When the self-determination train was on full steam, there was no titanic clash of convictions, what was visible was the resolute belief that the Yoruba nirvana was at close reach. Omo Yoruba Ile Ya rent the air!!
By Taju Tijani
The ‘aha’ moment of the Yoruba nation is gone. That universal euphoria for a separate homeland for the Yoruba is now buried under the sea. The enthusiasm, the colour, the determination, the vibrancy, the collective hope, the epiphanic vision and all the global desire for its creation have all shut down. Now what remains is the nightmare, the hallucination, the delusion, the regret, the disappointment, and the silence. The zeal for Yoruba Nation was demobilised by state sponsored terrorism against Sunday Igboho – the noonday avatar who woke and mobilised the Yoruba with a self-sacrificing passion that speaks loudly to the possibility of a separate destiny. Both Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho became the brew from General Buhari’s distillery of nepotism and bad statesmanship. Sunday Igboho did not just crawl into our tribal consciousness just like that. Igboho saw a cause to challenge Buhari’s ethnocentric exceptionalism and the narrow spectrum of his Fulani hegemonic dream. Then, with a loud and clear tone he said: to your tent O Israel!!!
Buhari emboldens and weaponizes the Fulani nationalism through his policies of nepotism, capture, dominion, and the narrative that Allah purposely gave Nigeria to the Fulani as their bounty. The Fulani have always posed a threat and present danger to all other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. We remembered the despoliation, savage killings, and kidnappings of Igangan. The alien Fulani had turned Igangan into a stronghold of rapists, extortionists, kidnappers, killers, and land grabbers. To Igboho, Igangan, Igbo Ora, Tapa and Ayete was momentous history that would never go without making a stand. Something had to give. And he acted fast!!!
Igboho as a latter-day revolutionary hero came at the back of Igangan and we televised his velvet revolution live as he sailed across our cities in carnival-like rallies. With his courage, disarming smile, simplicity, and humility, he was able to mobilise a large circle of trust and solidarity with his Yoruba tribe at a defining moment when his people faced genocide from armed Fulani herdsmen. He gave us an elevated understanding of the auguries that lay ahead if the activities of Fulani invaders were not curtailed in Yoruba land. He was able to contribute to a new social education through his seamless and peaceful awareness rallies that soon gained global respect, support and cult following.
When the Yoruba Nation movement gained momentum, some Yoruba Obas and politicians could not accommodate the emerging, ambiguous, and radical voices calling for a break from the status quo of an imbalance unity. Some Yoruba Obas became toothless bulldogs. What do you expect? When modern day Obas are now Instagram celebrities – kosogun/kosagbara set. We must not pretend that we speak with one voice. We don’t! Yoruba loud groans and pain did not bother them. Sunday Igboho, the chivalrous saviour, to them, had too much baggage to lead a Yoruba revolution. All too readily, stuffy conservatism, self-preservation, and the fear of retribution from the centre made many moderates, appeasers, contrarians, politicians, and Yoruba elders shy away from throwing in support for the Yoruba Nation movement. Despite the euphoria for Yoruba independence, we had massive polemical, intellectual, and cultural resistance to the idea of Yoruba nation, or if you prefer, Oodua Republic. Some people still romanticised one indivisible Nigeria irrespective of its imbalances, imperfection, crudity, lop-sidedness, and tyranny.
READ ALSO: 2023 elections and the future of Nigeria’s democracy
Despite the disarray, the gratuitous attacks from politicians and the antagonising temper of many Obas led by Oluwo of Iwo, Oosha connected with the grassroots and Yoruba liberals worldwide. Those of us who saw a vision of independent new nation and Yoruba liberty became co-travellers in the struggle to break off the chain of unity that had tied down the natural wonders of Omo Oduduwa.
Then, some dark conjurers came up with equally dark narrative, that our disunity is foreordained in the character of the average member of Oduduwa race. Our disunity, to the atavists, has understandable root – in our natural assertiveness, hatred for grovelling obedience, love of independence, and personal ambition. There is an uneasy truth in this generational curse of our disunity. When the Yoruba homeland firefight was kindled, I had thought that Iba Gani Adams, the spitfire Aare Onakankanfo of Yorubaland will join Igboho in his search for Yoruba glory. All was cautiously quiet from his quarters. However, the consequences of our collective tribal fault line – disunity – have been far reaching in its conflictual predilections and disruptions.
In saying that, Igbohoo Oosha will not be limited by our tribal weaknesses. He was able to mobilise the vociferous arm of the race and started the journey to a separate homeland – through the trenches of mass mobilisation and citizen awareness. In addition, Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye of the Yoruba World Congress will add his own compelling intellectual clout to the Yoruba struggle when he assumed the role of a lone prophet in the wilderness, calling on all the faithful to embrace the journey back home – his beloved Yoruba homeland!
When the self-determination train was on full steam, there was no titanic clash of convictions, what was visible was the resolute belief that the Yoruba nirvana was at close reach. Omo Yoruba Ile Ya rent the air!!
I remembered the army of networked community of social media Yoruba nationalists who were solidly behind Igboho. Their Yoruba passion had been stirred by a collective sense of strange martyrdom for the Yoruba dignity. Frothing with tribal anger and a hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimhood, the Yoruba were then in full buga swagger and saying that they were ready to bury the Fulani into the chasm of their own construction?
The elite British SAS motto is ‘Who Dares Wins’. Igboho dared but his victory has been postponed. Yes, we doff our hats for the gallantry and the effrontery of Sunday Igboho. He stirred the hornet nest of the Fulani in their commandeered forests with courage and consummate conviction. The aftermath of his self-exile in Republic of Benin and the autocratic tendencies of General Buhari’s undemocratic reflexes against self-determination agitators have all brought to a chilling end the dream of Yoruba homeland.
Yoruba witches, wizards, warlocks, diviners, soothsayers, mediums, olosuns, babalawos, alafas, adifas, olorisas, eleguns and onigunukos have all returned to the groves with their angry deities. Our youths who formed the backbone of Yoruba agitation have returned to their grind. Many of them are now converted OBIDIENTS. Yoruba actors and influencers who supported the movement have returned to their creative haven. All other Yoruba Nation agitators have melted into their daily tik tok looking for supernatural ways to survive in a broken nation. Internet leading groups of the struggle have gone quiet. Yoruba groups online have gone offline – members are wearied, tired, and fed up.
The Caliphate seem to have aborted the pregnancy and the eventual birth of a Yoruba autonomous nation. The shepherd of the Yoruba liberation – Sunday Igboho – is castrated and his sheep have scattered and now grazing behind different political parties in answer to the old dictum that life does not harbour vacuum. For every Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu languishing in Fulani chains, the call for self-determination will never die.
That motor of progress for a Yoruba homeland may have gone quiet but we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sunday Igboho in his travails. My memorabilia of Yoruba nation posters, Trafalgar Square rallies, photos, and face cap still provide a kind of canny hope that someday, today’s nightmare, may well turn into reality.