“O Allah! Rescue us from (the evil) of this (Yoruba) nation of oppressors and raise for us a formidable leader who can stand as our guardian in the face of treachery and oppression…” Q. 4:75
Preamble
In Yoruba mythology of yore, there was a bird called owl to which a strange myth was attached to the detriment of its coiners. According to that mythology, the owl was a symbolic bird that was highly respected for playing the role of alerting other birds regarding their times of sleeping and of waking up, as considered necessary, to save them from falling prey to predators. That special but voluntary role made the owl a distinguished bird with awful posture wherever and whenever it appeared in the midst of other birds. But with time, the owl began to feel important as it started turning its voluntary service into an obligation for which others must pay even at the expense of their convenience. With that clandestine design, it stopped working for self-survival and went round to demand payment of compulsory tax from other birds on a daily basis in the wrong belief that without its own voluntary service, no other bird could survive.
When it became apparent that the owl’s new flamboyant lifestyle was fully dependent on the sweat of the other birds, a joint decision was taken to do away with its voluntary service that was being turned into an enslaving imposition.
How the Owl Became Pariah
Through a unanimous decision of all the birds at a meeting, the payment of compulsory tax which the owl had cunningly imposed on the
other birds was stopped. By then, those other birds had adapted to the times of sleeping and waking up without any disturbing noise by the
owl. On the other hand, the owl also had fully adapted to feeding itself from the sweat of other birds haven taken its voluntary service for a full time job. Thus, with the stoppage of the owl’s unnecessary service, the latter became a disturbing idle entity which the other birds generally avoided.
Like Owl, Like Afenifere
The similitude of the owl of yore is like that of a Yoruba Christo-political group called Afenifere which today cries out disturbingly at random to make an untenable Christo-political demand from the generality of the Yoruba people of the the Southwest Nigeria.
The group clandestinely assumed the position of a self0appointed megaphone for the Yoruba nation even as it illegally proclaims itself as the symbol of Yoruba thought on public issues including political decisions.
Like the above cited mythological owl, Afenifere does not realize how irrelevant it has become in Yoruba land haven lost the service it once voluntarily decided to render to that sophisticated tribe in Nigeria.
Meaningful Life
Human life is like a coin with two sides. While one side bears the symbol of a crowned head, the other bears the sign of an animal’s tail. And the choice of head or tail is left to the custodian of the coin as determined by the contemporary democratic dispensation.
Today, as in the primordial time, the essence of a meaningful life for any conscientious human group or individual in any decent society is not just to live and let live but also to work for posterity by nurturing the younger ones decently for an enduring heritage and by grooming them for impeccable continuity of a meaningful life. Anything contrary to that is nothing other than a fake life to which no decent individual person or group will want to be associated. That is the factor that now makes Afenifere a pariah entity among the Yoruba people just like the owl of yore among other birds in the forest.
The Nature of Owl
Anybody who knows how the mythological night-marauding owl rigmaroles with its nauseating antics will not be surprised by the abominable role that the so-called Afenifere group is playing comically through the Southwest media today in Nigeria to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of Yoruba people who are Muslims. Here is a Christo-political group that operates like a fish in a shallow well which ignorantly proclaims itself the king of all aquatic animals including whales, sharks and hippos. The tendency for such a fish is to deceptively perceive its hollow environment inside the shallow well as larger than all oceans and seas in the world. And that is exactly what the octogenarian members of Afenifere are doing with their deemed eyes of the past, to proclaim themselves as the leaders, in Yoruba land, who must dictate to the modern Yoruba people on what to do or not to do about their political and religious lives. Ironically, these are men and women of yesteryears who had spent their time and the time of their children as well as that of their grandchildren running after ephemeral benefits for themselves alone but still not satisfied with their accumulated wealth. Even at the twilight of their lives, these mostly octogenarian grandpas and grandmas are still seeking an opportunity to spend the time of their great grandchildren for their own parochial benefits alone.
Weak Vision and Improvidence
At a time when vision rather than improvidence is the order of the day, it is strange that this group’s deleterious political activities are still geared towards the search for self -relevance even where and when relevance for their primitive wish has become anachronistic. But what else should be expected from a group that once claimed to be progressive but has now terribly retrogressed into ultra-conservatism in the sheer belief that conservatism is today’s real bastion of stomach infrastructure for septuagenarian and octogenarian citizens who are in the twilight of their lives? Isn’t that belief a euphemism for advanced corruption? What legacy can such Nigerians leave behind for young Nigerians of today and tomorrow?
Glass House
Living in a glass house is a proverbial cliché connoting dignity in all its ramifications. In the English culture, anybody who is said to be an inhabitant of a glass house is deemed to be exemplarily dignified in utterances, actions and conduct. In virtually all civilized cultures of the world, that cliché is mostly attributable to elderly people who, because of their seeming leadership qualities, are deemed to be exemplary in knowledge and experience. It is only where a deviation occurs that pestering of verbal or written missiles becomes a weapon of ‘infra dignitatem’ from the victims of oppression. Those who are close to the so-called Afenifere should let that group know that today’s world is fast changing in such a way that the onetime values of pedigree are no longer a measure of dignity.
The Plight of Yoruba Muslims
The Yoruba Muslims of the current generation in the Southwest of Nigeria who were never privileged to witness the political and religious trauma which their parents and grandparents suffered in the hands of Yoruba oppressors in the 1950s and 1960s in this region, when Yoruba Muslims had not fully imbibed Western literacy, are still feeling the impact of that trauma today. They may however take advantage of today’s atrocious spectacle to retrospectively view the religious cloak of those years and use same to unmask some dubious characters, who hid under those evil cloaks to stifle lives out of their parents socially and psychologically in those years to the detriment of today’s Muslim generation in the region.
Religious Politics
In 2015, when the general election was approaching in Nigeria, Afenifere told a particular Presidential candidate that Yoruba people had decided to give him their block voting. That insulting pronouncement in the name of Yoruba tribe, in anticipation of a richer stomach infrastructure, for its obscure members alone elicited a common question. Who mandated Afenifere to make such an fraudulent proclamation in the name of Yoruba nation? And, eventually, both the Presidential candidate and the proclaimers of the fraudulent statement failed woefully. But characteristic of shameless people who often pursue their desired ambition desperately, the proclamation was repeated a couple of weeks ago as a confirmation of shamelessness on the part of those whose permanent political hallmark is self-aggrandizement. The fact that no one can give what he does not possess cannot be faulted. The days of abracadabra in local politics are gone forever.
2014 National Confab
Sometime early in 2014, this same group which sold the idea of national confab to President Goodluck Jonathan desperately hijacked the Southwest list of the Presidential nominees to that confab and chose 15 of its members (all non-Muslims) to the exclusion of the entire Muslim populace in the region whose numerical strength cannot be underestimated. It took the rebellious formation of a splinter group named A’fenifere Renewal Group’ for the greedy Afenifere to concede only one seat to the leader of that splinter group who was said to be the representative of millions of the Southwest Muslims at the national confab.
When, in reaction to that clandestine act, the Muslim Ummah of the South West of Nigeria (MUSWEN) wrote a memo to the National confab to put the records straight, Afenifere quickly but deceptively wrote a letter to the Southwest Muslim Ummah (MUSWEN) inviting the latter to a meeting of mutual understanding. But characteristically, that deceptive meeting never saw the light of the day as Afenifere displayed its usual chameleonic prank as a way of dodging the meeting which it initiated.
If a group of octogenarian members of Afenifere can still be known for such pranks even at the twilight of their lives, what legacy will they leave behind for the future leaders in the region?
Evidence of Ignorance
What these people do not and may not know in a foreseeable future is that with the coming of internet and social media the definition of literacy has tremendously changed from mere ability to read and write some old wives’ tales and fables to that of modern browsing and messaging through the internet in the 21st century. And without such standard of literacy this time around any person who still claims to be literate is half-dead. However, it takes only the seeing to recognize the light and make the best use of it. Therefore, it cannot be a surprise that the members of Afenifere group are still snoring in their primordial sleep while expecting others to be off line like them.
Even in Yoruba land where Afenifere is supposed to be based, the group merely operates in certain obscure corners of the region only to randomly roar out to impress its ignorant allies in the Middle Belt and the Southeast on the pages of some obscure newspapers. But since
the dance of a dragon fly on the surface of a brook can only be in a mandatory rhythm of the drummer beneath the water, no one should expect the owl to come home to roost for a meaningful purpose.
Judged by the public utterances and conducts of its members, AFENIFERE has become a ridiculous paradox between yesterday’s fictitious dream and today’s disappointing nightmare. Had the members of the so-called Afenifere group known how much they have become a laughable stock in Nigeria today, they would have probably reclined into their obsolete shell and stopped behaving like the owl among birds.
The 21st Century Southwest Muslims
To this so-called Afenifere group, the usefulness of the Muslim multitudes in the Western region does not transcend voting and clapping for the region’s ‘lotus eaters’ which Afenifere typifies.
Despite the glaring difference between the Muslims of the 1950s who were treated like slaves and those of the 21st century who are highly sophisticated in essence and substance, the group still plays an ostrich by pretending not to take note of that conspicuous change hence the ignorant wish to maintain its primordial status quo.
Warning
Let it be known to this self-elevated group that the antics of the yore with which the so-called Afenifere outsmarted and relegated Yoruba Muslims to the background in the past have gone with the irritating particles of the past. And any further attempt to want to continue such primitive antics to the detriment of Yoruba Muslims will be adequately resisted in letters and in law. We have paid our due in terms of tolerance, patience and endurance. Elasticity has its limit.
No group of sheer opportunists that still ignorantly believes in the deceptive gimmicks of the past will be allowed anymore to continue riding roughshod over the Muslims of the Southwest. Enough is enough.
Gone are the days when wisdom was genuinely attributed to old age because old age then personified wisdom based on experience. Like the rise of a modern building from the debris of the old mud building, the Yoruba Muslims of this generation have come of age and can no longer be swept into the refuse bin with the rubbles of the past. We do not need a borrowed mouth to speak out for us and nobody has a right to speak for us without our mandate.
As it takes two to tango it must also take a give and take relationship to ventilate a peaceful environment in a multi-religious society. No group should assume any vain superiority over others and expect peace to thrive. To live side by side and cohabit in harmony, mutual respect must be in the front burner of our relationship.