2024 IDANDE NEW YEAR MESSAGE
IRREDEEMABLE NIGERIA: WHY YORUBA MUST VACATE IT NOW!
When a road obviously leads to an undesirable dead end, it is foolhardy and a sign of a touch of insanity to continue to thread that path. The Yoruba have come thus far with Nigeria, reaping undesirable results. It should be clear to even the most wildly optimistic, that this road leads nowhere, for us, for our children and the unborn generations yet to come. Yoruba is not safe here! No one is safe in today’s Nigeria!! It is highly incongruous and very disturbing that with the much publicised sophistication of the Nigerian Armed Forces; the amount of money poured into the defence budget; with all the intelligence gathering mechanisms of the Directorate of State Security (DSS); the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA); the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), etc., a ragtag group of Fulani supposed herdsmen, riding on bikes and in large groups, and moving through known roads and identifiable bush paths can elude the totality of the Nigerian security apparatus and unleash such a merciless, devastating mayhem on innocent farming communities in Nigeria, and vanish without a trace. That sounds absurd and bizarre! We should all be reminded that this is not a happenstance, it is not a chance accident. It is a perennial, recurring decimal that has plagued Nigeria for decades. Thus, one is at a loss why the security services are not primed, ready and prepared to pre-empt its re-occurrence and bring the planners and culprits to book once and for all time. The template of the ‘herdsmen’ nefarious activities had been used to unleash bloodletting in virtually all the geo-political zones of Nigeria. In the North Central geo-political zone, which averages the Nigerian Middle Belt, particularly in the three states of Benue, Kaduna and Plateau, these pogroms and genocides have been heinous and unrelenting. Thus the army and the police have no excuse except for us to conclude that they do not possess the ability, the willingness or the desire to protect us.
If the Nigerian military could bring peace and resolution to the Sierra-Leonean and Liberian crises, why has the internal carnage in the Middle-Belt defied solutions and remain intractable? And why is the Fulani trouble in all parts of Nigeria so difficult to nip in the bud? The Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force formations are in virtually all local government areas of Nigeria. The Police are in every community. Regardless, these marauders strike at will. In the particular Bokkos and Barkin Ladi communities in Plateau state where they operated last week, they were reported to have operated for hours, killed close to two hundred people, injured over five hundred including infants and suckling, children and their mothers, the old, infirm and the young. Till today, over a week after this condemnable act, NOBODY HAS BEEN (reportedly) APPREHENDED! In fact, the killers, or others mimicking their success, had the effrontery to strike at another neighbouring Bokkos village a few days after. Something is definitely amiss! Nigeria is an intentional misadventure of the British colonial enterprise which they have continued to propagate, after their departure, through proxies, no matter the cost to the lives and properties of the natives, land owners and inhabitants of the geographic space called Nigeria. These proxies employ local and international butchers to kill, maim and destroy whole communities to keep the people in check and continue the pillaging of the land and its resources unchallenged. These proxies exist in their most carnivorous barbarism in the north as Fulani jihadists and in the south as economic predators who must continue to sell their people for a pot of porridge to live an opulent lifestyle. What recently happened at Bokkos, near Jos, Plateau state, is the latest manifestation, in a long list of scorched earth explosions, that the real marauders behind the mask continue to unleash unchecked on the indigenous people of Nigeria. This terror has been on the rampage for hundreds of years, merely changing actors and tactics, but maintaining a laser vision on its agenda to subjugate the indigenous people and dominate all. The unrelenting holocaust is inexorably heading south, after a predictable success in the North Central, if the people do not rise as one to defend themselves. The target down south is Yorubaland. The reasons for this are simple: Yorubaland is home to a religiously heterogeneous population of Christians, Muslims and Isese worshipers. The South-South and the South-East are predominantly Christians. Thus the jihadists anticipate they may be able to co-opt some pliable Yoruba Muslims to betray their people and do their bidding in the mission to subjugate Yorubaland.
The second reason is geographic. The distance to the Atlantic Ocean (the source of trade and commerce) from a place like Kano, as an example, is shortest through Yorubaland, and Lagos, the diamond on the commercial crown of Yoruba, straddles the ocean as Nigeria’s economic hub. Therefore, if the Yoruba are a discerning race, it is best for us to prepare to confront the approaching onslaught. We can prepare by building strategic (ideological, agricultural and economic) defences or we may take the battle to them by other means, to pre-empt their menace. However, the best defence is to extricate the entirety of Yorubalnd from the falling Nigeria edifice, before it eventually collapses in a catastrophic conflagration, because it will. All the indices are there for all to see. When we raise this alarm, some of our people cite the Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidency and call to question our continued desire for a separate Yoruba nation. These people sadly and erroneously miss the point. The rationale for setting up a Nigeria country and the structure sustaining it are completely at variance with what may ultimately liberate and uplift the Yoruba people from debilitating poverty and economic deprivation. Tinubu can do little to fundamentally re-orientate the rationale or address the lopsided structure propping up Nigeria. In fact, we are completely tired of efforts to repair Nigeria when we can as well abandon the damaged vehicle and purchase a brand new, more promising jet to propel us speedily to a promising future. The continued relevance of Tinubu to Yoruba politics is highly dependent on his insightful reading of the Yoruba mood: YORUBA WANT OUT OF NIGERIA. The collective Yoruba aspiration is not to attain the presidency of the dead, unworkable union called Nigeria. Tinubu has to understand this. The Yoruba political and economic elite may be complacent about the status quo, but its despondency and deprivation could push the larger mass to seize the initiative from their leaders and force a revolution to rip Yorubaland out of an imploding Nigeria which had failed woefully to lay the templates for a welfarist nation that provides the basic necessities of living for its beleaguered citizenry. Tinubu has to understand this and declare his unqualified support for the movement on the road to Yorubaland. He should understand that his attainment of the presidency of Nigeria will lead to a dead end. It will neither fulfil him nor emancipate his people, the Yoruba. Other Yoruba more intellectually gifted than him (Obafemi Awolowo) and more financially endowed (Moshood Abiola) have attempted it and failed. Tinubu has succeeded where the others faltered, giving his vaunted tactical and strategic political abilities, but the irony of it all is that inherent in the eventual attainment of this 'ultimate goal' is the failure, because Nigeria if fatally flawed. It is wired to self-destruct. No leader can succeed here unless the country is fundamentally re-invented, re-structured or totally dismembered. As presently construed, Nigeria exists at the displeasure of its citizens. Nobody is happy except the purveyors of calumny, the merchants of death and the exploiters of the people. Misery and despondency rule the land. So his failure in office will not be due to his incapability, it will largely be due to the structure of a country that is doomed to die from birth. Therefore, it is wise to advice Tinubu, if he desires continued relevance as an acclaimed leader in Yoruba politics, to read the mood of the Yoruba nation right and concentrate his efforts only on Yoruba regional autonomy or total separation from Nigeria. The Tinubu presidency is not a gain for Yoruba. It merely postpones the evil day and the eventual calamity that will befall the beleaguered Nigerian polity. A short analysis will sharply bring this conclusion into focus. Let us believe that Tinubu does so well for Nigeria (like Awolowo in the Western region and Obasanjo, who repaid all of Nigeria’s foreign debt) and after four years in power, he is voted in again. It is assumed that with another four years, his achievements for Nigeria would be indelible. After eight years, another ruler comes in to completely rubbish his legacy to return us to square one! It happened to all of Awolowo’s legacies in the Western region when the military came and destroyed all of his iconic achievements. The same is true of Obasanjo who reduced all our external debts from 32 billion dollars to zero. It only took sixteen years for our inept politician locusts to swarm all over everything and eat us all out into our present day 50 billion dollar debt. So, Nigeria is doomed. Tinubu’s attainment of the presidency would have achieved nothing for the Yoruba except to return us to status quo ante, eight years after, when it would be more difficult to break away.
What Yoruba needs is a clean break from the curse that is called Nigeria. This clean break will:
Guarantee us an opportunity to reinvent a nation in our own image and interpretation;
Safeguard us from external threats, because, with our defined borders and our own formidable armed forces, no nation in the subregion would dare challenge or attack us, pillage our farming communities, rape our children, abduct or kidnap our people. Any attack on any Yoruba person or community would be construed as an attack on the Yoruba race, and would be dealt with as such.
Guarantee freedom from food insecurity as we can then holistically organise our agriculture
Control or eliminate the Igbo economic aggression which distorts our city landscapes, thrives in criminality and seeks to usurp our urban centres;
Re-invent our inner cities, town and regional plans;
Revamp our economy, control rising inflation and the debilitating poverty level never before experienced by our people;
Allow us to write our history ourselves and teach it to our children;
Define our own educational system and curriculum the way it was done in the 1950s;
Leapfrog technologically over the established advanced economies by prioritising Information and Communication Technology (ICT), engineering, manufacturing, artificial intelligence (AI), etc.;
Assist to re-establish Yorubaland as a preferred world tourism destination when we develop our numerous natural tourist sites and plan our cultural calendar around the Olojo day, Ekimogun day, Ojude Oba festival, etc;
Assist to re-establish Yorubaland as a preferred world medical/health tourism centre as it was established in the 1960s with the University College Hospital (UCH} in Ibadan. Our doctors are renowned the world over. We can profit the local economy with it;
Re-ignite the positive dynamism of our youths to turn them away from drugs, yahoo-yahoo, cultism, robbery, kidnapping and human sacrifice.
These and more are what Yoruba must work for in 2024. These are what an independent Yoruba nation, free from the disease of Nigeria will achieve for us. Though the hills may rise, we shall rise higher; though the floods may pillage, we shall swim above them. Fire and brimstone may rear their ugly heads, but the winds of God's goodness will extinguish them all for us. Whatever the obstacles we may encounter in 2024 and beyond, we shall sprout wings of victory to fly over them with determination and resilience. Freedom does not come to you on a platter of gold. We must be resolutely determined to achieve it.
Happy New year 2024 to you and the entire Yoruba Nation.
Arc. Opeoluwa George Akinola Date Thursday, January 4, 2024
ORO ISITI ATI IYANJU FUN ODUN 2024 LATI OWO EGBE IDANDE.
Oju ojo mo, Oyela peregede Osumare ego la kanle Odun tuntun wole bawa layo. Adupe Eledumare. IDANDE DE, Ominira de, Ile Ileri ti de, Oduduwa farare han faye ri, Ni arin ojiji iku lotiwa lojo totipe, nibiti iku irora ati ipayinkeke ti joba ti eje awon enia re si fon da sara ogiri awon ika nibiti awon apania ti nse ilu ti awon elenini si nse joba. Gbo oogun awon baba nla re, IDANDE DE! OMINIRA DE!!
K'oiti tan sibe. Mase je ki okan re damu. Sibe sibe, Ireti siwa. Gbo oun awon baba re. IDANDE DE! OMINIRA DE!! Alagbara ni o ninu orile agbaye, o si ti bori opolopo isoro sehin. Ninu eyinju re ni mo ri imole ti o fihan gbangba wipe asegun niwonse. Papa julo larin awon orileede agbaye beni ogo re Ko pe mo. Gbogbo aiye yio f'oju ri. Mase kaaro larin opo isoro ati opo etanje. Pariwo ara re gege bi atunbi orileede titun nibiti alafia ilosiwaju ati abo t'opeye yio ti joba ni orileede Oduduwa. Ti iberu kosi mo nibiti jije ati mimu di ebun ofe gege bi iseda re, ti kosi awoku bi era fun awon Omo re mo.
Kosi okesoro kan ti o ko le bori. Bi a ba mue lana koja, a a si so e di pipe bi wura. B'o si se agbami odo, kosoro fun o lati ko afara ati lati da afara koja. Mase k'aare, kosi okesoro kan ti o ko le bori. O ni agbara, o si le daduro. Gbo oun awon baba nla re: IDANDE DE! OMINIRA DE!! IDANDE DE! OMINIRA DE!! IDANDE DE! OMINIRA DE!! Odun tuntun Odun 2024, odun itusile, odun IDANDE.
Date Thursday, January 4, 2024