Tag: moment

Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner

It is an understatement to say that the Yoruba are already thinking about this period in the country’s history. The present moment is in many ways similar to what obtained in 1965 in the Yoruba region when Hubert Ogunde, the father of the Opera Mode in Nigeria, composed Yoruba Ronu. The use of ‘reflect’ in the title in today’s piece is the closest English translation of Ogunde’s use of Ronu. For Ogunde then, the Yoruba were at a crossroads in their region’s history and development and needed to do self-assessment and critique; audit the region’s political culture; and dream a-new about its future.

In his most evocative imagery, Ogunde then described the Yoruba society as a pace-setter and model for others, suddenly transformed into a football that everybody on the street kicks around for fun, all on the strength of the control of means of signification by a few Yoruba politicians in power or with access to power want to control the political destiny of the Yoruba .Ogunde was then preoccupied with the extent of political crisis and decline in the Yoruba region. Today, the decline in the region is more than political; it is also looking cultural and moral, given the character of participation of some Yoruba sons and daughters in the new campaign culture in the country.

What Ogunde warned against in his Yoruba Ronu, a song that had been used generously by opposing parties in the current campaign, was a political leadership that appropriated the public means of mass communication to tell only the story of the ruling party and in doing so, insult citizens directly or indirectly. As we observed in this column last week, the dominant political culture of that period was summarised by the sentence: “We do not have the time to campaign about programmes; whether you vote for us or you don’t our party has won the forthcoming election.”

The intention of today’s column is not to query individuals or groups for exercising their freedom of association and expression. This freedom had been part of Yoruba culture for centuries and long before the advent of colonial political culture. In most Yoruba communities, there was the tradition of self-expression that allowed citizens to critique or even lampoon their leaders at the times set apart for rituals of rebellion and castigation of those with power over citizens, be they monarchs or chiefs or the economically powerful in the society, just as everybody was free to canvass for support for his or her candidates for office in the precolonial Yoruba polity. But the exercise of such rights in the traditional context, as it is in the modern context in other modern societies, also had rules of engagement. Deception or humiliation of citizens, particularly vertical figures in the society, was frowned upon.

The events in the last three weeks are reminiscent of what happened in 1965 when the ruling party in the region humiliated some of our Obas. Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner. Fortunately then, as it seems to be now, there were also many Yoruba Obas who chose to act in compliance with tradition: avoiding to identify with any of the political parties contesting the election. At the end, it was the citizens that voted. Not one Oba out of those generously suborned and those that were left as black legs and fanatics of the opposition party, was seen at any of the polling stations. But all the same, 1965 started the abuse and humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers, even at a time when cultural and moral decline was not this self-evident.

Of course, the decline was accelerated and deepened by military dictators. During the many years of military rule, traditional rulers across the country were wooed and cultivated by dictators at the federal and state levels with the consequence that the institution became politicised more and more. Some Obas were encouraged to become contractors of the government and thus pushed into a situation where they could not resist supporting the government in power, regardless of the deleterious effect of its programmes. But generally, military dictators on the surface showed some respect to the Obas until the annulment of 1993 and in the years of Abacha’s rule of terror.

The last sixteen years of post-military rule appeared to have given traditional rulers the space they needed (and still need) to conduct themselves as statesmen and not as rapacious hustlers that some of them were deemed to be during military rule. But the event of a few weeks ago in many parts of Yorubaland brought the humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers to an embarrassing level. Those who organised the campaign of President Jonathan in the north acted in a way to show respect for northern monarchs. President Jonathan visited individual Emirs in their palaces to announce his presidential candidacy and to repeat the accomplishments of his administration. In most cases, he asked northern Emirs to pray for him, instead of asking them to vote for him.

In contrast, Yoruba Obas were treated as government employees by those who coordinated the presidential campaign in the Southwest. Several Yoruba monarchs were herded and assembled to receive the president, not in palaces of individual monarchs as it was in north. Like school kids on excursion, Yoruba Obas were assembled outside their palaces to listen to the president’s campaign, especially his promise to de-marginalise the Yoruba region, if elected for another four years.

It is one thing to have or know monarchs that are rapacious enough to want to take any risk with their crowns. But it is another thing to treat many monarchs as if they are Warrant Chiefs who were created to facilitate colonial governance and thus owed their livelihood to the goodwill of colonial administrators. Whoever organised the presidential campaign in the Southwest was not fair to Yoruba monarchs for failing to encourage President Jonathan to visit the traditional rulers in their palaces individually, the way he did in the north. Summoning Yoruba monarchs from their palaces to a central place to listen to the president’s campaign is wrong and can be counterproductive. Many voters who still have respect for the institution of monarchy in the region may see the levity with which Yoruba monarchs were herded as a sign of continued Yoruba marginalisation, more so as this is already a dominant theme in the campaign of Yoruba Council of Elders and other groups.

Of all the elections I have observed in the country, I cannot remember seeing any Oba cast a vote. The electoral value of the Yoruba monarchs may not be as high as to deserve summoning them to a central place to listen to political campaigns of the ruling party or of the opposition party. Yoruba Obas themselves know this. No self-respecting Oba can come out openly to campaign for any political party or candidate. A few of them that may have the temerity to persuade their subjects in secret also know the consequence: loss of respect among their subjects.

It is churlish that the coordinators of the PDP campaign in the Southwest treated the Obas the same way they treated their subjects: ordinary voters that needed to be brought together to hear the candidate campaign. It is even worse that many monarchs left their palaces to listen to political campaigns. What tradition requires of Yoruba monarchs is for them to wait in their palaces for political leaders to visit them and bring to them whatever messages they have. Tradition also requires that the monarchs talk diplomatically to such candidates without making any overt commitment one or way or the other. Whatever may be the problems of individual monarchs and whatever specific politicians may know of individual Obas, traditional rulership in Yorubaland is an institution that still requires, like its counterpart in the north, respect from politicians.