The agitation for Yoruba Nation hit on the rock as boys display drama at Ibadan
Is there any need for Yoruba Nation especially when a Yoruba man is the current President of Nigeria?
The news of Yoruba Nation got to a climax last week when some ragtag young boys and girls tried to act some piece of drama in Ibadan under the influence of charms and diabolical means.
When I saw the news alert on social media, I thought they were rehearsing Professor Wole Soyinka’s attempted take over of Radio House, Ibadan in a daring move to prove a point of political capture in the 60s. In another amateur videos, I saw some of the youths in military fatigue, some of them wearing what seems like charms as officers of the Nigeria Police tried to ridicule their belief that they were “heavily” fortified. I heard one voice saying; government is beyond charms. “How come you couldn’t vanish”.
Some were wearing singlets that may probably have been soaked in some concoction with the believe that they have become impregnable. All the noise, I understand, was about the Yoruba Nation being orchestrated by some tactless, spineless, clueless, jobless and attention seeking characters who are using Yoruba Nation to fleece certain persons, especially the Diasporians.
I saw later on social media, one Dupe Onitiri-Abiola, saying she was now the President of the Yoruba Nation; a Lady whose only identity is being one of the numerous wives of late business mogul, M.K.O Abiola. Beyond the name of Abiola, she’s a nobody. And I really don’t think the sophistication of the Yoruba race should be reduced to the ridiculous politics of Dupe Onitiri and her ilk.
We keep hearing of separatist movements here and there, but a lot of them have been reduced to jobs for the boys, extorting money from unsuspecting members of the public to sustain a struggle with no destination. Whatever the separatist groups are asking for, a lot of them are captured within the democratic highway, if we can apply little pluck, we can achieve the whole essence of restructuring without splitting hair. If the Yoruba people really want to go their own way, a Dupe Onitiri would not be the trail-blazer or arrow-head. She’s eternally ill-prepared to lead a struggle that would birth a Yoruba Nation, not at a time, that a Nigerian of Yoruba descent is President of the country. Before him, Chief Obasanjo has been president at different times in the historical evolution of the country. They’ve also had a Vice- President in Yemi Osibanjo.
In comparative terms, given Nigeria’s geopolitical emanations, the Yorubas have not done badly. They have contributed immensely to the growth and development of Nigeria, and they must be commended for being part of a process that have woven the country’s strings together in the name of unity. A friend had expressed worry that this move by Dupe Onitiri and co may have been masterminded by President Tinubu, but my immediate response was that, President Tinubu does not fight proxy wars.
He comes out fully to confront the system if he feels so enamoured about an issue. He fought in the open to secure this democracy. He came out openly to champion opposition politics that ushered in the APC to the consternation of the then ruling party, the PDP. So, anybody.who tries to link President Tinubu to this nonsensical discourse of Yoruba Nation is just a joker. It is not to suggest that all the issues they raised should be discountenanced.
The point is that, under democracy, through robust discourse, dialogue and conversation, a lot could be achieved without much ado. The fundamental thing that must be addressed and perhaps restructured has to do with corruption. Political corruption, social corruption, structural corruption and many other corruptions are the reasons why the country is still rotating on the same axis.
We need to address our attitudes both collectively and individually. We need to look at people’s craze for materialism and wealth acquisition. We need to address the critical burden which corruption places on our national wealth and how much of nationalistic patriotism we are ready to dispense with to deepen national conversation. If the Yorubas really want a dismembered Nigeria, the approach will not follow this crude and brutish approach. They will bring intellectual dimension to the whole struggle, different from the present noisy approach of the present agitators.
Nigeria has potentials to grow bigger and healthier if we can address the issue of corruption and attitude. What we really need to tackle head-on is corruption and all the associated vices around financial malfeasance. The real problem confronting Nigeria is the prevalence of corruption and sharp practices which create injustice, disparity and crass materialism. The second most wanted resource is rule of law. Our laws are often defined by status of the individual. Law ought to be a leveler for all citizens no matter how highly or lowly placed. Law ought not to be a respecter of anyone, but in Nigeria, the reverse is the case. Corruption has affected the psychology and practice of law. What those Yoruba Nation agitators should be asking for is how to mitigate the incidences of corruption and make governance more altruistic, productive and rewarding for the greater majority of Nigeria. Once we are able to reform the system to an extent that it becomes difficult for a Permanent Secretary to steal N200b from public coffers, the better it will be for our nation. Our institutions are weak in the hands of those who operate them. Favouritism, cronyism, selective amnesia, ethnic chauvinism and nepotism are some of the prevailing inhibitions to charting a clear-cut roadmap for a result-driven system that would be fair to all.
Those Yoruba Nation actors and their sponsors should devote greater attention on how to reduce corruption and take it away from.our body politic. It has continued to fester in our governance process and held us down so abysmally that what ought to be shared amongst the collective is stolen by a handful. We need serious and urgent intervention in our way of life. We need attitudinal re-orientation of minds, feelings, perceptions, perspectives, nationalism, patriotism and character in dealing with public relationships, to reducing the pervasive nature of our corruption. Even if you dismember Nigeria into three or more dominant countries, the issue of corruption will still dominate public discourse. Restructuring, no matter how compelling it appears to be, is not our real challenge. A restructured Nigeria will amount to postponing the evil day, or restructuring corruption to assume a different dimension. We must therefore talk to ourselves, our younger generations, the youths, the leaders, and the citizenry to be in sync with their civic responsibilities and obligations towards building a healthy, less corrupt society. Corruption is at the heart of most agitations in Nigeria. Ask the current Yoruba Nation agitators to present their audited account of all they’ve received from their sponsors and supporters, you are likely going to ruffle feathers. A struggle of this nature has to be ideologically based, and run on certain irreducible minimum in terms of character, principles and doctrines.
Those who carried guns in the name of taking over a constituted authority in Oyo state already know they’ve committed a crime. Democracy is a huge opportunity to engage the people and interrogate processes. Trying to torpedo an elected government in Oyo state by those “shakabula”, pump-action guns in the face of current lethal sophistication, is not just ridiculous and laughable, it gave away those who are behind this onslaught as mere loafers. We must get serious in generating ideas that would help build our nation for the overall good of our people. We must fight corruption at both public and private levels, and exhibit patriotic behaviour that would satiate national appetite for growth and development. We need productivity to.grow our nation. We need healthy conversation and dialogue to address several nagging questions, but we surely don’t need Dupe Onitiri and her co-travellers to distract us from attending to the real challenges facing us. If she needs rehabilitation, I trust President Tinubu will do the needful. Let Nigeria be, so that we can collectively galvanise our positive energies for the common good.
