Isokan Yoruba Magazine,
Fall 1996/Winter 1997 , Volume III No. I, Page 7.
Editorial
According to Yoruba history, by the time the British came to colonize and subjugate Yorubaland first to itself and later to the Fulani of Northern Nigeria, the Yoruba were getting ready to recover from what is popularly known as the Yoruba Civil War. One of the lessons of the internecine Yoruba wars was the opening of Yorubaland to Fulani hegemony whose major interest was the imposition of sultanistic despotism on Old Oyo Ile and present-day Ilorin. The most visible consequence of this was the adding of almost one-fifth of Yorubaland from Offa to Old Oyo to Kabba to the then Northern Nigeria of Lord Frederick Lugard and the subsequent subjugation of this portion of Yorubaland under the control of Fulani feudalism.
Almost two hundred years later, the Yoruba people - especially those living in the comfort of Europe and America - have not forgotten the culture of international wars of self-destruction that allows external predators to wax stronger by the day. Recently, in the United States, many Yoruba people have been looking for reasons to replay the civil-war syndrome by fomenting troubles that can divide the Yoruba people into rival organizations for reasons that include pleasing agents of the military junta in Nigeria despite the junta's illegal detention of Chief Moshood Abiola for winning a free and fair election in 1993; Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Mr. Femi Falana, Mr. Kunle Ajibade, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, and others for openly identifying with the call for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria.
Given the traditional attachment of the Yoruba
to democratic principles and values - most graphically
illustrated by the tradition of unseating and exiling Obas who
have lost the confidence of the people - it is not unusual for
Yoruba people to be found on all sides of an issue, but it is a
false justification for people to argue, as some highly educated
Yoruba men in the United States have done recently at a meeting
in Washington, that Yoruba organizations should be demonized for
discussing the political problems facing Yoruba men and women in
today's Nigeria.
Many Yoruba men and women in the Washington
area and other metropolitan areas surprisingly believe that
Yoruba associations should be strictly cultural or limited to
picnic groups that must place a taboo on the discussion of the
political well-being of the Yoruba within the framework of
today's Nigeria. Several of such people expect to be taken with
seriousness for what can only be an excuse for the endorsement of
a system that has brutalized the psyche of millions of Yoruba
people since the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election.
Nationality groups or so-called ethnic associations, such as
YORUBA GROUPS, IGBO ASSOCIATIONS, MOSOP, IBIBIO UNIONS, TIV
ASSOCIATION, ZUMUNTA GROUP OF NORTHERN NIGERIA, BACHAMA UNIONS,
etc., are capable of providing a proper space for the discussion
of the problems facing the Nigerian federation today. Pretending
that the Yoruba people have no problems in Nigeria or that the
annulment and the subsequent incarceration of several Yoruba
leaders do not require special considerations at Yoruba meetings
is to play the Ostrich that hides its head in the sand to avoid
confronting its reality.
Afterall, Yoruba sycophants at home who are
paid for assisting the dictatorship in the repression of their
people are honest enough to be seen in the open with tyrants.
Yoruba people who are making a living in the free political and
economic space made possible by Americans and Europeans should
not "call a dog a monkey" for their fellow countrymen
and women. Those who want to serve as overseas operatives for
laundering the image of the dictatorship in Nigeria should desist
from forming Yoruba organizations to do so. The junta at present
needs lick-spittles from all Nigerian nationalities more
desperately than before to make the current process of
civilianizing military rule possible. Those of us who want to be
so employed should go as individuals without dragging the name of
Yoruba people into the mud with them. If Nigeria is to pull out
of its current stalemate as a unified nation, it is the
responsibility of right-thinking people all over the world to
encourage each Nigerian cultural or ethnic organization to start
serious discussions of its place in the scheme of things in
today's Nigeria. This position is more rational and more honest
than to engage in subterranean campaigns that Yoruba associations
or any other national associations should not discuss politics.
As Yoruba people in Nigeria and other parts of
West Africa are still hurting from the last Yoruba civil war,
this is no time for any group in Washington or London to commence
intragroup verbal warfare within the rank of Yoruba people who
believe that it is a democratic right of any national group in
Nigeria to engage in searching for solutions to the problems
foisted on the nation by Abacha's junta since 1993. Those Yoruba
who find fulfillment in serving as cheerleaders for corruption
and tyranny in Nigeria must remember that other Yoruba people
have a right to imagine a better future for their children and
grandchildren. Aabo oro la n so f'omoluwabi; bo ba d'enu
re, a d'odiidi.
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