By Ayodele Fagbohun

|

The strident clamour and piercing jingles of war drums for outright dismemberment of Nigeria to its various component constituents is totally uncalled for and too frightening to contemplate at this juncture of our nationhood.
However, the omens are bad for conduct of government business seems to be on the reverse gear showing signs of moral asinine weakness and inept leadership both at the top government and ruling party hierarchies.
There is downright incapacity, naivety and lack of strong and iron will and determination to work for the progress and unity of the country, no matter whose horse is gored.
The major problems of insecurity, ethnic and religious mayhem, ritual killings, unresolved rising political assassinations, youth unemployment and grinding poverty, corruption, among other heinous crimes pervading the country are indeed beyond the ken of government. To contemplate a dangerous and unrealistic option to impair and violate the integrity of one Nigeria will definitely write off the present generation of rulers as political liabilities that preside over the collapse of the country.
As a result of the lasciviousness, moral turpitude and roguery inherent in government, some social villains and mischievous scoundrels in our midst suddenly transmute into undue heroes likely to hijack our nation, and in the process, reduce her to the rubble in the aftermath of their nocturnal nefarious activities and gangsterism.
The so called Yoruba rights’ activist, Mr Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a Sunday Igboho and co-travellers are declaring out of their figment of riotous imagination the establishment of Yoruba Republic. These individuals who envisage a new dreamed separate republic who should be christened “Alice-in-Wonderland” should have a rethink.
Yoruba as an ethnic nationality is a race within the context of Nigeria’s federation ably struggled for and crystallized by the heroic efforts of Awo, Zik, and Sir Bello, the acclaimed founders of our independent and sovereign nation. Sunday Adeyemo should not lose sight of this home truth and the stark reality of our history which cannot be faulted.
Sunday Adeyemo and his friends may have good intentions, well driven by patriotic zeal and exuberance to secure Yorubaland in quest of good governance in all its ramifications.
However, they must not live in ignorance and be a political sellout for mischief makers to embark upon fruitless, nebulous and perilous socio-cultural exercise that may eventually end in cul-de-sac.
In a swift and sharp reaction, the Governor of Ondo State, the Arakunrin himself, Odunayo Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, engaged in battle of wits over the dangerous secessionist bid to pull Yoruba nation out of the rest of the country.
Akeredolu, a distinguished legal luminary said on a Channels Television programme recently that the people’s consensus rather that willful and unilateral agitation, will determine the success of any secessionist bid.
He said: “It is a group of individuals who are raising this issue; they are entitled to it. Everybody is entitled to his own position. But when you come to the issue of nation or you want to leave a particular set up, there must be a consensus.
“Nobody can, on his own, wakeup and say he is speaking on behalf of others. Who gave them such wide powers? Akeredolu queried.
“We have never yielded power to people to speak on our behalf on a matter of this grave importance.
“That is what we are saying;” Aketi, a legal guru respectively submitted on a final note.
Arakunrin Akeredolu expressed this robust view on the raison detre behind the hue and cry for the so called Yoruba Republic and it served as verdict for majority opinion of South West zone of Nigeria.
From the onset, we solemnly declare and believe unshakably and fervently in the inviolability of the country as an indivisible political and secular entity run purely in the true principle, practice and spirit of federalism, as strenuously advocated by the late sage, immortal Awo.
According to Awo, “If a country is unilingual and uni-national, the constitution must be unitary. If a country is unilingual or bilingual or multi-lingual and also consists of communities which, over a period of years, have developed divergent nationalities, the constitution must be federal and the constituent states must be organized on the dual basis of language and nationality.
“If a country is bilingual or multi-lingual, the constitution must be federal, and the constituent states must be organized in linguistic basis.
“Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a bilingual or multi-lingual or multi-national country must fail in the long run.”
To Salvage the country from the peril, decay and avert unnecessary, unavoidable bloodshed and mayhem arising from plain misrule, this lucid, explicit and concise principle of federalism expounded by Awo must indeed apply to Nigeria in preserving the territorial integrity and corporate existence of the country as a workable federal union.’
On federalism as an antidote to douse the present haphazard manner the affairs of government are being managed, or at worst mis-managed and the general lawlessness and disorderliness rampant in the country, one time public affairs commentator, Dr A Adebisi contended as follows: “the strength of any federal constitution lies in its capacity to foster national unity, while the individuality of the components of the federation is preserved. It must provide for the happy equilibrium between the interests of the national unity and regional autonomy.
“Whether or not this equilibrium is provided is a function of three very important factors: How the activities of the federal/State are shared between the centre and the member-states.
“The financial and executive capabilities of individual member-states to carry out their share of activities.
“The intensity of formal and informal centripetal pull.”
We must stringently apply our intelligence and brawn to confront myriad of problems of state craft headlong and proffer necessary remedy. To run away from the reality by chasing the shadow for substance is to postpone the doom’s day and to meet the problem in more virulent and sinister dimension than hitherto.
Even the so called advanced countries have not winked for a second in finding remedy to knotting problems in the affairs of man as daily unfolded. The COVID-19 just sauntered in, without showing any noticeable symptom. The disease has wreaked and is still wreaking the greatest human death toll in recorded history, the hurriedly discovered vaccine or no vaccine, we must be very vigilant to pay the price of liberty.