Isokan Yoruba Magazine, Fall 1996/Winter 1997 , Volume III No. I, Page 10.
Interview between Dapo Olorunyomi and Professor Ropo Sekoni, Isokan Yoruba's President.

D.O: Let me start this interview by congratulating you for recently assuming the leadership of this prestigious and, perhaps, most controversial Yoruba Organization outside of Nigeria.

R.S: You should have wished me good luck, considering the inimitable record established by my predecessor, Professor Segun Gbadegesin. Many people have asked me privately if I knew what I was doing by consenting to succeed Professor Gbadegesin.

DO: Having indirectly raised the question of the challenge of your new office yourself, let me ask you what your response is to the charges by non- members of Isokan Yoruba that the organization is too political and that there is a need for a culture-only or picnic-only Yoruba association?

R.S: My short answer to this is to repeat Hubert Ogunde's admonition to the Yoruba nation some 30 years ago: YORUBA RONU. Accusing Isokan Yoruba of being too political is a thoughtless position for any sane Yoruba man or woman to take at this historical juncture. I would have been the first person to castigate Isokan if it had been getting involved in partisan politics. But Isokan has remained, since its inception, a non-partisan or supra-partisan organization. Must the Organization continue to have a space in its programs for politics as the most important activity that affects any group of human beings living in an organized space? Of course, yes. As Professor Gbadegesin, a renowned cultural and social philosopher, has said several times, culture is a larger set that has politics - the struggle for power (second only to nature) to determine the course of actions in a people's life - as its subset. Those who accuse Isokan of being political for having the courage to put the problems facing the Yoruba nation in today's Nigeria on the table can only be members of one of two groups: 1) a group of people paid by the oppressors of Yoruba people to distract the Yoruba from confronting their realities and planning for their future, and 2) people who are simply naive.

D.O: Are there unique expectations at the present historical time that make the case for articulating a Yoruba call crucial?

R.S: There are several reasons for a rallying call to all patriotic Yoruba men and women all over the world. The civilization that the Yoruba people have built for centuries, long before the slave trade and colonialism, is gradually being destroyed by years of ethno-military domination of Nigeria as a whole and of the Yoruba in particular. Our political and social system for centuries before the coming of the Europeans had always been tolerant of other points of view, and rulers or Obas have always known that the will of the people is supreme and that respect by the ruler for this will is the only guarantee for staying in power. You must know that many Yoruba kings were dethroned for being too high-handed. This balance of power was made possible in precolonial times by a virile civil society characterized by such groups as the Ogboni, women's organizations, farmers' organizations, occupational associations, religious societies, etc. It is this age-old tradition of political debate and tolerance of opposing viewpoints that the Yoruba transferred to such received British institutions as the media, professional and other pressure groups during and after colonial rule. You must remember that it is the Yoruba's insistence on living according to the values of democracy and respect for human rights that earned Yorubaland the nickname of the rebellious Southwest. The Yoruba tradition of responsive and responsible governance - for years under gradual erosion by variants of ethno-military domination - was frontally attacked in 1993 with the annulment of a free and fair election won by a Yoruba man or, as our people jokingly say in Nigeria, by someone who is non-Fulani/Hausa/Kanuri. In addition to the annulment and the military occupation of Yorubaland, several Yoruba leaders have since the annulment been going and coming out of jail without trial for insisting in their pronouncements that democracy is the only mode of governance that the Yoruba will find acceptable. Before you ask me for names, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Kunle Ajibade, Papa Adesanya, and Papa Adebanjo (not to mention people from other nationalities) are those I can easily remember. The present historical juncture calls for a sober and deep reflection by the Yoruba and, of course, by other nationalities in Nigeria. Since I am Yoruba, I believe that no other nationality in Nigeria should be allowed to tell the Yoruba how to organize toward a free political and economic space within which their civilization can grow. The present dominators of Nigeria have put the Yoruba way of life into a state of coma. Wole Soyinka's observation in his new book The Open Sore of a Continent is worth repeating to our readers: no state or country should take its constituent parts or nationalities for granted. It is up to right thinking Yoruba people to start looking toward their future, especially now that the rest of the world is ready for the challenges of the 21st century. Isn't it ironical that the Yoruba are, on the eve of the 21st century, being pushed back into the 17th century?

D.O: As one of its many and complex formulations, the Yoruba experience is defined largely by its broad Diaspora. How does this tie into your position as president of perhaps the most active Yoruba organization outside of Nigeria?

R.S: As you know, the Yoruba Diaspora is perhaps larger than the homeland population. If the number of people in Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, and the United States who trace their ancestry to the Yoruba nation is anything to go by, one can say that the Yoruba in the ancestral home have a historical responsibility to create a free political and economic space that can serve as a Jerusalem or Mecca for the Yoruba Diaspora. This responsibility has become more urgent in view of the rise in the number of a second layer of Yoruba Diaspora made up of Yoruba immigrants and their American children. In today's Nigeria, people of Yoruba descent whose ancestors came here 300 or 400 years ago and those who have just migrated to this country or are born to immigrants can no longer visit their ancestral home as a result of the cultural and social anomie brought about by military tyranny known all over the world for its human rights violations.

How does this growing Yoruba Diaspora tie into the agenda of my presidency? There is a need for aggressive mobilization of the first and second tiers of Yoruba Diaspora described above. I intend to sell the grim details of the Yoruba condition in today's Nigeria not only to Yoruba-Americans in the United States and Canada, but also to the Yoruba diaspora in north and south America and the Caribbean. I wish that other nationalities will follow the example of the Ogoni by letting the world know the extent of their oppression and the systematic destruction of their way of life. The Yoruba people need to stop playing the Ostrich game by pretending that there are no plans for their own ogonization by the current military dictatorship.

D.O: What, actually, is the Yoruba agenda for the late 20th and the early 21st century?

R.S: There is not much left for the Yoruba in the 20th century. It is a century of their domination and exploitation; first by British colonialism which handed them over to Britain-appointed internal colonizer. Yoruba people used to console themselves after independence from Britain for their active participation in the economy, despite their exclusion from the political realm. Can they say so now that the economy has been hijacked by an ethno-military rulers and their scions? The Yoruba appear to have lost the 20th century, but they do not have to forfeit the 21st if they are ready to be strategic and proactive in their thinking. First and foremost, the Yoruba require a free space within which their men and women can use their minds and talents to improve the their culture and contribute to the advancement of the world's civilization. Inside Nigeria, there are about 35 million Yoruba and another 5 - 10 million scattered all over other West African countries from Benin to Dakar. There is a need for a well-developed blueprint for Yoruba participation in the global economy of the 21st century. The potentials for an effective participation are, though presently stultified by military tyranny, abundant: highly trained manpower, a tolerant religious culture with built-in recognition for the separation of church/mosque/shrine and state, and a growing pool of hightech-ready experts and workers trained in north America and Europe. Despite these potentials, the Yoruba people may have a delayed entry into the 21st century if they lack a space of freedom within which to actualize their potentials. Africa and , indeed, the rest of the world will be enriched by unfettered participation of Yoruba people in the global economy of the new century. It is important for the civilized world not to look away while one of the world's most vibrant cultures is endangered by freedom- and justice-hating military dictatorships.

D.O: Please give us a sense of the Isokan progrma for your tenure.

R.S: Let me start by saying that this is a regime of consolidation. It appears that Professor Gbadegesin, my predecessor, has left no stone of program initiation unturned. This administration will continue the well-conceived programs started by the last Executive in such areas as publications, education and outreach, Alajeseku/thrift projects, the Isokan House initiative, and the Yoruba Youth International project. More emphasis will be placed on publications as a way of reaching the large Yoruba Diaspora and sensitizing them to the growing threats to their ancestral culture in today's Nigeria. All of these activities should be enough for a 12-month tenure. What do you think?

D.O: You are right. Let me end this interview by wishing you the good luck you asked for earlier. Thank you very much for your time.