I had waited anxiously for reactions from well-meaning Yoruba people to the meeting held by Yoruba traditional rulers, governors of the south-western states and their political leaders not long ago, but my long waiting was all in vain.
I had waited anxiously for reactions from well-meaning Yoruba people to the meeting held by Yoruba traditional rulers, governors of the south-western states and their political leaders not long ago, but my long waiting was all in vain.
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To be honest, I do not in any way consider myself a tribal or ethnic jingoist or chauvinist. Nevertheless, I felt people should have commented on this august meeting of these Yoruba leaders. I was really disturbed that there were no serious reactions, at least in our national dailies to the resolutions reached at the end of the meeting.
The apparent lack of reaction to their resolutions could be as a result of two things: that Yoruba people did not take them seriously. This is a terrible position to contemplate namely that the Yorubas who are deeply rooted in a culture that has a pride of place for their traditional rulers will simply ignore what they have said as a waste of time. The second option is that, maybe they totally agree with the royal fathers to the extent that any further reaction will be repeating the obvious. I know this will not be true of all Yoruba people since they value objectivity a lot. Let me quickly note that I was not surprised not to find the Governor of Lagos, the Oba of Lagos and fellow royal fathers from Lagos State in attendance. Fashola should learn from what happened to the AD governors in 2003.
He should know that the eye of the PDP is still on Lagos with the intent of capturing it. To join that crowd for any meeting no matter how well-intentioned is to be asking for trouble. I must not fail to express my disappointment that this meeting was not convoked to discuss some serious welfare concerns in Yorubaland like building independent power states for the south-west states, water supply, providing employment, investment drive, education, giving good and corruption-free leadership and so on. I guess these are not serious issues as far as they are concerned. One is not really against any meeting that might help the aspirations of the Yoruba people and by extension that of the Nigerian people. This should be a welcome development any day. However, it will not be out of place to note that this meeting is coming too late. Before any meaningful meeting can take place most especially at the instance of the traditional rulers, there is the need for them to tidy up their past and even their present since without a rigorous understanding and appraisal of the past and the present, the future will not be as promising as it should be. To go back into Yoruba history, Obas were next in rank to God. They could almost do no wrong. They had a lot of power and influence vested in them by virtue of the very office they occupy. But should a king abuse his power or lose his esteem before the public, there are checks and balances in place to take care of him. This means that in spite of the immense power of the king in Yorubaland, there are traditional institutions and measures to deter or control him. It is a pity that we are beginning to lose these important elements of our culture and tradition. Heart-warming to see is the fact that the Yoruba obas also met with the governors of the south-west who are, to all intents and purposes their great benefactors. I consider the South-west governors so close to the obas that this article could have been titled ‘PDP Obas and their sermon from Ibadan.’ In my view, what I consider as top in their agenda was to canvass for Yoruba unity and stop Obasanjo bashing. To begin with, Yoruba disunity has been a topic of serious concern since the sixties if not earlier than then. The internecine wars in Yorubaland is a clear demonstration of this fact. Also, when Ogunde enjoined the Yoruba race to think in ‘Yoruba Ronu’, he was not crying wolf when there was none around. Instead of getting better, sadly, the problem became pronounced as time went on. At the moment, it has reached astronomic proportions. Worse still, our obas are as divided as we are with obas exchanging verbal missiles and trading accusations openly. If we still go back to our recent history, 1993 was a year great significance for Nigeria but also the Yoruba people. A Yoruba man won an election that was adjudged by national and international observers as being free and fair. It was indeed historic because he broke all the barriers of ethnic politics which has been a major impediment to national unity for so long. But what happened? While Nigerians were fighting and crying foul, the Ooni of Ife and his entourage went to visit Babangida. When he came out, his language changed. Hear him “we now know better, we are going to explain to our people.” This was the first trading away of Abiola’s victory by a major figure in Yorubaland. He literally took the wind of the sail of Abiola’s victory at a very crucial moment. Whether he was settled by the evil genius to buy his own version of the devilish action or not is not the issue. He simply acted against the spirit of fairness and justice. He sold out. It was such a disappointing statement. What do these Obas do these days? They chase contracts here and there, solicit for cars and other gifts from governors and by so doing compromising their impartial and non-partisan status. It is not likely that people who perceive an oba as being sympathetic to a particular political party will trust him or the motive behind his actions. Yoruba obas have not lived above board as to demand or deserve respect and compliance from Yoruba people. Only recently, some traditional rulers in Ondo state wanted to go and pay solidarity visit to Governor Agagu who lost at the tribunal. It is sad that they have not sensitive enough to know that their action is highly divisive. Going to the governor is an indication that they are sympathetic to his cause. But what if he loses at the appeal court? In that case, they will have to make a u-turn. During the recent ill-fated 2007 elections, some traditional rulers in Yorubaland did not only allow people to rig in their palaces for some political parties, they actually supervised the rigging. Some were even caught on camera. In which case, these obas are partisan to the extent of flouting the laws of the land. Just recently, the Alafin and the Alake of Egbaland have been at war over the sack of a certain Iyalode of Egbaland whom the Alafin is intending to make the Iyalode of Yorubaland. I do not know who gave the Alafin the prerogative to do this. In what way is the Alafin the head of the Yoruba people as presently constituted? If these two who were present at this meeting could spite each other in such an open way, we all should be in no doubt that Yoruba unity will elude us for a long time to come. Whether or not the Yoruba people will unite and take their rightful place within the Nigerian commonwealth will depend on whether their leaders are ready to show good example and give good and purposeful leadership. The second resolution that was reached at this meeting was that all forms of Obasanjo bashing must stop. This is definitely a joke. If they are proud of Obasanjo for wasting eight years of our lives, we are not. If they think that Obasanjo was a good leader, we clearly disagree. If the man sent them on this mission, I thought they should have been honest with him by simply telling him it is mission impossible. When this same Obasanjo was running riot all over Nigeria, what did these rulers do about curbing his excesses? When he was killing, maiming, insulting, stealing and behaving like a dictator from hell, who among this Kings called him to order? If they did not do anything to reprimand him when he was acting like a loose canon, what right have they to tell us now not to exercise our freedom of speech?
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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