“It is my considered view that what is lacking among the Yoruba people is not unity but fidelity among Yoruba leaders.”
THIS statement was part of a message Chief Obafemi Awolowo sent to the Western Regional Conference of the Action Group held in Ibadan on the 6th of July 1963. He was then serving his 10-year sentence for treason in Calabar Prison. In the same message, Chief Awolowo also stated: “It has been suggested, with unabashed falsity, that the Yorubas are being relegated to the background in the affairs of the Federal Government, partly because the Yorubas are not united, and partly, because the Action Group has not participated in the affairs of the Federal Government like the NCNC and the NPC. It is erroneous to equate the Action Group with the Yoruba people, or to regard our party as being a Yoruba organization.” Finally, from the same message the following statement also occurs: “There is room for as many political parties as some people may choose to establish.”
Reference is being made to these quotes from Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s speech (‘The Just Shall Live By Faith’ now published in his collection of speeches, Voice of Reason, page 200 to page 206) as a result of what seems to be the relentless assault of the ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) to convince the government of Ondo State to decamp from the Labour Party, the party in power in the state and join the Action Congress of Nigeria so that all the Yoruba of the South West and in the six states of the South West would be in the same political party and the Yoruba would be united. It is as if the name of the party wishing this unity was the Action Congress of Yorubaland and not of Nigeria. Apart from the unity argument, there is also the suggestion that only the Action Congress of Nigeria is progressive and everybody else is not, especially not the Labour Party of Ondo State. This is not the place to deal with the blindness and sightlessness of those, usually of the Action Congress, who cannot see what the Labour Party government of Ondo State is doing. The issue is that it is too late in the day for anybody, especially Yoruba political leaders to bully others to join them in order to make the Yorubas united.
There are many reasons to vigorously campaign against political unity among any major Nigerian ethnic group, specifically the Hausa-Fulani, the Ibo and the Yoruba. Such political unity, when it has been achieved has been used to oppress not only the other larger ethnic groups but also the minority ethnic groups of Nigeria, who together, are more than the larger ethnic groups. In fact the disfigured federation that we have today is built on the political unity of the Hausa Fulani. The instruments of the federation were manipulated to ensure that the Northern People’s Congress (it was northern in both its English and Hausa names) would command half of the elected House of Representatives ab initio. Every time this political unity of the NPC, or the NPN or the Nigerian Military, which was a Northern Party at the end of the day, the federation has faced instability. In fact the history of political instability in Nigeria is the story of the efforts of Nigerians individually and in their different formations to challenge this awkward federal arrangement.
One of the consequences of a one party state in the regions as they were before 1967 and states as they have been since then is the massive lack of self-criticism on the part of the leadership of the various ethnic nationalities. Take the issue of unpunished corruption in Nigeria. It is always presented as a Nigerian problem. Yet, who are these Nigerians who escaped punishment for their corruption? You would think that there are no Ibos or Hausa Fulanis or Yorubas among them. They are simply Nigerians! How many leaders of the Yoruba, of the Ibo and of the Hausa Fulani have called on their fellow nationals in Hausa Fulani, Ibo or Yoruba formations to examine themselves in the light of their contribution to the problems of Nigeria by avoiding to pay for their corruption appropriately? I have not heard of any one of them doing this.
It would be of interest to list the thousands of abandoned projects throughout the federation and assign each abandoned project to the minister or the commissioner that was responsible for its abandonment and the consequent loss to the federal republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo signed the first Ajaokuta Steel Mill contract in 1979. It was abandoned. Babangida signed the same contract with the same Russian company in 1986. Has Obasanjo been censored for this offence?
The one party nature of our states makes our politics look like the power plays (rather than politics) of a criminal gang dedicated to not only committing crimes but also to escaping the appropriate punishment. This might be the reason why there is virtually a total lack of democratic process in our political parties. Instead of a process producing a candidate genuinely interested to working for the people, we have rigged process that produce favoured and invariably incompetent candidates.
One of the difficult issues in our socio-political life is the success of our political leaders as individuals as placed against the failure of our country Nigeria. Where in the world would you see so many successful political leaders (just look at the number of messages on birthdays and any celebration occasions)? Of these political leaders you would wonder over which country Gowon, Obasanjo, Babangida and Abacha ruled if not over a failed state? How many of our leaders have dared to look at this contradiction? A successful leader must of necessity rule over a successful state. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a successful political leader because he ruled over a successful Western Region.
In the same message from which I have quoted already, Chief Awolowo concludes thus: “What should interest us in this connection is the fate of the common man under the present dreadful and cheerless circumstances. The ranks of people with empty or half-empty stomachs are increasing daily by the hundreds. Why? Because the existing powers in the land are much more preoccupied with devising ways and means for the destruction of their political opponents than with catering to the best interests of the millions who are hungry but are not fed, who have not but are not supplied.”
•Prof. Omotoso wrote from South Africa
THIS statement was part of a message Chief Obafemi Awolowo sent to the Western Regional Conference of the Action Group held in Ibadan on the 6th of July 1963. He was then serving his 10-year sentence for treason in Calabar Prison. In the same message, Chief Awolowo also stated: “It has been suggested, with unabashed falsity, that the Yorubas are being relegated to the background in the affairs of the Federal Government, partly because the Yorubas are not united, and partly, because the Action Group has not participated in the affairs of the Federal Government like the NCNC and the NPC. It is erroneous to equate the Action Group with the Yoruba people, or to regard our party as being a Yoruba organization.” Finally, from the same message the following statement also occurs: “There is room for as many political parties as some people may choose to establish.”
Reference is being made to these quotes from Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s speech (‘The Just Shall Live By Faith’ now published in his collection of speeches, Voice of Reason, page 200 to page 206) as a result of what seems to be the relentless assault of the ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) to convince the government of Ondo State to decamp from the Labour Party, the party in power in the state and join the Action Congress of Nigeria so that all the Yoruba of the South West and in the six states of the South West would be in the same political party and the Yoruba would be united. It is as if the name of the party wishing this unity was the Action Congress of Yorubaland and not of Nigeria. Apart from the unity argument, there is also the suggestion that only the Action Congress of Nigeria is progressive and everybody else is not, especially not the Labour Party of Ondo State. This is not the place to deal with the blindness and sightlessness of those, usually of the Action Congress, who cannot see what the Labour Party government of Ondo State is doing. The issue is that it is too late in the day for anybody, especially Yoruba political leaders to bully others to join them in order to make the Yorubas united.
There are many reasons to vigorously campaign against political unity among any major Nigerian ethnic group, specifically the Hausa-Fulani, the Ibo and the Yoruba. Such political unity, when it has been achieved has been used to oppress not only the other larger ethnic groups but also the minority ethnic groups of Nigeria, who together, are more than the larger ethnic groups. In fact the disfigured federation that we have today is built on the political unity of the Hausa Fulani. The instruments of the federation were manipulated to ensure that the Northern People’s Congress (it was northern in both its English and Hausa names) would command half of the elected House of Representatives ab initio. Every time this political unity of the NPC, or the NPN or the Nigerian Military, which was a Northern Party at the end of the day, the federation has faced instability. In fact the history of political instability in Nigeria is the story of the efforts of Nigerians individually and in their different formations to challenge this awkward federal arrangement.
One of the consequences of a one party state in the regions as they were before 1967 and states as they have been since then is the massive lack of self-criticism on the part of the leadership of the various ethnic nationalities. Take the issue of unpunished corruption in Nigeria. It is always presented as a Nigerian problem. Yet, who are these Nigerians who escaped punishment for their corruption? You would think that there are no Ibos or Hausa Fulanis or Yorubas among them. They are simply Nigerians! How many leaders of the Yoruba, of the Ibo and of the Hausa Fulani have called on their fellow nationals in Hausa Fulani, Ibo or Yoruba formations to examine themselves in the light of their contribution to the problems of Nigeria by avoiding to pay for their corruption appropriately? I have not heard of any one of them doing this.
It would be of interest to list the thousands of abandoned projects throughout the federation and assign each abandoned project to the minister or the commissioner that was responsible for its abandonment and the consequent loss to the federal republic of Nigeria. Obasanjo signed the first Ajaokuta Steel Mill contract in 1979. It was abandoned. Babangida signed the same contract with the same Russian company in 1986. Has Obasanjo been censored for this offence?
The one party nature of our states makes our politics look like the power plays (rather than politics) of a criminal gang dedicated to not only committing crimes but also to escaping the appropriate punishment. This might be the reason why there is virtually a total lack of democratic process in our political parties. Instead of a process producing a candidate genuinely interested to working for the people, we have rigged process that produce favoured and invariably incompetent candidates.
One of the difficult issues in our socio-political life is the success of our political leaders as individuals as placed against the failure of our country Nigeria. Where in the world would you see so many successful political leaders (just look at the number of messages on birthdays and any celebration occasions)? Of these political leaders you would wonder over which country Gowon, Obasanjo, Babangida and Abacha ruled if not over a failed state? How many of our leaders have dared to look at this contradiction? A successful leader must of necessity rule over a successful state. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a successful political leader because he ruled over a successful Western Region.
In the same message from which I have quoted already, Chief Awolowo concludes thus: “What should interest us in this connection is the fate of the common man under the present dreadful and cheerless circumstances. The ranks of people with empty or half-empty stomachs are increasing daily by the hundreds. Why? Because the existing powers in the land are much more preoccupied with devising ways and means for the destruction of their political opponents than with catering to the best interests of the millions who are hungry but are not fed, who have not but are not supplied.”
•Prof. Omotoso wrote from South Africa
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