Tag: priorities

In the history of Egbe Omo Yoruba, U.S.A. and Canada, one of the great associations with an untiring focus on the unity and progress of Yoruba nation, this week is special.

Following the model of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, founded in London in 1947, Egbe Omo Yoruba was launched in the United States during the dreary days of military occupation of Nigeria. It was the response of concerned Yoruba patriots to the siege mentality created by the military, just as Egbe Omo Oduduwa was the forum that Chief Awolowo and his colleagues used to battle British colonial exploitation.

At its inception, Egbe Omo Yoruba, USA and Canada (henceforth referred to as Egbe); branded itself as an anti-military dictatorship and pro-democracy advocacy group for the restoration of the mandate that Nigerians overwhelmingly gave Chief M. K. O. Abiola on June 12, 1993. As such, it entered into alliance with other pro-democracy organisations, including NADECO Abroad, National Liberation Council of Nigeria (NALICON), United Democratic Front of Nigeria (UDFN) and the World Congress of Free Nigerians (WCFN).

With selfless frontline activities of prominent patriots including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the late Pa Anthony Enahoro, General Ipoola Akinrinade, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief C. O. Adebayo, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Commodore Dan Suleiman, Leidum Mitee, and a host of others, these groups jointly and severally engaged in diplomatic offensives against military interests, crisscrossing the hallowed chambers of governance institutions in North America, Africa and Europe, leading to biting sanctions against the Abacha regime.

The groups demanded the release of political prisoners, including those incarcerated on false charges of phoney coup d’etat. Even when they knew that a few of the victims of military tyranny occupied an unfriendly political and ideological terrain, they defended them and fought for their release. Now, of course, those same individuals, acting true to type, would credit their survival exclusively to the kindness of foreign agents. Such is life.

At the end of the nightmare of military occupation in 1999, the Southwest, as the bastion of progressive governance and the battle front for the democratic war against military dictatorship, rewarded NADECO and its pro-democracy allies with an electoral mandate for the Alliance for Democracy to govern the six states of the region. It was a vindication of Afenifere for remaining true to the spirit of Chief Awolowo and his progressive ideas. Egbe issued a press release as a paid advertorial urging the new governments in the Southwest to stay the course.

But human frailty set in and the promise of a glorious dawn was broken even before it got started. In 16 years, with more resources at our disposal, we have not been able to achieve the equivalent of what the old West achieved in eight.

The Action Group of the 50s had the same ideological focus as the Alliance for Democracy of the late 90s. So, it wasn’t ideological difference that accounted for the failure. Rather, the challenge that dashed the hope of millions that looked upon the leadership to take them to the Promised Land was regrettable egoistic pettiness. Recall the debacle that was D’Rovans Hotel and its aftermath. The wisdom of the ancestors suggests that when the young focus on felling a tree in the bush, the elders must watch for and warn about its possible landing. The failure to abide by that wisdom created the unwholesome political and cultural environment that we have today.

In the wake of that crisis, Egbe sent a powerful delegation to the homeland in early 2002 to plead with every individual and group to embrace peace and pursue unity. The delegation visited with Afenifere, Yoruba Council of Elders, Governors and Odua Self-Determination groups. It was a clarion call without any selfish interest.

Egbe received assurances of a new era. But it went from bad to worse. Our people blamed it again on the curse of Aole. I have always considered that a phantom excuse and a reluctance to accept responsibility for our own weaknesses. Egbe does not give up on the challenging cause of Yoruba unity and progress. Hence its decision to take the message that it has been sending from its comfort zone in the diaspora back to the land of the ancestors.

This week fulfils a dream of the association to return to motherland. As the last stanza of its anthem reiterates, Omo Oduduwa ni wa/Nibikibi taa ba wa/E je ka fe ra wa/Ka si maa ranti pe/A o pada sile. (Oduduwa is our spring/wherever we may be/Let’s be kinsfolk/And remember/That home is home for us). The dream has always been to get back home, and this week, after more than 20 conventions across the United States and Canada, the Egbe is back home hosting the Yoruba World Summit with its theme, “Yoruba renaissance: Understanding our past to benefit the future.”

This summit couldn’t have been more timely, in view of all that is happening around us as a people. Indeed, the spiritually-inclined may, with justification, insist that the summit had been destined to be held this year rather than two years ago when a combination of unanticipated events, including the dreaded Ebola scare, caused its postponement. Whether destined or contrived, it is heartening that Egbe Omo Yoruba is back home with its message of unity and progress.

What is at stake is the unfulfilled dreams of millions of young people who have been compelled to a state of hopelessness that gives way to despair. The education that their nation cannot provide for them makes them incapable of productive work. And the void is filled for them by the destructive genius of the devil. In the remotest villages, elementary school pupils do drugs and engage in cultism. How a leadership that claims the inheritance of Awo can live with this and feel no unease about the terrible state of the nation is mind-boggling.

But as odious as the overall condition is, the most worrisome is the moral degeneration that has been the lot of the nation in the last four decades when it appears that the devil has taken control and the large majority of our people have chosen to do its bidding.

How else do we explain the callousness of adulterated and fake drugs that send innocent victims to untimely deaths? Or hospital workers who privatise public resources and then charge poor patients for their use? What about education officials who collude with principals and headmasters to create ghost teachers whose salaries they share? And these individuals are always the loudest in the raucous critique of government ineptitude!

What is to be done? Political leaders in the Southwest need to ask themselves the hard question: What will be my legacy? How do I wish to be remembered? In my quest for immortality, which individuals or groups should I partner with? There are sycophants and there are tested objectivists and the difference between them is very clear. Unfortunately, far too many of our leaders prefer the former. If the late author of The Tale of June 12, Professor Omoruyi, is to be believed, that mindset was the undoing of General Babangida who chose the sugar-coated poison of Arthur Nzeribe over the sound advice to avoid the annulment of the 1993 presidential election.

Organisations, such as Egbe Omo Yoruba are made up of selfless individuals who just want to contribute to the progress of their nation. They sacrifice their time and money. Back in 1997, the standing policy was that every member must pay his or her way to any meeting inside or outside of the United States. Many maxed out their credit card accounts for the good that they desire for their nation.

A few years ago, Egbe came up with the idea of championing agricultural revolution in Yorubaland. They looked for land across the Southwest. The Jegun of Ile Oluji, Oba Julius Adetimehin, responded by making available several hectares of land to Egbe and one of the highlights of the 2016 Yoruba Summit is the launching of Egbe Omo Yoruba agricultural project in Yorubaland. This patriotic gesture deserves the deep appreciation and encouragement of Yoruba men and women at home and in the diaspora.

Of course, I am not a reader of minds and I cannot unequivocally vow for every person that seeks leadership position what their motivations are. It is possible that the people are deceived and manipulated by sweet-talking political charlatans. It is also possible that the people are too poor and ignorant to know when they are being conned. Such would not be unique to our clime. It happens everywhere including in the most advanced countries.

But I know that the only reason that a genuine human being with a moral conscience would consider making the sacrifice to run for a leadership position is to make a difference in people’s lives and to make a mark. That was the case with the leader of the West in its golden era. I would like to assume that our current crop of leaders share this motive.

And I would also assume that they have the skill sets needed to make a mark. There could be a difference in the degree to which these skill sets are shared. But that is not unusual and it should not be a liability in the discharge of the responsibilities of leadership. Therefore, between the past and the present, leadership should not be the difference. To the extent that my assumption is wrong, we have a serious problem.

How about followership? There is no doubt that there has been a serious erosion of the values that sustained us through the 19th century civil wars and the brutal colonial exploitation. But erosion, serious as it is, is not annihilation. Those values still predominate in the larger Yoruba culture despite the incidences of 419 and it is by appeal to them that we judge actions and behaviours, including those in the economic and political realms.

We still hold dear our obsession with hard work as we detest laziness and parasitism. We still believe that good education is key to a successful life. Therefore, households make the effort to give their children good education even when they have to pay through the nose. And what must be a concern to all is that the poorest worker or artisan now holds firmly the belief in the superiority of private schools over public schools and is not deterred by the exorbitant cost.

I think that it is safe to assume that our people are generally good and they have an abiding faith in those cherished values. However, they need the encouragement of leaders and the hope that their hard work will be rewarded.

To my mind, however, one important difference between the past and the present is the “us” versus “them” mentality that comes with the artificial division of the region into autonomous states. Surely, not all was well between the sections of the Yoruba nation in the remote and immediate past. I touched on this sordid history two weeks ago. And as we know, the creation of states has inadvertently opened up some old wounds of tribal animosity to the detriment of the desperately needed cooperation across the Southwest.

It was because I believe strongly that we must find a creative way of blurring the sharp and dangerous edges that the artificial boundaries between states have created, and remove the wedges that had effectively blocked the development of the entire region that I and other well-meaning citizens welcomed the emergence of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN), a bold initiative of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) a few years ago.

For no matter the divisions, the people of Southwest are one and their leaders, no matter what the temptations are, must refrain from putting them asunder. States are supposedly created for administrative purposes. They must not be used in a way that retards growth or limit the opportunities for the people, and certainly never in a way that tears apart the fabric of the Yoruba nation.

In the light of the difference between the past and the present Southwest in terms of the transition from one region to six states, what adjustments need to be made to ensure that the people still matter and their social and economic interests are enhanced?

Voluntary regional integration must be the policy objective of the leaders of the states and region and party affiliation must not stand in the way of this important ideal. Years ago, I made this point in a keynote address to Egbe Omo Yoruba National Convention that took place in Baltimore, Maryland. It was also part of my submission when I gave the Bola Ige Memorial Lecture a few years ago. DAWN had not been established in those days, and the partisan war over rigged elections was still very much fierce. The challenge was for victims to accept the leadership of those who stole their mandate and work with them for the integration of the region. Happily, that war is over and political enemies of the past now wine and dine together on the same political table.

What needs to be overcome now is fiefdom mentality and leadership temptation to resist cross-fertilisation of ideas and practices across territorial boundaries.

Thankfully, the present leadership is making the effort to reassure us that it gets it, as demonstrated by the recently reported lecture that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola delivered on “The Imperative of Unity” in Ado-Ekiti at the invitation of Governor Ayo Fayose on the occasion of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the creation of Ekiti State.

I would like to end with three observations on this development. First, we should all be pleased with the visuals of Ogbeni Aregbesola and Governor Fayose sitting side by side at an event commemorating the founding of Fayose’s state. Ordinarily this should not even be a remarkable scene but for the degrading level of our politics. That reason appears to be prevailing is therefore a thing of joy. Of course, there will be various interpretations of motivation. I am not worried about that. As I mentioned earlier, I do not read minds. I am genuinely happy however that our political leaders have attained the maturity that enables them to reach out across party divide.

Second, according to media reports, Ogbeni Aregbesola identified the revival of agriculture, especially food production, as one area of cooperation among the states of the Yoruba nation in order to eliminate hunger. This ought to be a priority of the region’s political leadership. Years ago, with the creation of artificial scarcity, Governor Fashola learnt the hard way that a state must not outsource its food supply to other sections of the country. Vowing to prevent a recurrence, he wisely invested in agricultural projects across the Southwest.

Ogbeni Aregbesola also advised Yoruba nation to “unite in terms of integrating our development strategies in education, commerce, economy, agriculture and tourism, among others.” Again, this is commonsensical and no one appears better qualified or motivated to lead this effort especially in educational integration. The feat that Aregbesola has accomplished in education in Osun is legendary despite the challenge of resources. Imagine if there is a common effort across Yoruba nation such that, for example, there is a coordinated effort to integrate tertiary institutions with campuses specialising in major areas of learning and scholarship.

Finally, then, this last point leads me to the unwholesome development in the common effort of Oyo and Osun states in the promotion of tertiary education in the very important field of technology. Both Governors Aregbesola and Ajimobi are two of my favourite leaders with clear headedness and strong commitment to development.

I am aware that there is a history of rancour dating back to the tenure of Governors Oyinlola and Alao-Akala who also belonged to the same party. The issue is therefore beyond partisan divide. It is past time to ditch the tempting resort of our people to the worst parochialist devil of our nature. Rather, we must now appeal to the best angels therein. It is time for both traditional and civil leaders to resolve the issue in the interest of Yoruba integration of which Ogbeni Aregbesola spoke so eloquently in Ado Ekiti. The future of the innocent youths is at stake.