By Ayodele Fagbohun

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From the study of archeology and research into history, Ile-Ife the cradle of Yoruba culture was founded by Oduduwa, the great and perhaps the revered mythological ancestor of Yoruba race.
Hence, it is vigorously asserted that the Yoruba who live in the present South Western Nigeria alongside their kith and kin resident in the adjoining states in the federation have never been known as the land of cowards, felons and political riff raffs where people of doubtful characters and political charlatans are promptly elevated and assume top hierarchy of power through mischief making.
The Emeritus professor of History and second Republic senator, Prof Banji Akintoye is apparently disenchanted by the recent untoward happenings and the height of political barbarity in the country.
The octogenarian rights’ activist and elder statesman said Yoruba are no cowards at all and are ready to assert their right of self determination as a nation state even if Nigeria becomes a failed nation afterall.
It stands to reason and indeed out of place for anyone or group of persons to resort to self help or levy war against the constituted authority, no matter the gravity of provocation, in the light of current security palaver facing the country.
It is tantamount to a declaration of war against the elected government for any tribal or ethnic insurrection to rear ugly head in any part of South Western Nigeria.
In this wise, it is misguided and a wrong calculation for the embattled Chief Sunday Adeyemo, famously called Sunday Igboho, to agitate outright dismemberment of the country into various splinter republics under the guise of grave insecurity and bloody clashes between farmers and foreign herdsmen in his homestead, Ibarapa axis of Oyo State. To challenge and impugn the sovereignty of the people without legitimately and constitutionally seeking the people’s mandate is a travesty of the rule of law and great crime against the people.
There is freedom of association and assembly enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution and Declaration of Human Rights in the United Nations, to which all comity of modern nations subscribe.
However, this fundamental human right should neither be abused nor misused as license to cause conundrum and torpedo the cause of good governance and purposeful administration in a democracy.
In the meantime, there are democratically elected administrations in the South West which must be allowed to perform creditably of course and run their full course constitutionally.
People of course are on the receiving ends. Security of lives and property has no value amongst the rampaging Fulani marauders constantly on the prowl to maim, kill and destroy. The Fulani ruling caste has dubiously hijacked the Federal Government for self interest and unleashed a reign of mayhem, terror and gangsterism across the country.
Doubtless, Nigeria is under the onslaught of modern day Fulani imperialism.
To free the country from the subjugation of the ignorant and obdurate neo colonial Fulani hegemony is a task that must be done by the concerted efforts of majority ethnic groups in the country.
As two wrongs cannot make a right, we of Yoruba ethnic group shall marshal superior arguments and shrewd diplomacy in fighting to finish the Biafran/Nigerian civil war, and resilience to keep our heads above waters, while others are losing theirs.
Out time-honoured tactics and strategies will pay off, while at the fullness of time, we launch our unfailing operation to the deep and not miss the target. We shall not retreat until our enemies, ideologically speaking, are completely vanquished and brought down to our foot stool.
Besides, it is an affront and deliberate wicked lie on the prowess and ingenuity of Yoruba to contemplate an alien rule, in Alice-in-wonderland, outside the ken of Federal Republic of Nigeria through the back door.
The evil machination to dismember the corporate existence of Nigeria only resides in the realm of fantasy and the day dreamers who are destitute of reasoning, vision and fertile imagination to work for the prosperous and United States of Nigeria as in the United States (USA).
Suffice to say that the ugly experience of 30 month civil war in Nigeria where colossal loss of lives and properties of various dimensions were recorded is still fresh in the memory. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the ex-warlord, in spite of his noble birth as an illustrious son of Sir Ojukwu lived to regret the pains of the civil strife and its concomitant holocaust.
Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB’s leader at large, now in police net, is of dual citizenship, a paranoid character. He was not born when the East and the whole country were in turmoil and conflagration of internecine civil strife and war. Children who died of kwashiorkor were more than those inadvertently killed by stray bullet, and tremors of war, sabrerattling of the fierce looking warring soldiers.
By all means, Nnamdi Kanu and others of the same ilk had better be ignored than be lauded ignorantly to high heaven by bringing perdition and tribulation to gullible and innocent fellow countrymen, women and children.
It is fool hardy and madness in the extreme to contemplate another civil war as a way out of the present logjam. It is cowardly to embark on a desperate and most perilous undertaking to destablise our common cherished heritage in quest for a banana republic.
It is high time we convoked another Constituency Assembly (CA) reminiscent of the 1978 Constituency Assembly (CA) put in place by the defunct Muritala Mohammed/Obasanjo military junta, preparatory to the second republic.
We must enlist men and women of proven integrity from the ethnic nationalities to represent us in the ensuing debate on superior terms free from mutual ethnic and religious suspicions.
We must work hard on the sound principle of federalism based on the document of 1963 federal republican constitution to subdue the disparate innate tendencies of the country, and in the same vein concede autonomy on viable states or regions along linguistic formulae.
Some Yorubas who out of ignorance and desperation for easy route clamour for secession should note this.
When in 1966 the Hausa/Fulani was at the cross roads calling for ‘Araba’ meaning to secede from the rest of the country in the fear of Igbo domination in civil service and armed forces, the Yorubas, not necessarily in position of underdog anyway, stood immovable as rock of Gilbralter to weather the raging political storm to preserve and defend the territorial integrity of a beleaguered nation just emerged from colonialism to sovereign nationhood.
Awolowo (Yoruba) and his lieutenants in the defunct Action Group fought a diplomatic battle and crushed Nigerian Civil war with brains and brawn without firing a shot!
It was another diplomatic war brilliantly espoused by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) led by Michael Adekunle Ajasin (Yoruba) and Anthony Eronsele Enahoro (Ishan Edo) which restored the present Constitutional Fourth Republic politics.
It is irony of fate that this on-going political dispensation was gestated and nurtured by the outgoing military junta which in turn facilitated the electoral victory of its constituent, retired military head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo and now another former military head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
Yoruba is very adept in fighting diplomatic battle to a logical accomplishment. We shall not abandon this noble trait, come rain or high waters, notwithstanding the present travails on insecurity and avoidable cold blooded murder dressed in Fulani herdsmen attacks.
We irretrievably lost former deputy of Afenifere and the dynamo of Yoruba politics, Uncle Bola Ige (SAN) and Mr Funke Olakunri, a flamboyant lady, the daughter of the aged Afenifere leader, Papa R. F. Fasoranti both murdered at peace-time and their assassins or assailants as the case might be, vanished to the thin air.
Yet, our state governors collect huge security vote to safeguard their constituents! Something is amiss somewhere that needs urgent amends.
Now, it is very pertinent that state governors in the South West should take the bull by the horns and meet the critical needs and expectations of their constituents. By the same token, the state governors should privatise the welfare of their famished civil servants and pensioners whose personal emoluments on government pay roll are not paid regularly.
If well in charge and in absolute control of their respective spheres of influence and jurisdiction, to do the needful in catering for the needs of the people, no rights activist, no matter how armed with native juju power and assorted amulets, would have the audacity to challenge or trample upon their mandate with impunity. The people’s might will readily mow down on the rash activists who tend to scuttle purposeful governance.
Rather than being on perpetual war path and on a revenge mission, rights’ activists with good intention for the polity should forget personal animosity and deploy their native wisdom and gallantry to constitute security networks to assist the constituted authority in place in the south west.
Though tribe and tongue may differ, Nigerians can still make it as a cynosure and model for the rest of the black race in industrial take off and emancipation of the benighted race.
Yoruba people can still take the lead as usual and better than hitherto. Awo, the sage had shown the light. Free education at all levels is imperative to accelerate the tempo of massive agrarian/industrial revolution and all round development throughout the length and breadth of the Yoruba nation.
It is suicidal and a great drawback if Yoruba is allowed to be driven from pillar to post by impulsive youth exuberance and restiveness in vogue due to the sheer political maladministration at the top hierarchy of government.
We must condemn wanton bloodbath. Shedding of innocent blood on voodoo and fetishism to appease gods of mammon in mad pursuit of naked power and mundane wealth is not the heritage and culture of Yoruba ‘Omoluabi’ at home and in the diaspora.
All authentic rights’ activists must sheathe their swords today and return to the drawing board and re-strategise.