government wanted Nigerians to accept that fraudulent act as a normal business.

    Immunity Clause

    The absurdity of immunity clause in Nigerian constitution is obviously an  authorization of corruption for  some  rogues who are claiming to be political or religious leaders in the country. What justification will such rogues have in prosecuting or preaching the known thieves thereafter? Those who injected immunity clause in our constitution as well as those who are in position to remove it but rather chose to retain it are together accomplices in the entrenchment and spread of corruption in the land. Such people will have no logical reason to talk of fighting corruption because they are its creator and sustainers.

    Another evidence of audacious governmental corruption in Nigeria is manifest in the position of the so-called FIRST LADY. Here is a position which has no provision in the country’s constitution but which is given such prominence that classifies the occupier over and above the elected Vice-President at the federal level and Deputy Governor at the State level. This illegal position has no official budget but it is flamboyantly provided with such paraphernalia of office that compete almost favourably with that of the President or the Governor at the expense of the public. With this kind of illegal operation how can any Nigerian President or Governor morally question any corruption in which any public officer is involved? This is one of several areas in which President Muhammadu Buhari deserves commendation even if evil politicians are blind to it. And now, the judiciary which is generally acknowledged as the last bastion of ordinary people’s hope has joined the bandwagon of monumental corruption in Nigeria. Where are we going from here?

    We are our own Problem

    We are our own problem. We know the sources of what we call problems. But we inadvertently incubate such problems. And we know how to proffer solution to them. But, like ‘lotus eaters’ in ‘Odipuxs Rex’, we are so much drunk with illegality that it has become so difficult if not impossible for us to part with it. Thus, like the pot that calls the kettle black we continue to deceive ourselves by mischievously passing the bulk anytime the die is cast.

    Admonition

    Allah’s words will never look for relevance. They are forever the reference points for those who are rightly guided. Through such words, Allah warns in Qur’an 13:11 thus: “Surely, Allah does not change the situation of a nation or community until they themselves have resolved to change it through their attitude”. Acting the imperialists’ evil script as often done will do no one any good in Nigeria.

  • What must we do now?

    What must we do now?

    At the ninth session of a collective effort at understanding the predicament that we face as a people, an effort which began on June 11, the major question that demands thoughtful answers was posed: what must we do now? What action beckons at us for the renaissance and renewal of Yorubaland?

    Our panelists gave us a feast of actionable ideas. Ori-Ade Apero, Kabiyesi Oba Adedokun Abolarin, Orangun of Oke-Ila, who declared Apero Session 1 open on June 11, was on hand as Royal Father of the Day. Kabiyesi saw Apero as a necessary effort for the repair of our decrepit developmental huts. He regretted that we are not near where Awolowo expected us to be at this point in the journey of the nation. He prayed that this generation will rise up to get all out-of-school children off the street so we can become a shining city on the hill.

    The Chairperson of the session, Yeye Afin Monilola Tenabe, a former president of Egbe Omo Yoruba North America, thanked God for the Egbe and for the Apero initiative, which she believed was set up for the goal of rebuilding the walls of Yoruba nation. She appealed to the Egbe and Apero to reach out to every group with similar ideas for collaboration and cooperation.

    Our first speaker, Alagba Tunde Kelani (TK), award-winning proprietor of Mainframe Films, wowed the audience with his innovative ideas about practical community engagement through culture and sports. Recalling one of his encounters with late Professor Akinwumi Ishola, TK narrated the cultural icon’s answer to his question about the era we are now in Yorubaland: we are in a cultural vacuum with moral decay not far behind. For Professor Ishola, there can be no development in a cultural vacuum. This got TK thinking about how culture can be used to advance development. He came up with an innovative idea using Abeokuta, his hometown, as an example.

    TK suggested a community center for each of the four sections of Abeokuta – Ake, Oke Ona, Gbagura and Owu, ”a multipurpose centre to cater for a football/athletics pitch, a theatre, event centre, lawn tennis, swimming pool and recreation” for training young boys and girls in sports and cultural activities which can soon become arenas for competition between communities from which an Abeokuta team could emerge.  In TK’s dream, we could have festivals of arts “comprising theatre, dance, food, fashion, and exhibitions could be arranged all year round” across Yorubaland, triggering “another era of inter-Yoruba collaboration and economic revival” with new “businesses and ventures – service industries, transportation, catering, hotel accommodation, sports administration and many others …”

    Answering his own question on whether it is “possible to kick-start this revolution with or without government or traditional institutions”, TK cited the example of “Wasimi (Ogun State) Summer Soccer Championship, the brainchild of Mr. Victor Agbagu, CEO of Unique Heights Sports Limited in partnership with Segun Odegbami International College and Sports Academy.” This initiative had 400 participants from several states in 2017 and 4500 participants in 2022. It has galvanized the economy of the community with traders in food, water, etc. smiling to the bank.

    Alagba Kelani then called on Egbe Omo Yoruba and Apero to be like Jogbo prince, who abandoned his claim to the throne to pursue education with a view to going back to develop Jogbo. Diaspora Yoruba are the Jogbo prince, Adebola omo Adebomi; they must go back and develop Yorubaland, he concluded.

    Dr. Banji Adegunloye, an Apero insider, spoke on “A New Paradigm: Community and Grassroots-Based Engagement with the People in Terms of Development and Service Delivery Independent of Government: An idea Whose Time Has Come!” He declared that since 1966 the nation has had “an irresponsible father” who abandoned his children, and they resorted to “the struggle for survival by whatever means”, including crime. To the question “what must we do now?” Dr. Adegunloye’s advice was “live your life without the irresponsible father.” To do that, however, we need a paradigm shift, away from dependence on government, toward self-realization.

    For Dr. Adegunloye, if Yoruba nation will join the league of developed nations, everyone must play their part. He commended past and present leaders who set good examples of sacrifice for the people, from Chief Awolowo, to Guy Gargiulo, a European who transformed Ajuwa Grammar School, Oke-Agbe, Dr. Tai Solarin, and Kabiyesi Oba Adedokun Abolarin, Orangun of Oke-Ila who provides free tuition for students and works as a teacher in the school that he founded. We need more of them.

    Dr. Adegunloye’s solution to our present bastardized educational system is a new educational structure that reflects the aspirations, goals, and culture of our people. He advocated E-Learning, a cloud-based global campus (Oduduwa Global Campus) that includes administration and documentation, student assessment and records, with Internet access in mosques, churches, public buildings, and private homes. Curriculum includes Yoruba history and culture, cybersecurity, electric cars, software engineering, Internet of Things, solar technology, and Artificial Intelligence. He also suggested the establishment of Community-based Technical and Vocational Education, and Apprenticeship Programs.

    Professor Modupeola Adebayo (nee Aka Bashorun) presented on “Practical Community-Oriented Healthcare”. She lamented the run-down conditions of our health facilities with unhygienic conditions, inadequate staff, with no continuous medical education in Primary Health Centers (PHC), as reasons for medical tourism. To the question “What must we do now?” Professor Adebayo emphasized the need for primary care at the grassroots with a community-based system and minimal intervention from government.

    Relating her own experience in healthcare practice, Professor Adebayo suggested meeting patients at locations that they are familiar with for screening. These include churches, mosques, public buildings, and community centers for blood pressure and blood glucose screening on a regular basis. Other approaches include creating comprehensive PHC facilities in major towns and cities, an all-inclusive structure to cater for physical and mental health care needs.

    A community-based approach to health care will also help newly graduated healthcare practitioners to set up clinics or private care agencies in their localities with assistance with cost of operations, equipment and supplies. Professor Adebayo also urged that worship centers must be encouraged to partner with tertiary institutions for help from their trainees and with a list of practitioners and resources available in the community.

    While secondary care institutions such as teaching hospitals will need government involvement because of cost and regulations, Professor Adebayo believed that PHCs as described above are community-based and don’t need government intervention. Other suggestions to improve PHCs include food drives, supplementary benefits to meet basic needs, access to medication, and an affordable well-care system.

    Our last but certainly not the least speaker was Dr. Aliu (aka Baba Aliu). He spoke passionately on the necessity of the struggle for Yoruba nation, without which he believed there can be no solution to any of our challenges as a people. For Baba Aliu, with the present system in Nigeria, our developmental ideas will not yield any fruit.

    Baba Aliu argued that amalgamation has not benefited Yoruba people and it has led to the destruction of Yoruba language and culture. He didn’t subscribe to any push for restructuring because he believed that it is a waste of time since he didn’t think that Fulani leaders, who control every institution of governance in Nigeria, are ready for restructuring. With the allocation of funds and positions favoring the North in the present system, Baba Aliu argued that the only option for the Yoruba is to opt out of the present arrangement for a Yoruba Nation.

    In open mic discussions over the best approach, the consensus was that since we can walk and chew gum at the same time, there’s no conflict between a development agenda and the Yoruba Nation agenda.

    Apero 10, the last session of Apero Phase 1, comes up on Saturday, August 20 on the theme “From Blessing to Curse: Untying the Gordian Knot of Political Rulership in Yorubaland Today to Create a Brighter Future.” Chaired by Hon. Olawale Oshun, and moderated by Agba Akin Rotimi Kuteyi, speakers include Professor Adebayo Williams, Barrister Dele Farotimi, and Dr. Wonu Ogunkoya.

     

    August 20, 2022

    4:00 pm Lagos Time

    User ID: 87834935009

    Passcode: 690337

  • Apero on security

    Apero on security

    On August 6, Apero audience finally got their wish for a discourse on security. And they were not disappointed. It was indeed much more than we had expected, thanks to the forthrightness of our panel, from Chairman to Speakers.

    Barrister Femi Falana, SAN, chaired the session and set the pace with his opening remarks, which clearly demonstrated his command of the facts. For him, no one is immune from trouble and no one can sleep with two eyes closed, but our leaders don’t seem to care. He recalled several occasions when he had reason to alert governors and political leaders only to be ignored. Since 2003, according to him, there has been a proliferation of weapons for security agencies across all federal parastatals such as EFCC, NDLEA, Customs, Immigration, etc. Even the Joint Task Force and HISBAH are also armed. But the Federal Attorney-General would tell our governors that they couldn’t have Amotekun, talk less of arming them with superior weapons.

    For Falana, however, the buck stops at the desk of governors. They must follow the procedure, have their Houses of Assembly pass laws to arm Amotekun, apply for weapon licence, and if they are refused, they should go to court. Until this is done, they have no basis to complain. Meanwhile, however, if they don’t, citizens under their watch will continue to be sacrificial lambs in the hands of kidnappers and terrorists hibernating in forest areas in the zone.

    Falana recalled seeing the police parade kidnappers but hardly has there been follow-up from the offices of our State Attorneys-General pursuing the case file of the culprits, which means that there is hardly the prosecution of those so paraded. Ditto for ritual killers. Falana further observed that while there is a rallying cry for “Yoruba Nation Now”, even in Nigeria as it is, governors have enormous powers and resources to keep our people safe. According to him, governors collect between N300 million and N1 billion security vote, but many spend far less on security.

    Falana then urged his audience to put pressure on governors to arm Amotekun, and ensure that security gadgets, including drones and CCTV cameras, are procured for their domains. He volunteered his expertise to deal with any legal issues.

    Major General Chris Olukolade (rtd.) identified the factors responsible for the dangerous security situation in which we find ourselves as a nation. Among these are competing group identities and ethnic nationalism, unemployment, corruption and poverty, absence of professionalism and capacity among security agencies, drug abuse, porous borders, and arms infiltration from the Northern flank, inadequate state response, and lack of sanction for failure. He added the crucial factor of a perception of an unserious leadership body language by subordinates. If a subordinate notices that the body language of his superior is against serious fight, he would internalize and stay soft.

    General Olukolade also raised the accusation of a Fulanization agenda that prominent citizens, including former President Obasanjo, General T. Y. Danjuma, and the late Dr. Malafia had levied against the Buhari administration. He urged that the onus was on the president and his team to disabuse the minds of Nigerians by doing their job without fear or favor. Nigerians, including the Yoruba, must insist on the president taking responsibility for the security of the country as his foremost duty.

    Among Gen. Olukolade’s suggested solutions were enhanced employment opportunities for the youth, punishment of failure, justice reform to ensure that the guilty is punished, provision of essential tools for security personnel, good governance, fortified borders, and a new constitution that entrenches true federalism and functional democracy.

    For Major General Henry Ayoola (rtd.) who spoke on “The State of the Nation”, Nigeria had “a strong promise for greatness”. Unfortunately, the country “has not been blessed with a strong and visionary leadership team to chart and champion this course.” He saw Nigeria’s division “on the ethno-religious fault lines since the amalgamation” as the bane, characterized by “perennial security challenges”, “perpetual orgy of violence and a vicious circle of blood-letting.” He observed that “the Nigerian situation is precipitated by a hydra-headed, shape shifting, ethnic supremacist ideology which is clothed in religious garb with terror as its primary instrument of expression.”

    Gen. Ayoola suggested that Nigeria is still a country without a justifiable claim to nationhood yet because there has been no conscientious effort to identify the common values shared by all Nigerians upon which a genuine national sentiment can be built. We have security challenges because we have political challenges, without a strong visionary leadership. It is therefore incumbent on clear thinking individuals and groups to critically analyze the state of the country with a view to redeeming it.

    As a contribution to such a goal, General Ayoola argued for the restructuring of the country as is championed by the Restructuring Actualization Movement (RAM), the objective of which is “to facilitate the emergence of a New Nigeria that is a progressive modern nation, knowledge-based, technology-driven that provides a conducive environment as well as offers equitable opportunities for all citizens to optimally realize their potentials and contribute maximally towards Nigeria’s greatness as a relevant and dominant player in the comity of nations…”

    To this end, RAM has identified 13 federating units and 45 “development centres” or states. While the central federal government is to take charge of Defence and Other Security Services, Foreign Affairs, Financial /Monetary System, Transport (Aviation, Trunk Roads, Railways; Regions/Zones/States are to bear responsibility for the rest. There will be Fiscal Federalism, with revenue allocation at ratio 40:60 between Federal and Federating units, and responsibility for security is to be shared between all tiers of governments. For him, it is not too late to salvage Nigeria.

    Our final speaker was Dr. Victor O. Taiwo, a prolific writer, dreamer, political activist, and passionate advocate of Yoruba Nation who also insists that security of our land and people is a must which cannot wait. He spoke on “Rural-Urban Security Challenges in Yorubaland.” For him, our political challenges are not new and the remote cause was the mixture of nationalities without a commensurate effort to blend them into a nation. He referenced Lord Lugard’s Dual Mandate philosophy as the British policy towards Nigeria.

    For Dr. Taiwo, our security challenges are also not new. Banditry, kidnapping, and armed robbery are derivatives of economic challenges, including unemployment, poverty, and hunger. Whereas, there is the economic law of survival that nations must sell what they have to buy what they need, Nigerians import 29 out of 30 needs and end up with trade deficits year in year out.

    Dr. Taiwo did not see a way out for Nigeria under its present structure and it is too late for restructuring. For him, the Yoruba cannot excel as they once did during their Golden Era until they are independent. But before that can happen, we need to take care of our internal security, Dr. Taiwo observed. “We must have Yoruba Nation, but we must also find solutions-spiritually and physically-to our security challenges.” This requires funds, and he appealed to all Yoruba nationalists to heed the call.

    In his closing remarks, Barrister Falana urged the audience to put pressure on the zonal political leadership to use their constitutional powers to benefit their people. He identified at least 15 areas where power has been returned to states but such are only cornered by governors without benefiting the citizens of their states. Referencing the achievements of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Lateef Jakande, he appealed to governors to think of their legacies.

    APERO 9 is this Saturday. With the theme, “What We Must Do Now?” this session will discuss practical community engagements in the arts, healthcare, and development and service delivery for our people. Speakers include Alagba Tunde Kelani (TK), Mainframe Films, Dr. Banji Adegunloye, technology and cybersecurity expert and founding member of APERO, Professor Modupe Adebayo, specialist in healthcare delivery, also founding member of APERO, and Dr. Aliu. The session will be chaired by Yeye Afin Monilola Tenabe, while Dr. Michael Awosanya will moderate. We look forward to another stimulating virtual summit.

     

    Saturday August 13, 2022

    4:00 pm Lagos Time

    Zoom ID: 83734935009

    Passcode: 690337

  • Colours of Democracy

    Colours of Democracy

    Monologue

    It is not strange that whenever politicians, in any country, talk of a system of government called democracy, nowadays, they tend to believe that they are talking of perfection in governance. And, they often want the citizens of such a country to uphold that belief as an impeccable political norm. On the one hand, democracy is like a rainbow which temporarily displays a variety of colours on the sky and provides its onlookers with an opportunity of making different choices within the limited time of its appearance. In that case, the choices made by certain individuals may look like those of some others, in theory, but realistically, the outward colour of democracy, from that perception, is like the hood which merely indicates the presence of a monk but does not, in itself, make the monk.

    On the other hand, democracy can be described as a hypothetical eclipse threatening to swallow the light of the moon or even that of the sun to the detriment of the contemporary humanity. And, that is why the so-called democracy, as a form of government, has not really justified the colour of perfection with which politicians often try to paint it politically.

     

    Continuity in Governance

    Just as a rainbow disappears from the sky after some time, so does democracy pike out of reality in the face of power shift or tenure. Thus, the notion of continuity in governance, in a so-called democratic dispensation, especially in Africa, is a hidden political balderdash that realistically holds no tranquil water. In most contemporary countries, democracy is rather a euphemism for minority rule over the majority of people in the name of popular election than the popular posture given to it. In other words, democracy is a game of number that is bereaved of fairness and equity.

     

    Style of Governance

    Meanwhile, democracy or no democracy, the style of governance differs from country to country and from people to people. Yet, in contemporary time, the domineering style of governance has no name other than democracy.

     

    Definition

    Some people hypothetically define democracy as “a government of the people by the people and for the people”.

    But in reality, that definition is the master piece of deception, in politics, which invariably forms the basis of some nations’ exploitative constitution often backed up by media propaganda. From whichever angle it is viewed today, democracy is grossly at variance with Islam’s methodology of governance. As far as Islam is concerned, nothing ventilates peaceful atmosphere in governance as much as the rule of law. And, there can be no rule of law in the absence of faith in the immortality of Allah.

     

    The Parable of Islam 

    Unlike other religions, Islam is and odyssey which commences here on earth and continues ad infinitum in the Hereafter.

    If Islam had

    just been a mere religion like others, and not a total way of life for its adherents, inconsistency would have beclouded it like most creeds calling themselves religions in the world today. Panel beaters would have worked on it. Painters would have re-sprayed it to their tastes. Fine Artists would have added drawings of ostentatious beauty to it for marketability. And, then, it would have become an all-comers’ trade fetching money day and night for merchants of fortune.

    But this divine religion called Islam is like a mighty ocean flowing ceaselessly towards all directions and watering all plants around it into active life through the deltas of adjoining rivers. It will be a suicide bid for any government or group of people, therefore, no matter how technologically advanced, to want to change the course of that river. Those who attempted it in the past ended up drowning in it only to become meals for ‘whales’ and ‘sharks’.

     

    Genesis of Islam

    Looking at the emergence, the spread and the triumph of Islam in the midst of crushing empires at a time when might and nothing but might alone mattered most, any right-thinking person must surely be amazed that such a religion could outlive the crushing claw of the then prevailing might.

    Only such right-thinking people could have been inquisitive enough to ask probing questions as follows: how did a desert illiterate man of little means, like Prophet Muhammad, as an orphan at early age, come up with a spiritual ideology that captured the world slaves and kings? How did he become a law giver without any training in a law school? How did he become a military General without enrolling in any military institution? How did he become a Scientist without attending any school? How did he become a Doctor without undergoing any medical training? How did he become a ruler without receiving any tutelage in politics? What can be more amazing, primordially or contemporarily, than to have all these roles and even more, combined in a single human being who rose from such an obscure background? Only an answer to all or most of these questions could explain, without any ambiguity, why he is universally acknowledged as the greatest man that ever lived.

     

    Revolution

    Judging by the questions above and their attendant answers, the great revolution which this great Prophet of Islam brought into the world as the instrument of civilization cannot but beat the imagination of any sensible mortal being. There were hundreds of Prophets before him. Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Isa and a host of others had all come as prophets preaching peace and harmony to mankind. But none of them had a combination of expertise as much as Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

    It is true that Prophets Daud (David) and his son, Sulayman (Soloman) were kings by expediency and they were military Generals in their own right, nevertheless, they were neither scientists nor doctors. Yet, Prophet Muhammad (SAW), in his missionary odyssey, never claimed any miracle by a magic wand. Thus, what makes Islam a unique way of life is the uniqueness of Prophet Muhammad’s personality which was derived from the uniqueness of the Qur’an as the divinely revealed anchor ‘BOOK’ of Allah.

     

    Allegation of War Mongering

    If the Oriental intellectuals of the past, who were accusing Prophet Muhammad (SAW) of being a war monger, were not ignorant or hypocritical, they would have known that no empire or civilization has ever emerged or survived without fighting wars. For instance, how did such old empires as the Mesopotamian, the Greek, the Assyrian, the Persian and the Roman emerge? And, in recent time, how did the French and the Russian revolutions succeed in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively? And, peeping a little backwards, through the window of the contemporary time, how did America emerge as the world’s strongest power today? Was it just by preaching human rights and democracy?

    The reality of today, as presented by the experience of the past has exposed the hypocrisy of yesteryears and that of today, on the part of Western unbelievers.

     

    Identity of Islam

    Today, Islam has transcended a stage, in life, when it could be intimidated or blackmailed into surrendering its divine identity to any spiritual charlatan.

    When the Western elite talk of democracy today, the impression they give is that democracy is a Western invention. This is quite far from the truth. Despite the lengthy and speculative Platonic theories of yore on democracy, the West did not come in contact with it, practically, until it had a political encounter with the Muslim Arabs who ruled over Spain from the 8th to the 13th centuries CE. And, even with that encounter, Europe remained a mere spectator in the field of the so-called democracy until expediency brought about what was called ‘Magna Carter’ in England in 1215 CE.

    What the West calls democracy today was what Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had called ‘interactive government’ which he practiced as far back as the 7th century CE. At the time when the Prophet established the Islamic State in Madinah, there was no single empire or nation in the entire world without despotic system of governance. The idea of democracy, which the West came to adopt as its heritage, is purely Islamic in genesis.

     

    Policy Formulation

    As Head of State, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) never imposed any policy on the people without input from those people directly or indirectly except such policies came in form of divine revelations from Allah. In other words, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was neither a monarch nor a despotic ruler. And, as a Head of State, he never saw himself as more important than any other citizen or resident in the State. That was why he was so indigent, even as Head of State that his household could carry on for months without cooking any food under the Prophet’s roof.

    In Islam, democracy is not about voting and power alone. It is fundamentally about justice in all its ramifications according to the rule of law. It is about tending the lives of others for the overall good of the nation. It is about facilitating necessary provisions for the people according to the available resources in the nation. It is about protecting the lives and interest of the weak against the oppression of the strong. It is about managing the wealth of the nation with diligent sense of accountability. It is about securing the lives of the citizenry in terms of jobs, feeding, shelter, health and education. It is about boosting the horizon of the youths and sharpening their hope against the future. It is about guaranteeing adequate income per capital and ensuring a standard life expectancy. Any government that claims to be in practice of democracy without all the aforementioned factors can only be and hypocritically oppressive.

     

    The Norm of Governance

    Governance, like culture, has a variety of colours, flavours and tastes. What is called democracy in a State may amount to despotism in another State. In Europe today, for instance, some of the countries pretending to be championing democracy around the world are basically monarchical. For instance, countries like Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and even Britain are all constitutionally monarchical, yet they are the same countries that assembled armed forces in Iraq in the early 21st century, pretending to want to ensure the entrenchment of democracy in those countries.

     

    The Counties in Africa

    There are 53 countries in Africa today. Only seven of them are Arab countries. The rest are what the European colonialists call Nigger countries. Of these 53 countries, only about 10 have not experienced civil war. The colonial devils have succeeded in creating what the linguists call isogloss in various geo-political zones in Africa. (An isogloss is an area in which people of diverse, and not mutually understandable languages, settle down and coexist). Semantically, such areas only connote confusion. And that is what Europeans thrive on to enslave the black race perpetually and exploit African economy.

    There is no single Arab country in Africa that was not colonized by the Europeans. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania were French colonies. Libya was an Italian colony. Sudan was a British colony. And, Egypt, which was once an empire and a cradle of human civilization, was colonized, first by France and later by Britain.

    Now, despite their colonial experiences, how do these Arab countries maintain political sanity with relative economic progress?

     

    Reminiscence

    Sometime, in the recent past, the Federal Government of Nigeria was proposing a review of our constitution. The committee in charge was mandated to spend about one week in each of the six geo-political zones in the country, to listen to the contributions of those zones. The question is: how many tribes in each zone will make contributions to such review in just one week? Could that new constitution be translated and made available to the populace?

    Today, Arab countries in Africa are nations, (not mere countries) and they enjoy the benefits of being nations. What is more interesting is that not all these Arab countries are Republics. Morocco, for instance, is a monarchy but she thrives effectively in her own version of democracy. Citizens of Arab countries are highly patriotic and can die fighting for the image of their nations. They are not as agitated as citizens of the black countries because most of their social needs are met by their governments. And when there is any major disagreement among them on policy or ideology they resort to their culture for solution.

    If such a disagreement should occur in Nigeria, to which culture will our government resort? Can you see why the black Africans always resolve their crises by gun to the delight of their colonial masters? With a situation like this, how can Nigeria ever become a nation when, ordinary National Identity Cards, cannot be produced for citizens even 62 years after independence? Yet our rulers are calling for patriotism.

    To continue to pretend that nothing is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria, democratically, is to play an ostrich by hiding behind one finger. And, for how long can a country do that? More will be discussed about democracy in this column, in a foreseeable future. In sha’Allah.

  • A gravely destructive relationship

    A gravely destructive relationship

    Apero Planning Committee had taken note of the positively supportive relationship between the foundational Yoruba value of Omoluabi, its governance system, and the wellbeing of the people, especially the youth, during the Golden Era. The Committee also noted that the years of the locust destroyed the Omoluabi ethos which failed to serve as an effective pesticide against the invaders. With the destruction of values, good governance imploded, and the youths experienced the harmful consequence.

    Apero 8 panelists were invited to x-ray the cause and course of this alarmingly destructive relationship that we have experienced since the invasion of the locusts. They did not disappoint. The chairman of the day, Oloye Alao Adedayo (aka Alaroye) lamented the loss of our values, culture, and norms as people now go into politics to amass wealth for self and family. For the founding fathers, however, the welfare of the people was their concern, and the result was a sync between government and the people.

    Where there is selfish pursuit of wealth at the expense of peoples’ welfare, there can be no unity of purpose. Thus, the years of the locust witnessed a political leadership that is mortally disunited, with many seeing their political opponents as personal enemies to be eliminated. While Awolowo and his team mobilized the people for development, Yoruba politicians now play destructive politics to the detriment of the masses.

    Professor Niyi Osundare, one of the leading African poets and a public intellectual par excellence, spoke on “The Decline in our Cultural Values and Norms and the Collapse of Omoluabi Ethos”. He zeroed in on the interface between culture and language on the one hand, and values, on the other. “What has happened to our culture and values?” he asked. “How is it that Yoruba, the most musical of all languages, is in retrogression?” Noting that Yoruba is a threatened language, he wondered why we are divesting the future of our children the language of their parents.

    For Osundare, the visionary impulse is the ability to see the future before it happens, and Chief Awolowo was a visionary who saw the future of Yorubaland as one of education and planned for it even when his political opponents criticized him and tried to derail his plan. He then argued that the future of the Yoruba is still one that is rich in culture and went on to identify the important elements of Yoruba culture that must be harnessed to shape this future.

    First on Osundare’s list is integrity, the quality of being true to oneself, walking the talk, and avoiding hypocrisy. Second is hard work, the foremost principle of Yoruba economic philosophy encapsulated in our childhood poem, Ise Loogun ise (hard work is the antidote against poverty). There is also equity, a sense of fairness, which condemns selfish greed; and tolerance and accommodation, which requires us to see the humanity in everyone. Others include, sympathy, the spirit of fellow-feeling and empathy, moderation, or balance, which avoids a gluttonous lifestyle; and plurality, the ability to see more than one side of an issue.

    Osundare also identified generosity and gratefulness; complementarity, which recognizes the importance of every individual, age group, or gender in communal affairs; and of course, the norm of forbiddance represented by the “A kii” (“we don’t”; you shouldn’t”) principle. For him, the Yoruba science of being is based on this principle. It is what gives people a sense of shame, as we described its violators as shameless.

    Osundare lamented that with more than 130 universities now, Nigerians are more illiterate than they were when there were only 4 higher institutions. He decried the situation where education has lost its values because students and parents feel that it has lost its usefulness because of high rate of unemployment. He also faulted an overemphasis on science and technology at the expense of the humanities appealing to the principle of complementarity.

    Finally, Professor Osundare decried the unhelpful mindset of mothers discouraging the use of Yoruba language by their children as such children end up having a command of neither English nor Yoruba. He also condemned our “Owambe mentality” which leaves us little or no time for serious reflections on the future. In the face of a stultifying federal structure, Osundare asked that we rethink the future.

    Mrs. Bamidele Ademola-Olateju is a veteran columnist with Premium Times, and currently serves Ondo State as Commission for Information and Strategy. Speaking on “YOUTHS: Endangered and in Urgent Need of Repositioning”, Mrs. Ademola-Olateju observed that the unspeakable is happening in Yorubaland. She referenced the EndSars protests which were high-jacked by hoodlums and cultists, which, for her, was just a small reflection of the dissatisfaction of the underclass with the system that appears to keep them in total bondage.

    Unfortunately, as she observed, our youths don’t have adequate skills to make it in the current labor market. Her anecdotal report was personal. She had needed a painter for her house, when a Chinese painter showed up at her doorstep. Upon her inquiry about Nigerian painters, she got a depressing reply: The Chinese were better trained and better equipped. And the Chinese painter added, to her surprise: “Madam, Mo n so Yoruba daadaa” (Madam, I can speak fluent Yoruba). But what has happened to us as a people?

    Mrs. Ademola-Olateju had an answer. For her, the destruction of rural-agrarian life with the migration to urban areas led to the disengagement of the youths from the economy. Abandoning school, many left for the cities to fend for themselves. Parents don’t know the whereabouts of their wards who end up as cultists and hoodlums. Parents are no longer in charge.  Churches and mosques have a lot to do but the task is overwhelming and there is a limit to civic engagement.

    Concretely, she advocated for the integration of the informal sector of the economy into the corporate sector. We must help our youth to become upwardly mobile, train orientation brigade, and make Omoluabi ethos the centerpiece of our developmental efforts. Echoing former Prime Mister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, Mrs. Ademola-Olateju suggested that the nation should be tough on crime, but more importantly, it should be tougher on the causes of crime.

    Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, the award-winning Monday Lines columnist with Nigerian Tribune, was not physically present but he sent a video presentation which focused on “The People and their Complicity in Bad Governance.”  He noted that the duty of government is to protect the people and promote their welfare. When government shirks that responsibility, the people have a right to complain and seek change. But if the people are complicit in government’s neglect, and they collude with those making their lives unbearable, they have no basis for complaint.

    For Dr. Olagunju, leadership must be held to account for its failings. But so must followership. He illustrated with the case of a parent who sought the help of a police friend to arrest and discipline a friend of his son who had cheated his son out of a joint Yahoo- Yahoo operation. Parents now encourage criminality in their children!

    “How did we get here?” This question took Dr. Olagunju back to the source, which almost every speaker had referenced, namely, the “defederalization” of the country. For with that came the devaluation of values, young graduates without jobs looking up to adults without values! Therefore, in reassessing our values and advocating a return to the Omoluabi ethos, we must also insist on a return to the governance structure that supported our ethos.

    In his contribution from the audience, Dr. Femi Folorunso brought up an existential crisis facing Yorubaland. With only 8.38% of the Nigerian land area, Yorubaland supports 20% of the Nigerian population. What will happen to this land area in the next 50 years? Can we practice agriculture without land? It’s food for thought.

    Security is next on the Apero agenda, with Major General Henry Ayoola (rtd.), Major General Olu Kolade (rtd.), and Dr. Victor A. Taiwo as speakers, and Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) and Mr. Bukola Oreofe as Chairman and Moderator/Rapporteur respectively.

    Saturday August 6, 2022

    4:00 pm Lagos Time

    Zoom ID: 87834935009

    Passcode: 690337 

  • The Prophet’s Medicine

    The Prophet’s Medicine

    If any time can demand for a bail out from impossible ailment of man, it is now. There is no better time in human life to seek a permanent rescue from the tempest the twilight of this life. In getting such a rescue, recourse to the Prophet’s medicine is a sine qua non.

    This article is a deliberate diversion of readers’ attention from the madness of the moment in Nigeria. Such diversion becomes necessary as a relief from the current overwhelming tension in a country where every news item is a sad development that turns, every grain of hope into an atom of forlorn. A worthy columnist must know when to bite and when to blow editorially with pen if only to sustain the readership of his/her column. This is the time of mental, physical and psychological ailments that are tied to commerce. And, there must be a medicament for each. The most appropriate medicament for all diseases in human life is the one prescribed by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) about 1500 years ago which still remains potent and will keep remaining relevant for the rest period of human existence on earth. Please, read how it all began:

    Adam, the primogenitor of mankind, was hardly one hour old when he started prescribing medicaments against ailments. He was commanded by Allah to teach the Angels, the names of all things which they (the Angels) had confessed not to know. By teaching the Angels, Adam could be said to have carried out the duty of a teacher which suggests that teaching was probably his first profession. But, those in the information sector could as well, argue that what Adam did was more of information dissemination than teaching.

    Thus, for the purpose of academic exercise, a fierce debate might ensue between teachers and journalists, over what can be called the first profession of the first human being. But the truth is that both professionals (teacher and journalist) are right. By teaching, a teacher informs. And, by informing, a journalist teaches. Thus, the two professions are mutually complimentary.

     

    Adam cures ailments

    What Adam actually did by teaching the Angels was to cure the worst disease in them as well as in man. That disease is ignorance. Shortly before the creation of Adam, Allah informed the Angels that He was going to create a new living being and put him in charge of the garden to be called the earth. But, due to feigning knowledge, the Angels kicked against the plan and advised their Lord not to do it. Allah then told them in a tone of finality that “I know what you do not know”. (Q.2:31). It eventually took Adam, by Allah’s command, to heal those Angels of their disease (ignorance).

    If Adam had not taught them the names of all things on earth, as revealed in the Qur’an, the Angels would have remained ignorant forever. And, Allah’s messages to mankind, as contained in the divinely Revealed Books, would not have come through them.

    In ordinary man’s view, medicine is the substance required to cure an ailment. Such substance may be natural or artificial. It may also be as crude as herbs or as sophisticated as surgery. However, it is generally believed that a person does not need medicine unless he is ill. That is why the Western conventional medicine is rather curative than preventive. Illness resides in the body just as ignorance makes the mind its abode. Today, in most cases, people neither go to the hospitals nor take medicine unless they are sick.

    Though unlettered, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had known this before he diagnosed two basic ailments and prescribed two fundamental medicines for them. The first of those ailments is ignorance. The second is poverty. And, poverty in this case is not lack of material wealth alone as many people erroneously believe. It is lack of many things including health and conscience. Thus, in Islam, ailment is basically of two types: ignorance and poverty. Many people are victims of one. Many more are victims of both.

    A person is said to be poor-sighted when he cannot see well without artificial aid. He is deemed poor in memory when his remembering ability becomes weak. He is also pronounced poor in health when some of his organs malfunction or he lacks some active enzymes or minerals or vitamins. Thus, man may be poor, not in terms of money or material needs, but despite his possession of both.

     

    The Prophet’s prescription

    As an antidote for ignorance, the Prophet prescribed the Qur’an. And for body ailment, he prescribed honey. Qur’an is the encyclopeadia of life which personifies knowledge in all  ramifications. There is nothing about knowledge, whether spiritual or mundane, in this world, or the hereafter, that is not contained in the Qur’an.

    By recommending the Qur’an as medicine for ignorance, the Prophet simply provided cure for the ailment of the mind. And by prescribing honey for body ailments he simply encouraged prolongation of life expectancy through a boost to the immune system. It is not by accident that a whole chapter in the Qur’an (Chapter 16) is named after the insect that produces honey. Verse 68 of that chapter reads thus:

    “And your Lord revealed to the bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’.

    “From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as healing (drink) for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….” And, in the Bible, references are made to the use and efficacy of honey in more than 25 places.

    Contrary to general belief, honey is not the only product of the bee. There are five others so far known to man. These are: propolis; pollen; royal jelly; bees wax; bee venom and bee bread. More can be discovered, as research continues in line with the Qur’anic challenge. Each of these products has specific functions in maintaining and immunizing he human hormone system.

    To produce honey alone, the bees make contact with at least 250,000 plants picking branches and the Flower nectars. It is possible for them to contact more plants depending on the richness of the vegetation in which they dwell. ( Nectar is the main raw material which the bees use to produce honey). Propolis, on the other hand, is produced by the bees from the resin of certain specific trees.

     

    Propolis

    Through research, propolis has come to be known as the strongest anti-biotic ever discovered by man. This product is used not to protect the living alone but also to preserve the remains of the dead. At least it is on record that the famous historic Egyptian mammies were embalmed with propolis several millennia ago. This same propolis is the product used by the bees, themselves, to sterilise their bodies against bacteria and secure their hives against viruses brought into those hives by predators. Whenever the bees sting such predators to death, it is propolis they use to embalm them to prevent their decaying bodies from polluting the hive.

    Pollen is the secret of longevity. It heals almost all the old age diseases like prostate, arthritis, pneumonia and bronchitis. It rejuvenates the nerves and reinvigorates the hormonal glands especially in the aged people.

     

    Royal Jelly

    Royal jelly on the other hand does not only solve the problem of infertility in men and women. It also rejuvenates its consumers agewise and in physical look. Besides, Royal Jelly acts as the exclusive food of the queen bee which enables her to lay an average of 2000 eggs every day. And bee venom is a natural vaccine which strengthens human immunity against all diseases. It works like magic in the human system especially when applied through the natural acupunctural points in the body.

     

    Bees Wax

    Bees wax, as distinct from other products, is used to produce non-chemical cosmetics and to coat pharmaceutical tablets and capsules while bee bread is used to prevent or heal children’s diseases.

    The use of each of these products to heal human ailments depends on the extent of knowledge of apitherapy possessed by the user. (Apitherapy is the use of bee products to prevent or heal human or animal ailments). A specialist in this field is called apitherapist.

    The uniqueness of using these products for healing or prevention of diseases is in the fact that they do not entail any negative side effect. And that is a major sharp difference between them and the synthetic drugs manufactured chemically by the conventional pharmacists.

    Honey is the only known product in the world that serves as both food and medicine. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once reportedly told his patients while prescribing honey for them thus: “let your food be your medicine and your medicine your food”. There is no known nutritional value in terms of vitamins, minerals and enzymes that is not proportionally present in honey.

    Raw honey, for instance, contains about 80 different substances that are most important for human nutrition. Besides glucose and fructose, honey contains all of the B-complex minerals like vitamins A, C, D, E and K as well as trace elements such as magnesium, sulphur, phosphorus, iron, calcium, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper and manganese. The live enzyme content of honey is one of the highest of all existing foods. Honey also contains hormones and antimicrobial and antibacterial factors.

    The composition and nutritional value of honey differ in relation to the floral sources honeybees have visited. For example, recent research supports the claim that dark coloured honeys have larger amounts of antioxidants. The inorganic contents of honey, minerals and other trace elements, play a significant role in human metabolism and nutrition. Owing to its chlorine content, honey is appreciated as an excellent tonic and helps people to overcome suffering from constipation and other enteric problems.

    (38.2% fructose, 31.0% glucose,17.1% water, 7.2% maltose, 4.2% tri-saccharine & other carbohydrates, 1.5% sucrose, 0.5% minerals, vitamins, enzymes).

    Whereas no synthetic medicine can and should be taken by any ill person without doctor’s prescription, honey requires no such prescription for anybody who is not allergic to it. Honey is a multipurpose food and medicine. It can be taken along with other foods or alone.

    And, as an antiviral and antibiotic substance, honey is the best medicine for the eye and the ear diseases, tooth ache, insomnia, staphylococcus, constipation and whitlow as well as for burns and wounds.

     

    Components of Honey

    After many centuries of disputing these facts ignorantly, conventional doctors have finally come to realise that no medicine is as effective in sealing up surgical wounds and healing sores as honey. Today, honey is used for these purposes in most public hospitals in various parts of the world, including Nigeria.

    Besides the above medicaments, the bees also assist mankind in producing foods by pollinating their crops. At least, these wonderful insects are responsible for pollinating about 80 per cent of the crops anywhere in the world. It is, therefore, an understatement to say that without the bees, humanity would starve to death. Bees are a vital part of our environment. Killing them is like killing oneself.

    If most people were knowledgeable about the efficacy of the bee products in preventing and healing diseases, hospitals would have been less congested and substantial percentage of their incomes would have been saved to enhance the quality of their lives. The world of bees is a wonderful world. It takes only those who know it to appreciate it and benefit from its healing miracle.

    Through divine instinct, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had known this almost one and a half millennia ago and he had recommended it to humanity accordingly. The fact that honey is still a subject of scientific research today is a further confirmation that the unlettered Prophet from Arabia was a divine genius.

    The case of bee and honey is like that of hen and egg. No one can tell which first came into existence. Without bee there can be no honey. And without honey, the bees cannot exist since honey is the food upon which they depend for survival.

    But, how can one recognise genuine honey in this era of rampant adulteration? That is one of many questions to be answered in this column in the future God willing.

    The story of the insect called bee is inexhaustible despite centuries of research on it. It is therefore impossible to tell it all in a one page column of this type. Much, more will be said on this subject subsequently if only to assist Nigerians in safeguarding their health matters thereby enhancing the quality of their lives.

    That Prophet Muhammad (SAW) knew this much even as an unlettered person at a time when the world was assailed by blatant ignorance and primitivism is a further confirmation of Michael Hart’s classification of him as the greatest human being that ever lived on earth. But then, what makes the difference between the bees and other insects? What type of life do the bees live vis a vis other insects? What is the relationship between the bees, the plants and human beings? How do the bees conduct their communal life and how do they make honey? Besides honey, how do they produce other substances useful for human health? These and other relevant questions about the insect called BEE will be answered in this column next Friday in sha’Allah.

     

     

  • What political pathway?

    What political pathway?

    The above question was the focus of Apero 7 which came up on Saturday July 23, 2022. Fully prepared with facts and figures ably marshaled and delivered, our speakers wowed the over 200 zoom participants who stayed glued to their screens for four hours.

    Professor Ibiyemi Mojola, chairperson of the session, didn’t mince words. She identified our challenge as the imbalance in the federal system which cedes security of the entire country to the center, which has refused to effectively deal with the threat posed by foreign Fulani herdsmen. For her, security is the foremost duty of government; but a centralized security has condemned citizens to the invasion of murderous herdsmen. She also wondered why the ill-advised, twice rejected, Water Resources Bill was brought back.

    Professor Mojola decried the loss of Omoluabi ethos among Yoruba folks who have abandoned their moral norms for the vices of the Nigerian state. To avoid a national tragedy of loss of identity, she argued that the only reasonable pathway is Yoruba national sovereignty.

    Our moderator/rapporteur, Professor Siyan Oyeweso went down memory lane, tracing the history of constitutional evolution in Nigeria. He observed that pre-colonial Yoruba nation had a system of governance that historians recognized as rivaling some of the developed countries, with its Kabiyesi-In-Council and separation of powers, which effectively dealt with dictators. According to Professor Oyeweso, Chief Awolowo perfected the art of political administration with his liberal policies. Unfortunately, we have regressed because of the lopsided federalism that we now practice.

    Mr. Seye Oyeleye, Director General, DAWN Commission, spoke on “Current Political Systems and the Impediments to Growth in Western Nigeria”. Observing that Nigeria has not been functional in the last few years, Oyeleye noted the challenge of rising inequality, the threat of insecurity, epileptic power system with the National Grid collapsing six times in 2022 alone. Furthermore, we have grim social indices of development with over 85 million without electricity, 18.5 million out-of-school children, and a decrease of about 81.46% in foreign investments from 2019 to 2022.

    Such an unflattering statistics comes with high unemployment, poverty, hopelessness, despair and anomie, resulting in individuals taking up desperate measures, criminal activities included, to fend for themselves. Hence cultism, gangs, kidnapping, armed-robbery, and cybercrimes.

    DAWN Commission is aware that Western Nigeria is not an island in the misery that has befallen the country. Its mission is to reposition “Western Nigeria for economic competitiveness in spite of the country’s limiting political system.” It has lived up to its billing, encouraging the Southwest “to develop a common set of integrated development strategies”, which “guarantees cost-effectiveness and economic competitiveness” in “infrastructure, industrialization, commerce, the environment, and agriculture”.

    Among others, the Commission has advanced a cocoa development, recovery and sustainability strategy, aptly named “Let’s Do Cocoa”. It has also facilitated “a progressive increase in States’ Ease of Doing Business National Ranking” and it has conceptualized the “Western Nigeria Rice Accelerated Programme for Integrated Development (RAPID) to improve rice production in the region by creating opportunities for States to take advantage of the Lagos rice market” and the upcoming Imota Rice Mill. In addition to proposing a regional health insurance scheme, the Commission is the brain behind the creation of Amotekun, Western Nigerian Security Network, which has helped to some extent with curbing herdsmen atrocities and kidnapping.

    The point of Mr. Oyeleye’s submissions is that though we have a suffocating quasi-unitary system pretending to be federal, states can still do a lot if they strategize as regional or zonal economic and political blocs.

    Mogaji Adegboyega Adejumo, an Afenifere chieftain and member of its National Caucus, is a formidable and charismatic intellectual with vast knowledge of national politics and experience in national and international banking and finance. He spoke on restructuring as a desirable political pathway for Yoruba nation and Nigeria.

    For Mogaji, restructuring means simply that there is a marker for the boundary of the “farm” of each region, and each must go at its own pace as was the case in the first republic when every region was engaged in healthy competition to provide for the welfare of their people. It was how Premier Okpara copied the concept of Industrial Estate from Chief Awolowo and sited one in Aba.

    Mogaji observed that it was the split within Action Group that ultimately led to the destruction of federalism by the military. He argued that one region or state cannot successfully carry on secession without being crushed. Therefore, we must pursue restructuring with like-minded regions like Southeast, Southsouth, and Northcentral. This was the rationale for the formation of Southern and Middle Belt Forum (SMBF) initiated by the Yoruba Summit Group.

    Importantly, Mogaji insisted that Yoruba Nation advocates and restructuring advocates are speaking a common language and the groups must come together to forge a workable alliance with other zones in order to prevail. He insisted that only the United Nations can conduct a referendum as it did in the case of Cameroons in the 60s. For him, Apero should be an ongoing program until the goal is achieved.

    Mr. Olayemi Afolabi, also speaking on restructuring, argued that we must have a constitution that reflects the wishes of Nigerians. For him, a way to achieve the goal of restructuring is to have a true democrat at the helm of affairs with the power and the will to effect the needed change. For him, a referendum is necessary to ascertain the will of the people.

    Professor Wale Adeniran is, in his own words, “an unrepentant agitator for an independent Yoruba country.” Reviewing the constitutional history of Nigeria from 1960, he argued that Yorubaland has always been a target for destabilization since independence, and he believed that the motive was to cut short the progress of Western Region rather than engage in healthy competition with it. This goal was realized with the suspension of the federal constitution in 1966 and the reversal to a unitary constitution.

    Adeniran observed that the prospect of true federalism has gone from bad to worse since 1966 and Yoruba nation has borne the brunt of the burden, as proposals like Ruga policy and Water Resources Bill threaten the security of Yoruba nation. His argument against restructuring is that it is too late in the day and the Fulani leadership will not agree to it. This leaves us with only one option, namely Yoruba sovereign country which will offer full protection for everyone.

    Adeniran believes that Yoruba nation satisfies the conditions for recognition as a sovereign nation, which include peoplehood, a defined territory, large population, and adequate resources. A Yoruba nation of his dream will have a parliamentary democracy, without partisan politics, with the adoption of a zero-party system to avoid abuse and corruption, and no immunity for political leaders.

    Our final speaker, Barrister Aderemilekun Omojola, also spoke on the desirability of Yoruba Sovereign Country Now. With a slide presentation that is highly informative and effectively delivered, Omojola defined sovereignty as the occupation of a defined territory by a permanent population having a capacity for international relations and recognition by the international community; and self-determination, as the inalienable right of a people which is God-given. From this, he argued that the Yoruba, being a people, have a right to self-determination which Nigeria must respect.

    For Omojola, self-determination is not treason because Nigeria itself is a derivative of the self-determination that citizens granted her, and the Nigerian constitution must respect international law which guarantees self-determination. Besides, nepotism, corruption, terrorism, failed infrastructure development and failed industrialization, leading to poverty are all products of a flawed structure which the powers that be refuse to correct. For Omojola, then, the unbalanced structure of Nigeria’s federation, which is invalid by the standard of global best practices, and is responsible for the failure of governance, necessitates the demand for Yoruba sovereignty. Cultural preservation requires self-determination.

    Apero 7 was another success. Apero 8 is this Saturday same time. With Chairman Oloye Alao Adedayo (Alaroye), Moderator Professor Ademola Dasylva, speakers include Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, Professor Niyi Osundare and Mrs. Bamidele Ademola-Olateju. No one should miss this powerful group of presenters.

     

    Saturday July 30, 2020

    4:00 pm Lagos Time

    Zoom ID: 87834935009

    Passcode: 690337