SIR: The on-going debate on the marginalisation of the Yorubas in the present socio-political set up in Nigeria does not hold water for us third generation of Yorubas. In fact I feel that the first and second generation Yorubas are more of our problems compared with other tribes in Nigeria.
The first generation are the pre-independence leaders, led by Chief Awolowo, who failed to see that the Yorubas should have been a nation on its own without the drawback syndrome that the other tribes exhibited and are still exhibiting. Their longing for power at a bigger centre blinded them to the open fact that their co-sojourners in the contraption called Nigeria are not compatible with their progressive ideas. While one major group saw education as a continuity of the colonial and religious oppression, the other did not see how it will add to their profit in their line of business. Thus the first generation sold a bright future of an entire people and bedded with incompatible bedfellows.
The second generation led by Chief Obasanjo, are completely bereft of ideas on how local politics are played. They pretended to be more Catholic than the Pope. It is Nigeria first before the Yorubas while the others think of their own people first before Nigeria. The Obasanjo group did everything to please the other tribes while their own people wallowed in abject neglect and humiliation. But for the so called federal character, the Yorubas would not be holding one single reasonable position in the federal set up today.
Chief Obasanjo spent eight years as President but failed to complete the expressway going to his farm and town not to talk of completing the Lagos-Ibadan/Ibadan–Ilorin roads that were awarded by his predecessor, a non-Yoruba. Under him, his Minister of Works, Tony Anenih constructed a bypass to decongest Benin City traffic while Mukhtari Shagari – his Minister of Agriculture/Water Resources littered the North-west with boreholes.
Recently, the Minister of Aviation sacked all the directors in FAAN – six of them Yorubas and replaced them with her own people. The last Minister of Power, Prof Nnaji promoted and placed a lot of PHCN staff during his short stay in office. Over 70% of the beneficiaries are his kinsmen. Take a census of all the key officers in key positions in the PHCN successor companies and one will be amazed at how the Yorubas have lost out.
Once upon a time, the so called Awolowo disciples are respected and when they spoke others listened. But as soon as they won the battle to install a Yoruba man as President after Chief MKO Abiola’s humiliation, they went to sleep. They thought they have won the entire battle for the Yorubas. What followed was the selling of the South-west to the anti-progressive elements and another four years of set-back for the Yorubas.
The only Yoruba leader that attracts some grudging respect from the other tribes in Nigeria today is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but he too must stop acting as if he has done everything for the Yorubas in re-taking the South West from the anti-progressive groups. He should start fighting for positions and better share of the national cake for his own people at the federal level.
The attitude of the Yorubas in key positions at the national level must change to reflect the Nigerian realities and politics. Our political attitude and decisions must be reciprocal and we must stop the ‘holier than thou’ strategies that benefit other tribes at the expense of our own people. If not, our children will become third class citizens in this country.
• Chief Omolade Olanihun
Ala Quarters, Akure
