Your favorite Yoruba magazine in the Diaspora wishes delegates to the fifth Yoruba Convention well as they prepare for what may very well be the most important meeting of patriotic Yoruba sons and daughters on the future of the West African Yoruba since the decision of the Western Region of Nigeria in the 1950s to seek self-government from Britain.

The Houston congress, the second in the state of Dallas within four years, represents the fifth national conference of Yoruba descendants in North America. This confab also represents the second Yoruba summit in two years, following the first summit in London in 1996. As patriotic Yoruba men and women from all over the world gather in Houston, (a city that thrives in the environment of America’s democratic culture that allows for the release of the developmental energies of its citizens), it is necessary to remind them of some of the wise sayings of our people: ORO PUPO, IRO NII MU WA (the equivalent of the English saying: TALK IS CHEAP).

At the inception of the Egbe Omo Yoruba (Association of Yoruba Descendants in North America), the dominant idea on mission formulation was the unity of Yoruba people in the neo or second Diaspora. Since the Dallas meeting, the unification of the Yoruba has remained very high on the list of talk items at subsequent conventions. The rhetoric of unity has almost eclipsed the purpose for which unity is sought while the tyrannical destruction in Nigeria of Yoruba economic, social, and political progress has gained in momentum and intensity.

Since the last convention in Colorado, the crisis of development foisted on the Yoruba nationality has been aggravated by the politics of feudalism and militarism in Nigeria. The military dictatorship that benefited from the annulment of the presidential elections of 1993 has waxed stronger by increasing the intensity and coverage of its violation of the human and cultural rights of Yoruba people.

As we write, the winner of the freest and fairest election in Nigeria’s history, Chief M.K.O. Abiola (a Yoruba), is still in jail without trial. Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti (a Yoruba) is serving jail term after a kangaroo trial for receiving a fax message! General (Rtd) Olusegun Obasanjo (a Yoruba) is presently in jail after an improper trial for what appears to be a trumped-up charge for treason. Others like Kunle Ajibade, Fadile, Akinyemi, etc., are serving jail sentences after a rushed trial in a special extrajudicial court. Other prominent Yoruba, such as Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Abraham Adesanya, and several others are sent in and out of jail by Nigeria’s dictator without charges.

Between the Colorado convention and now, Kudirat Abiola, Suliat Adedeji, (Yoruba women) and Chief Alfred Rewane (an Itshekiri-Yoruba) were gunned down by mysterious forces, and their murderers have not been identified by the ever-vigilant Security Forces of the junta in Nigeria. Chief Abraham Adesanya’s life had been attempted by forces similar to those that killed Kudirat Abiola.

Most recently, the wives and daughters of Yoruba men suspected by the dictatorship as showing pro-democracy inclinations were arrested and put in jail without charges. Mrs. Sabinah Iluyomade and her daughter, Folasade Iluyomade are currently languishing in jail. Mrs. Ladi Olorunyomi, the wife of Dapo Olorunyomi, chased into exile by Abacha’s security forces for pro-democracy activist reporting, is being kept in an unknown jail by Abacha’s men.

As convention delegates read this editorial, fourteen Yoruba men are being accused and tried for treason in the emasculated court of Abacha’s brand of justice. The man who brought glory and honor to Nigeria through Africa’s first Nobel Prize, Wole Soyinka, has been asked by the Nigerian junta to be hanged for "attempts to overthrow" Abacha’s military dictatorship. Others include top professionals and politicians such as General (Rtd) Alani Akinrinade, one of the best soldiers that ever attended Sandhurst from outside of the United Kingdom; Chief Olu Falae, a former Minister of Finance and a presidential candidate under Babangida’s regime; Dr. Frederick Fasehun. a top medical researcher and also a presidential aspirant during the last regime; and several others. Chief Anthony Enahoro, the father of Nigeria’s independence, is also being presented for a death sentence at one of Abacha’s courts.

Since the last meeting of the Yoruba in Colorado, retirements in the Nigerian Navy, Air Force, Army, and other security agencies have been used to purge these sectors of the most seasoned Yoruba soldiers and professionals. This is in addition to the mysterious murder of Rear Admiral Elegbede (a Yoruba). In the face of all these, intelligent Yoruba people are bound to ask: ELERI KI L’ETUN N WA?

Fellow descendants of Oduduwa! the Houston Summit cannot afford to ignore the policies of the military dictator to kill the spirit of Yoruba people by covering the Yoruba space with an army of occupation composed of Fulani, Hausa, and Kanuri personnel. It is rather too late to continue to play the Ostrich by denying the gravity of the systematic and strategic destruction of the Yoruba by Fulani-Hausa-Kanuri dominated army. Now that the generality of our people writhe in the pain of silence foisted upon them by military coercion, the patriotic Yoruba men and women that are to assemble in Houston must not fail to take the historic decision that the time and circumstances of repression and domination demand.

Yoruba conferees must also not forget that there are Yoruba collaborators within and outside Nigeria presently working as active fieldworkers for forces bent on destroying what they call the Yoruba advantage: educational development, economic aggressiveness, geographical superiority. A time that the Sahara desert is encroaching on the residual savannah is not a time for right-thinking forest people like the Yoruba to take these so-called advantages for granted. Now that there is one Seriki N’Sasa in Ibadan who literally competes with the Olubadan for visibility, Yoruba delegates must accept the proverbial injunctions: OJU LA’LAKAN FI N SORI and TARA ENI LAA KO L’ESUSU.

Delegates to the Houston convention must remember that there are hundreds of Yoruba boys and girls resident in Europe and America who are in the pay of the military junta in Nigeria to fan the embers of disunity among the Yoruba and thus divert attention away from the strategic repression of the Yoruba by the present military dictatorship. Delegates are enjoined to use their inner and outer eyes to sift the wheat from the chaff and resist the rhetoric of diversion that may be brought to the convention hall. 

As patriotic men and women from all over the world deliberate on issues that affect them and the future of their children, let no man or woman put the desire for becoming an officer before the mission for which officers are to be elected. Let us deliberate carefully and courageously on the crisis that frustrates our people at home and, by implication, abroad. The future of technological and industrial advancement does not lie in a feudalistic domination of the space of the Yoruba by an ethno-military cabal or its Yoruba collaborators. Rather, progress can only come from our ability to do correct diagnosis of the root cause of the abortion of Yoruba development, started by our remote and immediate ancestors who built cities and institutions that make a culture of productivity a normal expectation from every Yoruba child. Once the diagnosis is correct, only cowards or idiots will prefer to err in the identification of solutions.

Once more, Isokan Yoruba Magazine wishes Oduduwa sons and daughters at the Houston convention and those waiting to hear news of their deliberations correct mission identification and functions articulation. For a new executive committee to impact on the Yoruba experience, now at its lowest ebb in a century, it must not be left with a program of unity without a goal.