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Isokan Yoruba Magazine
To a Fruitful and Courageous Yoruba
Summit
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.
ODUDUWA A GBE GBOGBO WA O. ABA T’ALAGEMO
BAA DA, L’OOSA OKE N GBA O. AA RUN, AA DAMI O. |
