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ISSUES IN THE NEWS

As noted in an earlier piece on this page, Afenifere and its political arm is about to complete the mainstreaming process started by the Akintola regime and supported by the NPC/NCNC Alliance. No less than Dr. Femi Okurounmu in his latest interview confirmed this point of view.
Dr. Okurounmu predicated his assertions on what he paraphrases the Bible as saying, to wit, we should give thanks in all things, without its necessary contextualization. When the Bible says in all things we should give thanks, it was within the context of addressing believers to pursue what is good for them and for all people. And in this instance, what the Yoruba had always agreed is good for them and good for all people is what we now refer to as True Federalism which made the Action Group the only party to advocate such and stick with it. Dr. Okurounmu simply fell back on this exhortation to justify his turn around from what the Yoruba had always advocated.
We also know that this demand can only be achieved either by armed interrogation of the Nigerian State or by electoral means. So far, we have embarked on the electoralist methodology while multi-tasking on other tactics.
When therefore, Dr.Okurounmu accuses Bola Ahmed Tinubu of hijacking the Yoruba cause, questions are bound to arise as to what constitutes this hijack . For, to hijack is to appropriate, by force, something in order to push it into an alternate destination. So, how did Tinubu “hijack” the Yoruba cause-such cause being defined as the march towards Autonomy or True Federalism. Historically, without the AG winning the 1951 Regional Elections, the quest for such Federalism by the AG would be still born; in fact within the circumstances of the time, a loss for the AG would have meant the death knell for Federalism as its opponents at the time had no use for it. Thus, a sine qua non for the pursuit, at least from Yorubaland, is the ability to control our political space without outside interference and without being beholden to an outside political agenda while at the same time engaging such external political forces in a constructive manner.
But what do we have now? In 2003, all the AD governors capitulated to Obasanjo’s scheme on his promising them to restructure and in the process, lost their states to the PDP. The only hold out was Tinubu, whose opposition to the Obasanjo onslaught came with his (Tinubu) appreciation of the necessity to not only sit back in Lagos and enter into a modus vivendi with the PDP, but to go ahead and remove the PDP from power all over Yorubaland, in order to restore Yorubaland to its position of internal political coherence and stand us in good stead to continue the quest for True Federalism. Instead of aiding and assisting in the consolidation of this historical move, the Okurounmus started on a mission to destroy that achievement and doing so not as a viable alternative in itself but as an appendage of another interested, external party. For it is simple politics to know that even a Yoruba Nation State will have different political tendencies wherein such tendencies would be driven by their organic relationship with the Yoruba Nation and not as an agent of some external force. So, when Dr. Okurounmu paints Tinubu as a political hijacker, it flies in the face of our history and our quest.

When Tinubu was fighting the PDP, the Okurounmus had ample chance to become the “Organic Yoruba Opposition” and fight Tinubu. They created their political party called the DPA but once they lost the Lagos Governorship election, the DPA disappeared. Tinubu and his political platform trudged on and still retained its potency. But the DPA/Afenifere ended up in an unholy alliance with Jonathan who had shown his preference for neutralization of Yorubaland which even a Chief Olu Falae would have cause to lead a delegation to Jonathan to complain about. It appears the price they paid for Jonathan’s acquiescence was to kow tow to Jonathan’s political agenda. And these are people now pontificating about leadership in Yorubaland.
Dr.Okurounmu himself was an early supporter of Obasanjo, even when he was the Secretary of Afenifere and a Senator under the platform of the AD. He supported Obasanjo against the threat of impeachment. The only conclusion from this is that Dr.Okurounmu is not principled hence he would support an AD nemesis simply because of some ethnic affinity and not on the premise of any political objective. Even if it is assumed that he did it out of political expediency or pragmatism, the question still is, why is he now excoriating a Tinubu for doing similarly in his own political choices? And his support for Obasanjo did not stop Obasanjo from making mincemeat of the AD itself. Of what benefit then, is such support, if not outright opportunism? And he now turns around to misrepresent the Bible.
Dr.Okuorunmu further states that the Jonathan Conference was “successfully concluded” even though he also admitted that the conference could not take a decision on a “very serious issue of resource control” and that they “had to pass the buck back to the government”– yet he called it a “success”. This, of course, is an exhibition of opportunism.
He says it will not be reasonable to conclude that the entire exercise is not a waste of money and time if the most important issue would be returned to sender and his reasons are simply ludicrous. His major reasons include how many committees there were and how a technical committee is different from the national conference because the delegates had vested interest in their resources while the technical committee will not be so saddled.
Dr. Okurounmu did not recognize that the technical committee itself would have to take the vested interests into consideration as it would not work in a vacuum and will not be totally independent of the forces at play at the conference. The composition of the technical committee itself would have to pander to these interests, one way or the other, as its membership will not come from outer space but from within the contentious elements represented by the delegates promoting such vested interests for or against.
But the most annoying of all is when he says that once we accepted what was forced down our throats by the unelected military, we should also accept what an elected government dishes out. The question then is, why have any elections in the first instance? Why participate even in the conference? Why don’t we simply have the elected government tell us what it feels like doing and we should just accept it as done-just as the military used to do via their decrees?
Dr. Okurounmu’s position is a negation of history. For military rule was rejected, both passively and actively, which was why the military went through all sorts of rigmarole before finally settling on “June 12”and when the same military annulled the election, there was much resistance such that the military had no choice but to accede to our request and especially for Yorubaland, the military had to make peace with us by allowing the two presidential candidates to emerge from Yorubaland . But Dr. Okuorounmu had to justify his attempt to ram down the Jonathan regime down our throats by denying this history of anti-military struggles of which he was even a part of. In denying this history, he has denied himself.
Continuing, he said the Regional Autonomy we wanted was achieved in a sort of round about manner because states can remain as “federating units” and they could merge and set up zonal commission while it will be left for the National Assembly to ratify such merger. Right now, and with Dr.Okurounmu’s political association’s acquiescence, the central government of Goodluck Jonathan is attempting to overrun Yorubaland and install his loyalists. In a situation where he did not succeed in one or two states, how could there be a merger of all the Yoruba States to form a union under such circumstances where the states would be in different political parties in contention against each other; especially when the center is deliberately making attempts to install its preferred parties in power? And even if the center succeeds in making itself the only party in power, there would be no incentive for any of the states to merge when they are not only in control of the center but are also in control of the entire political landscape.
Besides, taking Lagos as an example, where, right from the beginnings of the anti-colonial struggle, the Igbo, through the NCNC had been claiming that Lagos is a “no man’s land” which also fueled the “Gbegede L’Eko wa” crowd, in opposition to the Action Group’s demand that Lagos as part of Western Region(Yorubaland) and at this time, such claims has become more vociferous-yet Dr. Okurounmu would want a referendum in the State of Lagos, for example, to determine whether to merge with other Yoruba States or not, under a political regime controlled by Jonathan’s PDP? Indeed, this fact, alone, makes nonsense of the idea of “states as federating Units” where such states are not a reflection of the ethno-cultural make up. In a nutshell, what Dr.Okurounmu is selling is for us to simply forget about Autonomy. For the Autonomy being sought is not for the states or any administrative convenience, but Autonomy of and for the Peoples who can then create any administrative configuration of their choice.
Included in what he called their Conference achievement is the taking away of local government administration from the center and placing them under the states while he, at the same time saying that the “revenue of Nigeria will now be shared between the Federal and State Governments”—yet it is this revenue that has become the albatross of the Conference where a “technical committee” is to intervene and which Dr. Okurounmu says we must accept because we have been accepting military diktats anyway. By even admitting “revenue sharing”, he unwittingly has let the cat out of the bag because a regime of resource control and derivation, by definition, is not about “sharing of revenue”. Such “sharing” is a function of central control of all revenue.

Dr. Okurounmu gave a confused rendering of our immediate past wherein he said some governors were responsible for the cracks in Yoruba leadership and pointedly accused one of the governors(Tinubu) of having an ambition to become leader of Yorubaland. There is nothing absolutely wrong in anyone aspiring to become leader of any organization or political entity, for what determines the assumption of such a role is the alignment of such an ambition (if it is) with the historical moment of the entity. Thus, if a Tinubu aspires to be Yoruba leader, it will not be because he thinks money will enable him to do so but because of whatever role he plays in the emancipation of the land which will rightly accord him such leadership.

Tinubu has proven, once, that he is in alignment with the hopes and aspiration of Yorubaland by ensuring that the PDP was removed for our political landscape. Which is why all sorts of enemies have now risen up like a flood against him and his achievement. These enemies are to be found in the Okurounmus who have now aligned with Jonathan to carry out their nefarious aims and doing it in the exact illegal and unconstitutional manner the enmity against Awo was carried out in the First Republic; yet the Okurounmus will forever lay claim to being “Awoists”.
Beyond all of the above, however, is the issue of Yoruba self-determination, which the positions taken by the Okurounmus has reduced to nothingness. He mentioned SDP/Unity Party etc as some of their platforms. These parties have no electoral value of their own and their leadership is beholden to Jonathan’s PDP which makes them completely useless, politically. For, their only use value to Jonathan is in their collaboration against the SW APC; after which they will be discarded.
It may be OK to say Jonathan’s PDP will go with Jonathan, even if it is after his second term. But then another PDP will arise to replace it and if SDP/Unity Party hope to be this replacement, that will be placing them squarely within the one-party state paradigm and as had been noted before on this page, Afenifere and its political arm would have completed the “mainstreaming” cycle begun in the Akintola regime. It will therefore be acceptable to conclude that this Afenifere, had, at its main core, the resuscitation and actualization of mainstreaming. Yet they will go around professing Regionalism and Autonomy.
Dr. Okuorunmu professes a qualitatively different leadership paradigm from what a Tinubu has to offer, yet he accepts all the shenanigans that took place in both Ondo and Ekiti states where part of the Mimiko and Fayose mantra centered on castigating Yoruba APC as “foreigners” in those states. Yet when Tinubu was Governor of Lagos, Yoruba from anywhere in Yorubaland served in his government. And this is despite the fact that Nigeria is running a centralist government where the States have no need to consciously promote any Ethno-Nationality, since the state’s existence is not dependent on such promotion but on filialty to the center. Aside from the fact that Mimiko himself acknowledged the support he received from Tinubu in his own judicial fight, the same Mimiko now turned the Ondo election into not wanting “Yoruba Foreigners” in their midst; and here is a Dr.Okurounmu, supposedly seeking a qualitatively different leadership from Tinubu, promoting and celebrating the worst form of Yoruba politics, a political aberration in Yorubaland, which was the hallmark of the anti-Awo, anti-AG forces in the First Republic. And this has now become the mantra of all of these anti-APC forces in Yorubaland—which is why they will prefer to neutralize the SW APC so it would have no negotiating power in the National APC and create room for a non-Yoruba Jonathan PDP to dictate for Yorubaland.
Furthermore, aside from the issue of Ekiti ballot papers now in court, the PDP boasted of spending 2Billion naira for the election; the entire state was militarized, the PDP candidate in Ekiti was foisted on the party with Jonathan’s federal might, a situation which led almost all the other contestants to quit the party and the only one who accepted the imposition was rewarded with a ministerial position. All of these would be acceptable to Dr. Okurounmu because he had asked us to accept anything from this “elected” administration because we have been accepting such from the military. There is nothing more opportunistic than that.

By Leye Ige

Tinubu is FINISHED