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Tag: Yoruba

  • Niger Delta militants withdraw quit notice to northerners, Yoruba

    Niger Delta militants withdraw quit notice to northerners, Yoruba

    The coalition of Niger Delta militants, yesterday, withdrew the October 1 quit notice they issued to northerners and Yoruba living in the region.

    The Pan Niger Delta People’s Congress (PNDPC), a new group that claimed to have the mandate to negotiate for the Niger Delta with the Federal Government and other interested stakeholders, said the issuers of the quit notice gave them the mandate to withdraw it.

    The coalition had disbanded the Chief Edwin Clark-led Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) after passing a vote of no confidence in the group and constituted PNDPC as the new negotiator for the region.

    The militant groups appointed His Royal Majesty Pere Ayemi-Botu, paramount ruler of Seimbiri Kingdom as the head of the PNDPC and named Chief Mike Loyibo as the coordinator/ convener of the group.

    The coalition comprises the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers; Niger Delta Joint Revolutionary Crusaders Council; Niger Delta Supreme Egbesu Fighters; Niger Delta Red Scorpion Fighters; Niger Delta Youth Mandate for Justice; Niger Delta People’s Liberation Force; Niger Delta Fighters for Resource Control; Niger Delta for Urhobo Resource Control; and Bakassi People’s Liberation Force.

    Loyibo, whom the coalition said was appointed following his track records of integrity and honesty, confirmed that the coalition mandated the PNPDC to announce the withdrawal of the quit notice.

    He said the youths were remorseful after he and members of the new group met with them and told them the implications of the quit notice to the peace and development of the region.

    He said: “People should disregard the quit notice from our youths. I have spoken to many of them and they mandated me to withdraw it on their behalf.

    “They have called off the quit notice and discharged it. Everybody in the region in the west, east and north should go about their normal business. I can guarantee them of their safety.

    “The entire Niger Delta people are not in agreement with the quit notice issue. The boys that issued it are very remorseful. So, they have asked me, because they mandated me to speak for them and the region, to discharge the quit notice.

    ” Loyibo noted that such unpatriotic remarks like issuance of quit notices had their origin from the cold war involving the country’s founding fathers during the precolonial era.

    “This quit notice and counter quit notice found their foundations from the precolonial days. The three leaders that negotiated the independence of Nigeria did not love themselves.

    “It was the crisis that extended to our era where everybody begins to struggle for their own. I don’t believe in regional or tribal considerations. As Ijaw people, those that had been good to us did not come from our region,” he said.

    He said the youths were only suspicious that the Federal Government was trying to weaken them through promises that they might not fulfill at last.

    Loyibo said the leaders also told the youths to also hold their governors, appointees and regional interventionist agencies responsible for lack of leadership and development.

    He blamed the Arewa youths for causing tension in the polity and frowned on the way and manner the government treated them.

    He noted that nobody should be treated as a second class citizen adding that all must be held as equal stakeholders in the Nigerian project.

    The Ijaw leader, however, said the youths in the region still believed in the integrity of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, and their ability to fulfill the promises they made to the region.

    He said: “We are peaceloving people. Our diversity is our strength. Mr. President has brought a lot of integrity to governance and he came in with massive goodwill. So, I believe that this is the time he should be addressing the issue.

    “The late President Yar’Adua took the bull by the horn and declared amnesty and today amnesty is working. The place is being transformed in human capacity building.

    This is not the time for us to bring violence. When the militants and the agitators and the people of the Niger Delta named us to represent the Niger Delta as the new face, it did not come to us as a surprise because some of us have long history of integrity and openness.

    “We believe that Nigeria will continue to remain as one under a peaceful situation. So, I hereby, use this medium to formally discharge that quit notice. It is of no effects and there is no element of seriousness and the people that did it are very remorseful after we met with them and scolded them.”

  • Yoruba Congress to hold mega rally September 7

    The Chairman of the organising committee of Yoruba Congress, Dr. Kunle Olajide, has said the Southwest is planning a rally in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, on September 7 on the need to restructure the country.

    At a conference yesterday in Lagos, Olajide said the rally would mobilise Nigerians to put pressure on those working against the unity of the country to have a rethink.

    The committee chairman said the country was passing through a difficult phase, adding that well-meaning Nigerians should return sanity to the land.

    He said: “As you are aware, we are passing through a difficult phase in the life this country. As such, patriots across the country have to rise up and together find a lasting solution to the problems.

    “Successive politicians have promised to correct the present lopsided structure, which is in favour of the government at the centre, to win elections. But once elections are over, nothing is done in this direction.

    “It is on record that the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was emphatic that in a multi-ethnic culture country like Nigeria, it is only a truly federal constitution that can work. Contemporary events have proved him right.”

  • Winners emerge in Yoruba talent show

    Onimama Fausiya and Leye Williams have both emerged overall winners ofthe 2017 edition of Ariya Repete, theYoruba cultural music talent hunt, at the grand finale event which held at Trans Amusement Park, Ibadan on Friday, July 21, 2017.

    Fausiya, a budding female Fuji musician from Ilorin, Kwara State clinched the overall prize of N1 million  plus a recording deal in the Fuji category, while Leye Williams, a talented Juju artiste from Osun State clinched the same prize of N1 million  with a recording deal in the Juju category.

    Leye Williams, who was crowned the Aare 1 ofJuju music that same night also made history by beingthe first Juju artiste to be crowned under the cultural music talent hunt platform.

    Azeez Ajani and WasiuOnilewura emerged first and second runners up in the Fuji category and carted away N750,000 and N500,000 respectively, while Adeniyi Temitope and Yomi Bright emerged first and second runners up in the Juju category and also went home with N750,000 and N500,000 each.

    Other contestants in both Fuji and Juju categories who made it to the final this year received consolation prizes of N100,000 each.

    Franco Maria Maggi, Marketing Director, Nigerian Breweries Plc congratulated the winners and implored them to be good ambassadors of the platform, Ariya Repete, which has brought them to the limelight. “Congratulating you will not be enough, but I must enjoinyou to be good ambassadors of this platform that seeks to discover and promote indigenous Yoruba music genres that has made you the newest Fuji and Juju superstars in Nigeria,” he said.

  • Southwest Governors subscribe to 25-year master plan

    Southwest Governors subscribe to 25-year master plan

    Governors of the six southwest states yesterday agreed to work in line with a 25-year master plan.

    The 11-point communique read by host Governor Ibikunle Amosun, said the governors would set up an inter – State security task force to tackle the menace of fulani herdsmen and other crimes, establish agricultural produce export processing facilities, adopted the 25 years Master Development Plan designed by the DAWN, and hold regional agricultural summit in Ibadan, Oyo State, to tackle food challenges.

    They also agreed that the artificial boundaries of states, religions and political affiliation will not act as barrier to the regional development, adding that all the states had been encouraged to improve bilateral cooperation and foster development.

    The forum revealed that it would set up a committee to codify the values and ethos of the Yoruba race, in order to strengthen the identity and unity of the people of the region. It was also decided that the forum would henceforth be known as the Western Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

    Southwest governors yesterday lamented that the splitting of the Old Western Region into six states robbed the people of their spirit of oneness and hampered the pace of socio – economic development.

    The six governors – Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Ayo Fayose (Ekiti) and Rotimi Akeredolu(Ondo), expressed this sentiment at a meeting in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, during a regional meeting.

    At the end of the meeting, they approved the 25-year decelopment plan designed by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) and agreed to collaboprate on security of the region, agricultural development and improvement of infrastructure.

    Amosun, who hosted the meeting, said instead of state creation to “build bridges,” it left the Yoruba land  “digging trenches for protection against their own brothers and sisters” as well as fostering boundary disputes and security challenges among them.

    The Governor recalled that many landmark achievements were recorded in Yoruba land when it was under one regional economic umbrella during the time of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as Premier. He advised that  the time had come for them to unite, promote  and re -enact the pre-eminence and achievements of the South-West in the Nigerian federation.

    According to him, the onerous task on the hands of  the Southwest governors today  is to lead the  people to further prosperous living and  “Economic Self-Determination for South-West Nigeria” which formed the meeting’s theme.

    “We will recall those laudable feats made us the envy of other Regions.

    “We have physical infrastructure such as the Cocoa House at Ibadan, which was aptly named after the source of its funding; the Agodi Secretariat at Ibadan; and the different roads that connect our towns and cities some of which are still standing the test of time. We also have the educational infrastructure of which we are still benefitting from today.

    “Indeed, many of us seated in this room are beneficiaries of the Free Education Programme of that time. It is the same Free Education Programme that culminated in the establishment of a University that was once the most beautiful campus in Sub-Sahara Africa, the then University of Ife, and now appropriately named the Obafemi Awolowo University, at Ile-Ife.

    “We cannot also forget the economic infrastructure; we have the O’odua Group as the umbrella Investment House for the commercial enterprise of the Region such as the Sketch Publication; the Wemabod Estates; the Lafia Hotels; the Premier Hotel at Ibadan; the Area J4 Forest Reserve, etc.

    “However, the creation of States from the old Western Region in 1976 which should have been an impetus for further socio-economic development have been allowed to create artificial boundaries between our people.

    “And to further worsen the situation, some of our people are also making themselves available as instruments of division because of their selfish political gains. The consequence is that our people begin to see themselves as a people of one state or the other rather than as a sub-unit of the entity of the Yoruba people.

    “This is not without its attendant challenges of intra and inter-state boundary disputes which have worsened security in some states and, hampered socio-economic development. Instead of building bridges, some of our people are digging trenches for protection against their own brothers and sisters.

    Aregbesola said the old Western Nigeria recorded greater feats when it operated as single state than what obtained today as six states.

    “We must be mindful of the fact that as singular state then, we achieved more than now when we are divided into six states.

    “We must identify our strengths, unify those strengths and explore the strengths for the benefit of our people. We use the development to galvanise our potentials,” Aregbesola said.

    Ajimobi explained that there were gains to be tapped from the numerical strength of the Yoruba,  stressing that should the six Southwest states elect to pull together, they would amount to over 60 million population and fit to become a country.

    “I will like to plead for not only inter-governmental relationship but also inter personal relationship. Six of us combined, we are talking about more than 60 million people and that is more than a country.

    “We are also talking of landmass of 60km square. With that we can stand as a mini country. If you look at each state in Southwest, if we make use of the potentials available to us , we are bigger than many nations in the world.

    “We are as a region, very formidable region, we must not only talk it, we must act it. We reinstate and reinvigorate the concept of Omoluabi. Success is not money but character and industry,” he said.

    Ambode aligned with the economic and political integration of Southwest states as espoused by his colleagues, saying it was of great significance to the nation while his Ekiti State counterpart said the forum represented the interest of the Yoruba nation.

    Fayose said there was the urgent need for the cooperation and collaboration of all the governors to make the region a place of success again.

    For Akeredolu,  the “development agenda for Southwest Nigeria is a great idea”.

    “It is a forum where the governors meet to discuss issues of common interest. It is a great task for all us. We have great challenges and we must be prepared to face these challenges; united we stand, divided we fall. This meeting transcends political interest, we are brothers,”  Akeredolu said.

  • Chinweizu’s Igbo/Yoruba rapprochement

    As against those who advertise Nigeria to the outside world as a zoo, I believe, stripped of the evil conspiracy of some selfish politicians, ours is a blessed nation and about one of the best countries in the world. Evidences abound. Our land is flowing with milk and honey with vegetable actually sprouting in front of houses and fruits all-round the seasons. We have huge human resources. Ours is a country where our children graduate as  medical doctors, lawyers  engineers  at between ages 22 and 23 without having to repay loans of $75,000 over a period of 15 years as most graduates do in the US. And with all our self-inflicted hardship, they move on to outperform their colleagues from other parts of the globe in the graduate schools in Europe and America. Ours is the only country in the world where an Igbo Lagos street hawker or his Yoruba vulcaniser counterpart will build a mansion in the suburbs of Lagos without being indebted to the banks for the rest of their lives.  God loves our country despite the fact that our churches and mosques harbour corrupt politicians who daily mock God and who the acting President a few days back, suggested must be exposed.

    The good news once again is that following the consultations of the acting President with the representatives of Igbo and their Fulani rivals, the tension that enveloped our country since the Arewa boys issued a quit notice to Igbo living in the north has disappeared.  His meeting with the five South-east governors, National Assembly members led by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and  Ndigbo Ohanaeze leadership, led by its President John Nwodo, and others has resulted in the denunciation of the campaign for secession being championed by the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

    Alhaji Yerima on behalf of the Coalition of Arewa youths that issued a quit notice to the Igbo residing in the north has also issued a statement saying “We are happy that the Igbo leaders have taken a step to curtail some people who have been trying to hold the country down through their actions. Now that they have done what we expect of them, we would have to reconsider our position. We will meet and make our position known to the world.”

    After two years of tacit support for IPOB rascality and Niger Delta Avengers’ assault on our economy, the Igbo leadership, has once again conceded defeat to their Fulani rivals claiming it was all a strategy for demand for restructuring than a quest for secession.

    The temporary truce has enabled Chinweizu, an accomplished Igbo scholar to advance a case for a rapprochement of Igbo with the Yoruba. This according to him was sequel to the discovery of Zik’s threat of aggression against the Yoruba, in Joseph Appiah’s autobiography of an African Patriot, pp160-161. From the work, Chinweizu called our attention to an editorial in the edition of Nigeria’s West African Pilot of September, 8 1948, with the following ominous words: “Henceforth the cry must be one of battle against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, its leaders at home and abroad, uphill and down dale, in the streets of Nigeria and in the streets of London and in the residence of its advocates”. The declaration according to him was in spite of existence of an Ibo Union.

    “For seven decades”, the Igbo according to him “have paid for Zik’s aggression against the Yoruba. The Cold War which Zik started made it possible for the British to install the NPC in power in 1959 when Zik refused to join with Awo to form the federal government. Concluding he admits: “We are not the innocent victims of Yoruba tribalism and hatred. The truth should inform Igbo attitude in seeking rapprochement with the Yoruba to escape imprisonment in Lugard’s Nigeria”.

    I sympathise with Chinweizu, a resourceful intellectual, who as colleague at The Guardian in the 80s, I have the privilege to call my friend.  First the Yoruba clearly understand that the Igbo elite only seek rapprochement whenever they have a temporary disagreement with the Fulani with whom they share a common world view. Secondly, what the Igbo need most is rapprochement with self. For decades, the Igbo of Nigeria suffer from persecution complex sometimes even when they are the aggressors as Chinweizu has admitted.

    The Yoruba clearly understand that in 1964, when the Igbo sought rapprochement with the Yoruba, it was because their Fulani estranged ally threatened to do to the East what they did to the West – dismemberment .Yoruba also remember Zik betrayed Awo during the independence constitutional conference in London by reneging on an earlier agreement to insist on carving out of regions for restive ethnic groups as a precondition for independence. He cast his lot with Ahmadu Bello who like Zik did not want his region balkanized.  Following Awo’s temporary walk out, Zik reached a compromise on all other outstanding issues and congratulated himself for preserving the unity of Nigeria. In 1959, as Chinweizu has observed, Zik betrayed Awo after misinforming his Igbo followers. In 1979, the Igbo cast their lot with their Fulani rivals. In 1993, the Igbo including Ojukwu, lined up with Fulani against the Yoruba.

    The second task is no less difficult. If it took Chinweizu who made his major contribution to knowledge over 40 years ago so long to acknowledge the documented truth about Zik’s aggression and series of misinformation against the Yoruba, it will take longer time to disabuse the minds of less endowed Igbos.

    How do you convince  an Igbo man that the 1964 joint rally at Mapo Hall Ibadan by Mrs. Awolowo and Okpara was not sufficient proof that Okpara cared for the Yoruba  except he is made to  peruse the documentary evidence of  Dr Okpara’s refusal to  recognize Alhaji Adegbenro as Premier of the West even after  the London Privy Council had ruled Akintola was properly removed by the Governor of the Western Region  choosing  instead to give  tacit support  to Chief Remi Fani-Kayode’s   assault on the Western House to justify his earlier  call for declaration of state of emergency in the west?

    My experience last Sunday in the Igbo-dominated Catholic Church where I worship convinced me of the enormity of the task before Chinweizu and other Igbo elite. The presiding priest who happened to be Yoruba had pointed out during the homilies, the futility of those trying to run from Nigeria to Biafra because the dreamed Biafra will be run by current Nigerians. He was literarily shouted down.

    Now they have to deal with ridiculous  tales like Awo’s support for Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw man against Akinsanya, his fellow Ijebu man  during a Nigerian Youth Movement election makes Awo a tribalist; that Dr Olorunnibe’s refusal to step down for Zik after winning an election was a war against Igbo  which required Ozumba Mbadiwe to move the motion for ceding Lagos out West and for choosing to be governed by  a Yoruba man in 1952 at a time an easterner was ruling the east and a northerner,  the north, constituted a Yoruba declaration of war against the Igbo, an untruth  zealously promoted by highly respected Chinua Achebe. This has produced today’s Igbo mind-set where the demand by Lagos State for land rent on Igbo luxury mansions is interpreted by Igbo urban immigrants as an attack on Igbo race or a curse by the Oba of Lagos on those who would work against the interest of Lagos after enjoying all the opportunities Lagos offers as declaration of war against the Igbo.

    What the Igbo need first is lifting the burden of persecution siege. As for rapprochement, they have in the last 70 years demonstrated they share a common world view with their Fulani rivals as opposed to Awo’s ‘Path to Nigeria Freedom’ and Yoruba vision, which from experience of First Republic had promised a more egalitarian society.

  • Assembly sensitises districts, royal fathers to Yoruba language use

    In furtherance of its quest to enact a law that will make teaching and learning of Yoruba language compulsory in all  schools in Lagos State, the Lagos State House of Assembly, through its Committee on Education, embarked on a tour of the six education districts.

    The aim of the tour was to sensitise stakeholders in the six education districts on the desirability of the law and the need to ensure its implementation.

    The Committee, led by its Chairman, Hon Lanre Ogunyemi, met with stakeholders that cut across associations and proprietors of private schools, heads of public schools, school-based management committees, parent-teacher forum, tutors-general/permanent secretaries and obas/chiefs among others in the education districts visited.

    Hon Ogunyemi revealed at the meetings that the tour was ordered by the Speaker of the House, Hon Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa who observed the need for engagement with the grassroots as a follow-up to the public hearing earlier held with stakeholders in the education sector.

    Hon Ogunyemi said his committee has also met with Central Associations and Proprietors of Private Schools before the commencement of the tour.

    The bill has scaled through second reading and is at public hearing stage. Ogunyemi said the National Policy on Education provides for a child to learn the language of the environment they live in.

    The intendment of the national policy, according to Ogunyemi, is to foster unity, cohesion and mutual co-existence in any part of the country we may find ourselves.

    He also noted that the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) set aside February 21 of every year as World Indigenous Language Day to promote the resuscitation of languages that are virtually going into extinction the world over.

    The House of Assembly, according to him, held a stakeholders’ meeting last year which was attended by prominent dignitaries from the Southwest where a communique was issued, part of which was that the House of Assembly should come up with a law as a way of further strengthening the stipulation of the National Policy on Education.

    The sensitisation tour, he said, will give opportunity to all to make inputs, suggestions and criticism where necessary before the bill becomes law.

    The stakeholders attended the meetings in large number and made useful contributions to the committee, which is expected to turn in its report on the public hearing to the House of Assembly soon.

  • Yoruba as accomplice in war against Nigeria

    The Acting President’s on-going consultation with stakeholders over the current tension triggered by the age-long Igbo and Fulani rivalry for the soul of our country provides yet another opportunity to once again interrogate our crisis of nationhood and find a way forward. Unfortunately, the ambivalent response of the Yoruba country whether through Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s old Afenifere or through  his sons’ Afenifere Renewal Group portrays Yoruba not only as an accomplice in the prolonged Nigerian nightmare but probably explains why she has since 1962 been exploited as ‘the beautiful bride’ by rivals who have shown through documented history, that they do not want the best for the Yoruba  who by their “afenifere” motto have always wanted the best for others as they wanted for themselves.

    In 1962, the two rivals whose philosophy is ‘no one gets what either of them cannot get’; out of sheer envy exploited the intraparty feud in Action Group to destroy the West.  To disrupt proceedings in the Western House, Chief Remi Fani Kayode, encouraged by the Premier of the Eastern Region who had repeatedly called on the federal government to declare state of emergency in the West over alleged maltreatment of NCNC members, with some 12 Akintola supporters, had “created uncontrollable disorder, ringing a hand bell, using the chairs as blunt and breaking the mace’ the rumpus by less than a dozen lasted for less than a minute”. But that was all the two rivals needed to declare state of emergency in the West. Awo who wondered during proceedings of the house why a storm in a tea cup should attract state of emergency when neither  Isaac Boro’s insurrection in the east  nor  the Tiv popular uprising in the north, suppressed only through deployment of soldiers led to declaration of state of emergency – was overruled. So was Enahoro’s warning  that “what had started ‘was ‘going to go much farther than perhaps most of us here today imagine” was equally ignored. Balewa went on to kill the First Republic and banish democracy on May 29, 1962 by a mendacious claim that “the federal government had been motivated solely by the desire to ensure that peace order and tranquility are maintained throughout parts of the federation”. He went on to predict a unitary system for the country in future. “There would be such a time when we would have a unitary government in Nigeria. It may be after me. This I am certain it will certainly happen…”  But Trevor Clark, his biographer faulted him claiming “Two things are undeniable. Both NCNC and NPC politicians wanted to break Awolowo’s personal hold on the West and the threats to their concepts of how Nigeria should be ruled” Trevor Clark, Pg. 547.

    The two rivals moved on to create Mid-west Region ignoring Awo’s amendment in a motion calling for the creation of nine additional states to pacify some of the restive groups in the country. Balewa, whose northern legislature was the first to vote for carving of Mid-west, later followed by Eastern Region, however later accepted responsibility during a House session – “I would like to make absolutely clear my stand, the stand of the federal government and the NPC in this matter. We are opposed to creation of new states. But if a particular tribe is foolish enough…we shall always see to it that they are broken up into bits”.

    With Awo in prison, the two rivals went on to share an orphaned Western Region, with NCNC taking control of Mid-west and remnants of AG members that escaped imprisonment to form UPGA under Dr Michael Okpara who had exhibited nothing but hatred for the Yoruba. And for the other, the spoil of war after the humiliation of subdued West was Akintola’s NNDP and Midwest Democratic Front which together formed the NNA alliance that fought the 1964 Obasanjo’s equivalent of “do or die election”. It turned out a strategic error by the surviving mainstream Yoruba political tendency which ought to have allowed Igbo to face the anger of a betrayed husband who with control of state power went on to rig UPGA out before the bitter electoral contest took off. For the 1965 marred election that turned the West into ‘the Wild Wild West’, Akintola resisted pressure to step down by informing Ahmadu Bello that he and Fani Kayode merely adopted the 1964 NNA template.

    With selective killing of NNA politicians and northern military officers by the January 1966 Igbo-led coup and the elimination of Igbo military officers in Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan by Murtala Mohammed and Theophilus Danjuma-led July vengeance coup, the two rivals once again turned Yoruba land into a battle ground.

    First the call by Yoruba leaders for withdrawal of northern soldiers from the West was ignored by Gowon while Ojukwu went on to seize a Nigerian Airways aircraft with which Biafra started bombing Lagos. Then Midwest, betrayed by Delta Igbo officers was overrun with Biafra troops moving to Ore and a letter from Ojukwu promising to appoint Banjo administrator of the West while Biafra will be free to appoint administrator for Lagos at the end of the expedition. This was what finally dragged Yoruba fully into the war but once again, without insisting on their own vision of Nigeria before joining forces with the Fulani to keep Nigeria one, they were outwitted at the end of the war.

    In 1993, a pan-Nigeria Abiola’s mandate was annulled with Babangida citing opposition of some Generals and the Fulani establishment to Abiola’s presidency as if they owned Nigeria. It was once again an opportunity for the Yoruba to reassess its membership of a federation where its citizens are treated as a conquered people. They were again outwitted with the choice of Obasanjo as representative of the Yoruba by the military and the Fulani establishment. It was not an accident that Obasanjo, rejected by the Yoruba, surrounded himself with Igbo politicians and became obsessed with implementation of Balewa’s 1962 unitary agenda through massive election rigging in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun in 2003 and his duplicitous institutionalization of May 29 , the date Balewa banished democracy in the First Republic as ‘Democracy Day”.

    In the ongoing consultations, it is only the Yoruba leaders that are yet to state what they want from the federation. The Igbo with an investment of N43trillion in the north, controlling an area as big as the whole south-east in the north, 100,000 shops in Kaduna, Abuja millelium cities and mansions, choice properties spreading from the slums of Lagos through high-brow Banana Island and the emerging Atlantic City, their Ezes in all Yoruba cities with some challenging First Class Obas like the Oba of Lagos and Deji of Akure and their young men controlling street trading in Yoruba urban cities and sales of staple food such as, rice , beans, pap and akara in the Yoruba remote villages, they have said no one is going to stampede them out of Nigeria. They are however resolute in rejecting Fulani herdsmen and grazing zones in their communities back home.

    Of course the Fulani wants the current status quo that allows free movement of Fulani herdsmen across Nigeria, sustains their advantage in the number of local councils areas that depend on free allocation from the centre, and of course their alleged control of 85% of oil well allocations. But as has always been the case, they have a meeting point with their Igbo rivals: a citizenship bill that proclaims forests and cities across the country a “no man’s land.”

    But what is the Yoruba agenda? Tragically, Pa Adebanjo, framed up and jailed for coup planning along with Ikoku and Enahoro by the two rivals in 1962 has been hosting the Igbos while BolaTinubu, his son driven into exile by Abacha and persecuted by Obasanjo for his opposition to his mainstreaming, has been on the side-lines. All that the Yoruba expected of them is to stick to the Yoruba demand for  a federation, where each group develops at its own pace without interference from others, or  as Awo put it, where “some people will not hold the cow for a few to milk”.

  • APC: Fani-Kayode should fight for Yoruba, not Ndigbo

    APC: Fani-Kayode should fight for Yoruba, not Ndigbo

    The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has faulted former Aviation Minister, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, for fighting for Ndigbo, instead of his Yoruba race.

    In a statement yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Okelo Madukaife, Anambra APC said: “The serial mind-management composed by a group dwelling in the past, and being implemented through Mr Femi Fani-Kayode and his thoughtless collaborators to distance Ndigbo from the national power centre of the day is a huge joke that is 50 years late.

    “The facts of history suggested by the pattern of politics recorded for Chief Remilekun Fani-Kayode, whose scion, Femi is and whose political fountain the latter drew deep from, is not lost on any Igbo, let alone their leaders.

    “To this extent, we hasten to remind the people of South East Nigeria that 24 hours after the victory of APC in Osun State governorship elections in 2014, Femi Fani-Kayode was one of the first to congratulate our great party, for which history recorded our gratitude at the demonstration of sportsmanship spirit, or so we felt.

    “The loquacious ex-minister did not at the time consider that thevictors he was congratulating were all Yorubas and were neither crazy, nor needed their heads examined for believing in APC and leading it to victory.

    “How this unstable character who has managed to escape imprisonment under the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency, and is answering to serial infractions at the moment got to the conclusion that Ndigbo should stay out of APC ,a party he has been in and out of recently or have their heads examined beats anyone’s imagination.

    “If an amorphous kind of politics that relishes skewed ethnic manipulation for selfish advantage is not involved, one wonders what is.

    “Ndigbo do not need a Femi Fani Kayode to be led into a selfish, lopsided and hate-filled conversation, evidenced by nothing but his effervescent altercations.

    “They do not require selfish gigolos running their lives of the pages of newspapers, and in the process insulting their leaders, to know those who love or hate them.

    “Consequently, no Igbo has confused his volunteer of creative self-serving fiction for love, let alone Senator Chris Nwabueze Ngige or Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who, while he was ill and hospitalised, had to put up with yet another set of empty amorous claims from the noisiest ex-minister in Nigeria’s history.

    “In that sense, we deeply implore Fani-Kayode to refocus on finding the best defence for his criminal trials and the challenges of the Yoruba nation as Ndigbo are not so much in lack, that they would require mercenary activists from Osun or even some Ekiti collaborators-arguably rejects from their immediate environment- to give them an arrowhead.

     

  • Adebayo: Uncrowned Yoruba leader

    General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo who died recently, a day before his 89th birthday no doubt during his life time impacted positively to the socio-political development of the country especially among the Yoruba. General Adebayo came to the political limelight in August 1966 when he was appointed as the military Governor of the then Western State by General Yakubu Gowon , the then new Head of State after the brutal second coup of July 1966.

    General Adebayo who was a Colonel at that time, succeeded Lt. Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi who was killed  in a gruesome manner in Ibadan together with his guest, General Aguiyi  Ironsi who was the Head of State before the coup. Prior to his appointment, General Adebayo was the first indigenous Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army between 1964 and 1965. Despite his high rank in the military, he was made the military governor and his appointment was facilitated by Egbe Omo Olofin then led by Dr. Koye Majekodunmi. Subsequent events showed that the Yoruba people were lucky to have somebody with the personality of Adebayo as their leader during those turbulent days.

    General Adebayo came to Ibadan and met a very divided and bitter Yoruba people who were at war with each other because of debilitating and acute political differences. Many people believed rightly or wrongly that the destructive political crisis in the West in the early sixties precipitated the coup of 1966. The first task of General Adebayo in Western State was to make efforts to unite the badly divided people of the state. He brought into his cabinet the opposing political tendencies in the state. In the cabinet, he had people like Dauda Adegbenro, Bola Ige. Michael Omisade, Olabisi Onabanjo, and  Joel Babatola who were  staunch supporters of Chief Obafemi Awolowo  who had just then been released from prison by General Gowon. The other political spectrum in the state was represented by Victor Olunloyo, Alade Lamuye and Kola Balogun who had sympathy for Chief S. L. Akintola, the last premier of the region.

    In order to further bring the people together, he started regular meetings of those he dubbed as ‘Leaders of Thought’ which were made up of Yoruba academicians, leading Yoruba leaders in business and religion and other notable groups in the state. He used his uncanny amiable personality and love for social life to douse tensions among various groups in the state. His efforts brought peace to warring Yoruba academicians at the University of Ibadan over the issue of the appointment of vice chancellor of that institution. He also helped to douse the tension generated in the appointment of non-indigene as the Bishop of Ibadan diocese of Anglican Communion. Despite his spirited efforts to bring peace and unite the Yoruba people during the turbulent period of Nigerian history, many people felt that he was not even-handed especially after he made sure that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the titanic political leader of that time was made the Leader of the Yoruba People. General Adebayo faced many political problems during his tenure and the notable of these were the farmers’ revolt popularly referred to as the Agbekoya crisis of 1968-1969 and the seemingly intractable problem of appointing a new Alafin of Oyo to succeed Oba Ladigbolu. He faced up to these problems and his decisions on these two issues alienated him from the then political giants in the state, but he stood his ground and history had proved that he made the right decisions in solving the two problems.

    In addition to his peace efforts, his tenure could be credited with laudable achievements.  General Adebayo’s regime did everything possible for the take-off of the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University. His government provided huge sum of money for the university to move to his permanent site at Ile Ife. Unfortunately for inexplicable reason, the university did not honour the late General for his efforts and foresight on the university in his life time. General Adebayo will be remembered for the introduction of ‘cottage hospitals’ which brought medical facilities to rural communities. New water works were established in many parts of the state during his tenure. His government established Western State Court of Appeal. New working hours for the civil servants which is now being used throughout the country was introduced by him in Western State. Armed robbery menace was curbed during his time with the promulgation of the Robbery (Summary Trial and Punishment Edict of 1967) which stipulated life sentence for armed robbers. This life sentence was later changed to death penalty as a result of Federal decree. To ensure safety on the road, his government established the Road Safety Corps. To promote agricultural research, his government established the Institute of Agricultural Research at Moor Plantation

    One of the unforgettable legacies of General Adebayo in Yorubaland was the massive recruitment of the Yoruba into the military and Police during his time. Hitherto, the Yoruba people had been poorly represented in these forces and this had serious implication on the security of the people. This large recruitment made the Yoruba to contribute meaningfully to war to keep Nigeria one and helped the race from being derided by others as cowards and lovers of easy life.

    The tenure of General Adeyinka Adebayo in Western State came to an end on April 2, 1971 having served for five tumultuous years (1966-1971). After his stint as the Military Governor of Western State, he was appointed as Commandant of Nigerian Defence Academy between 1971 and 1972. He ended his military career in July 1972 after serving in ceremonial military duties between 1972 and 1975. All in all he served the military for 27 years.

    After his military career, General Adebayo threw his hat into political arena. He was one of the founders of National Party of Nigeria and was one of the vice chairmen of the party until the military took over power in December 1983. Many people felt that the General’s participation in politics was unedifying. Later in 2011 with age on his side, he joined the late Venerable Alayande to form Yoruba Council of Elders which was supposed to be an umbrella organization for all Yoruba persons irrespective of political leaning. This was to counter the Afenifere group which was known to have political preference.

    General Adebayo would be remembered throughout the country for the role he played as a voice of reason during the bloody crisis that engulfed the country between 1966 and 1970. In the old Western State, he would be remembered as somebody who united the Yoruba people to have one voice during the perilous period of Nigerian history between 1966 and 1970.  In governing the Yoruba people, Adebayo used his warm personality and jollity to douse tensions among the people. He related to people very well and attended many social functions, although some of his detractors criticized him for over-doing this and gave him the nick name of ‘ O wa nbe’. Nobody is perfect. General Adebayo had his weaknesses and he made some mistakes like any leader but the General loved the Yoruba people  and did his best to lift up the morale of the people after debacle and bitterness of the early sixties. It can be said that on any rational scale, only Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Ladoke Akintola could take precedence over General Adebayo in the contribution to the development of Yoruba race. It is a pity that political intrigues and to some extent minor personal flaw prevented him from being accorded his deserved honour to be crowned as the leader of the Yoruba, a position he deserved after the demise of Chief Awolowo.

    May his soul rest in perfect peace.

     

    • Prof Lucas, a retired don, writes from University of Ibadan.

  • The “Yorùbá” Nation and “Omolúwàbí” renaming proposal

    I have never hidden the fact that I am a proud Yoruba person who appreciates the cultural richness of the Yoruba people. For instance, I have been fascinated, right from my youth, about the accommodating capacity and the republican pedigree of the Yoruba and how this was demonstrated within the tiny geographical confines of Aáwé.

    This, in a manner that brings to light the seamless interwoven matrix that Ali Mazrui calls Africa’s ‘triple heritage’ of the traditional, the Islamic and the Judeo-Christian. I have a strong belief that my ecumenical temperament derives from the Yoruba upbringing at Aáwé which enabled me to sample the best of Islam, Christianity and traditional cultural manifestations. My grandfather was a Christian, my grandmother a Moslem, and Aáwé was solidly traditional.

    It was therefore possible for me to connect with my Moslem cousins during Ramadan, attend church and appreciate the cultural essence of the Egungun festival. This my fascination with the Yoruba culture has grown over time, sufficiently enough for me to follow avidly its underpinnings in the unfolding of Yoruba politics, development and progress within the confines of Nigeria.

    I am equally patriotic a Nigerian enough not to be assailed by the possibility of a dissonance between my Yoruba beingness and my nationality as a Nigeria. On the contrary, I am actually convinced that the Yoruba and their Southwest configuration have a significant role to play in the transformation of the Nigerian governance framework.

    All my arguments for reform and restructuring have been directed towards enunciating this conviction of the indivisible relationship between the Yoruba and the future of Nigeria. Recently, I have reflected on the future of the Yoruba in Nigeria.

    This is why I became extremely interested and intellectually tickled when I heard a beautiful Ewi poetry recitation by Pastor Adekunle Steven Adedeji, popularly known as Kunle Omo Alaafin Orun. Anyone hearing this poetry rendition, especially the first lines, and not familiar with the oeuvre of Omo Alaafin Orun would immediately put him in the same patriotic context with the great Ewi exponent, Lanrewaju Adepoju. That comparison would be both right and wrong.

    It would be right because the recitation has the same scintillating vocal acrobatic flowing from a magisterial mastery of the Yoruba language, idioms and proverbs.

    The comparison is equally right because both ewi poets are concerned with the state and future of the Yoruba people. But the comparison breaks down immediately the rendition proceeds to a certain point and it becomes obvious that Kunle Omo Alaafin Orun is a Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) pastor.

    This is not a bad thing at all. In fact, it just makes the poetry rendition all the more intriguing and compelling. It is a mesmerizing oral poem that demands reflection through its sonorous weaving of Yoruba history, research, Christian theology and Yoruba cultural evolution. In summary, Omo Alaafin Orun makes a case for an urgent change of name from “Yoruba” to “Omoluwabi.”

    He then went on to weave a historical trajectory that places the Yoruba at a Coptic juncture which made Yoruba historical origin entirely Christian, and the justification for a renaming. Omo Alaafin Orun commences the poetry rendition with an elegant but insistent account of his research which, according to him, not only revealed that the concept of “Yoruba” did not emanate from the Yoruba themselves but is a name external to us. But more importantly, his research supposedly revealed that the term “Yoruba” came from a Hausa corruption—Yariba, as a shorter form of Yaribanza or a “bastard” or “sons of bastard.”

    This corrupted name has stayed with us for all of history, and, for him, has become responsible for our ill-fortune for that long too. The case is simple: a name is potent because it seems to outline a person’s or community’s destiny. The Yoruba have a very strong belief in destiny, predestination and the significance of names and naming. Thus, the name a person bears becomes a signifier of the person’s lot in life.

    Thus, if a person’s lot in life has become terrible, one of the first places to commence a corrective measure is the name the person bears.

    A properly researched history of the Yoruba, he argues, provides a different trajectory that could lead to the upturning of the Yoruba lot and transform our fortune as a people who have been blessed not only with a deep cultural heritage but who also have a deep and hitherto unknown connection to the God of Christianity.

    The proper history of the Yoruba, according to Kunle Omo Alaafin Orun, did not begin in Mecca. In fact, that revisionist tendency has an ideological content that is meant to exploit the Yoruba within an Arab/Islamic hegemony. On the contrary, the Yoruba migrated from Nubia via Egypt where they were integrated into a Coptic Christian practice left by St. Mark of the Gospel. The worship of the Orisa that now seems to mark Yoruba religion, for him, was a function of having lost the way and the light of Christianity when historical adversity drove the Yoruba from Nubia.

    There is a possibility that this historically serious and theologically insistent poetry rendition could be dismissed by a lot of people. In fact, it was that dismissive and derisive tone that jumpstarted the long list of comments on the Ewi video on YouTube. But then derision is the wrong way to respond to such a carefully thought out appeal and admonition.

    First, we need to get a clear picture of the message Kunle Omo Alaafin Orun threw out to us all: It seems we have been looking in the wrong places for the source of the Yoruba predicament. Why should we not consider the source of our name? And this is an inquiry that is consistent with Yoruba ontology too, especially with regards to names and destiny.

    A similar account of the Yoruba came from the allegation that Alaafin Aole placed a curse on the Yorùbá race. Why is this diagnosis and recommendation worse than that other? And this one came with a recommendation: Changing our name from Yoruba to Omoluwabi. This is a revolutionary recommendation, more so that it is linked to a theological background in Christianity. But this is not less inspiring even if it is spurious.

    My response is: What’s in a name? In what specific senses does a name or naming constitute a signpost to destiny and predestination? What causal effect does name achieve especially as the Christian bible suggest of Abram/Abraham, Jacob/Isreal or of Jabez renaming? To be mischievous, in what sense did the name “Wole Soyinka”, within the Christian or Yoruba thinking, contribute to the impeding or enhancing of Soyinka’s fame and fortune? My suspicion is that the Yoruba condition is deeper than a concern with the name we were given.

    If truly the name originated from an external ethnic caricature, then at the least, we owe ourselves the responsibility of tuning that caricature around. And that would be a really ironic success because a “bastard” would then have become a socioeconomic and political powerhouse in Nigeria. The way to get about this is not to change our name to Omoluwabi as if the mere fact of nomenclature is sufficient to transform centuries of economic and political anomalies.

    Omolúwàbí is an ethical term that denotes someone whose character is so noteworthy that it becomes a reference for the entire community. The greater challenge than naming is the task of demanding the imperative of Omoluwabi from the Yoruba leadership in a manner that will reflect on the visioning the Yoruba nation require to surge forward. Omolúwàbí has an underlying reform component. Robert Ingersoll, the American lawyer has this to say about Abraham Lincoln:

    “Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone—no ancestors, no fellows, no successors.” The same can be said about Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. In the Yoruba ethical parlance, these are Omoluwabi leaders. But being an Omoluwabi comes with what Goethe calls “a never ending song”:

    “Deny Yourself!” Denial is where the creation of the Omoluwabi personality comes from, and it is essentially the denial of oneself on behalf of others, especially those with whom one has significant connection, be it of family, ethnic, gender, cultural or nationality. Noblesse oblige: Mandela gave 27 years of his life to ensure that South Africa has a chance to undermine the apartheid racial system. Lee Kuan Yew gave up the urge for greed and primitive accumulation to build a strong and modern Singapore.

    Abraham Lincoln dedicated his entire legacy to keeping the United States united and stronger. As a reform strategy, the Omoluwabi paradigm is especially demanded on the Yoruba leaders of thoughts and politicians in Nigeria today. And we have the great example of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a politician, who has a great reform mind and cultural sensitivity that enabled him to raise the bar of governance in the old Western Region.

    The question then is: What is the reform import of demanding that the Yoruba governors of the Southwest become Omoluwabi? It is the unfolding of this question in Yorubaland that carries the burden of the transformation of the Yoruba people and all our expectations in Nigeria. I have argued before now that the Southwest constitutes a reform zone that carries the possibility of energising the restructuring of the Nigerian state.

    And that puts a lot of responsibilities on the Yoruba governors, its critical elite corps, not minding whether they are PDP or APC or of non-governmental sectors. Unfortunately, this is an imperative we do not seem to have taken to heart yet.

    •Continued online

    •Dr. Tunji Olaopa, Executive Vice-Chairman Ibadan School of Government & Public Policy (ISGPP) tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng; tolaopa2003@gmail.com