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“ooduapathfinder” congratulates the vast majority of the Yoruba who refused to be bought, goaded or intimidated into the opportunism represented by those gathered together as Afenifere in Yorubaland. This congratulations is for the victory in a battle well fought and won. Next in line are the Governorships on April 11 and we are also sure of victory. This victory has opened a new door for progress and development and Yoruba Nation’s particular contribution to socio-economic development of the world as entrenched in our collective memory and practicalized through our various interventions on the crisis of development and underdevelopment of and in Nigeria. The new dawn that was established at independence now has a new lease of life–thanks to your steadfastness and that of our political leaders in the APC, for giving all of us a hope in our various little corners of activity. While continually soaking ourselves in this celebration, we must also recognize the fact that our political trajectory had been bastardized by Afenifere, hence the necessity to reclaim it from them, while leaving them to remain in the dustbin of history to which they have consigned themselves.
“Afenifere”, for the Yoruba, philosophically, means “freedom for all, life more abundant”; which was why its original quest, encapsulated in “Freedom for all” was for “True Federalism” in Nigeria which would allow all of the Nations/Peoples that make up the entity to develop its own inherent potentials to the utmost limit without being hamstrung by any overarching apparatus, in line with the best practices of multi-lingual and multi-cultural countries in the world.
“Life more abundant” became the platform for the social, cultural and economic well-being of the society whose foundation was laid in the Western Region of Nigeria through various forms, notably Economic development agencies and industrial nurturing establishments, educational promotion via the Universal and free primary education as well as provision of educational scholarships topped with the all-round development of the physical and spiritual well-being of the individual. All of these were possible because the Yoruba Nation, as well as the non-Yoruba resident in the Western Region, were able to have political authority over themselves in the form of Regionalism that ushered in Nigeria’s independence; a Regionalism that not only benefited the Western Region, but also the Northern and Eastern Regions as well; for they also embarked on political and economic activities their political leaders at the time thought not only feasible but also necessary.
Unfortunately, the unresolved conclusion of the anti-colonial struggles, which failed to define the nature of Nigeria as a country of Nationalities/Peoples preferring to see it as a single “Nigerian” object created room for the negation of this Regionalism/Federalism such that attempts were made to subject all of the Nigerian peoples into “one” entity which eventually led to the Nigeria-Biafra war and its consequences. Thus, the problem of Nigeria became the problem of definition of “one”; either as a singularity or a plurality; for “one” in this instance, is not a mathematical but a social concept. Its reduction into its mathematical component created the problem with Nigeria as a concept.
Similarly, “Afenifere” as a philosophy became transformed into an organizational framework with the end result of neutralizing the philosophy itself; for a philosophy can be applied to any given situation without losing its philosophical essence, in terms of questioning or defining its environment, but an organization will certainly lose its essence, by definition, since it may have to adapt to changing circumstances, which changes can also be brought about by the interaction of philosophical exchanges in the society.
Thus, when “Afenifere” became an “organization”, it had to jettison one or the other; just as the various Communist parties of old, choosing to be called communist parties only because of their espousal of social democratic objectives by which their political platforms were generally known and based on their advocacy of communism as the preferred political goal; “Afenifere” fell into the same pit.
Since its organizational creation, during the Abacha dictatorship, Afenifere had been unable to sustain the promotion of the historical philosophical objectives while navigating its political positions within the existing political organizations that abound. Hence, by the return to civil rule in 1999, it rode on the Yoruba political existential paradigm, without which it would not have even been recognized to contest in the then emerging political scenario, by setting up the Alliance for Democracy as its political platform.
Just as “Afenifere” was the Action Group’s philosophy; the Alliance for Democracy sought to make it its own philosophy. But while the AG, even while transiting into the UPN retained the philosophy, the new leaders, now identifying themselves as “Afenifere” determined it as both an organization as well as a philosophy.
Its history from 1999 saw a gradual demotion of the philosophy in favor of the promotion of the organization; hence, “Afenifere” turned or attempted to turn itself into the voice of the Yoruba Nation, as an organization, and with it naturally came all of the political somersaults and even wrong-headed political decisions that could only end up where it is now; a major example being the decision to make “Afenifere” a home to any one, irrespective of one’s political affiliation thus diffusing its philosophical essence.
By the time of Goodluck Jonathan’s preparations for his re-election, Afenifere, the organization, was the first to overturn the philosophy it originally existed for. Being the definition of the Action Group, itself being based on the Egbe Omo Oduduwa’s promotion of “True Federalism”, there can be no Afenifere philosophy outside True Federalism.
It will not be necessary to go into full details of the Egbe’s proposals here, but suffice it to say that the Egbe embarked on historical, cultural and political moves to ensure its goals of value-driven Regional development within the context of one Nigeria. Prominent among the Egbe’s objectives was its major role in promoting the notion , through its memo to the Regional Committee on the amendment to the Richards Constitution established by the then Governor MacPherson, in which the Egbe advocated the “grouping of Nigeria into various Autonomous States or Regions purely on ethnical basis” and that Regional Autonomy should be the prerequisite for a Central government and that if there was any area in which the colonial government wanted to experiment in giving Nigerians complete control over internal affairs, that area should be in the Regional Administration.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo drew extensively on the global models of shared governance between national and sub-national governments in arriving at the Federalist option when the anti-colonial struggle was at its peak. In 2013-14, when a similar situation presented itself, Afenifere relegated this global imperative to the background in conceptualization and implementation by denying Nationalities the freedom to choose who to speak for them thereby alienating most delegates from the Nationalities whose direct voice was needed on such crucial aspect of restructuring the polity in Nigeria.
Afenifere not only negated this fundamental premise but has gone ahead to accept further unitarization of Nigeria, thus entrenching the country’s foundational crisis, which also runs counter to what the Yoruba had always advocated as being the basis for freedom for all.
Afenifere’s refrain, throughout the period in question, was for us to accept whatever it is that emanated from the Jonathan Conference. And what was being offered? According to Afenifere, “States can now create employment and develop their own states. Each state can have its own constitution, its own police force, can have its own prison service, can create its own local governments and in addition, in the economic domain, solid minerals that had been the exclusive preserve of the federal government since independence, have now been brought to the concurrent list; self-funding regional institutions “in order to encourage developmental efforts among cooperating states”
“ooduapathfinder” briefly takes a look at these issues:
(1) Self-Funding Regional Institutions among cooperating states:
In the Western Region, the Action Group government created the Western Nigeria Development Corporation, which, among other things, was responsible for the industrial and economic development of the Region through the mechanism of the various industrial and residential estates as well as other economic entities. It was also directly involved in human development via the provision of educational scholarships.
When the Region was turned into Western State, as the successor entity to the Western Region, the WNDC continued its historical mission and when the State was further carved up into the three States of Oyo, Ogun and Ondo, as successor entities, the then Secretary to the Government of Western State, the late Mr.C.S.O. Akande led others to set up a holding company known as “Oodua Holdings” in order to prevent the outright collapse of the institution, as such was what the then military administration in Nigeria favored. That holding company is what we now know as Oodua Investments Ltd, with all of the Yoruba successor States as shareholders.
Some of its companies went into the doldrums, especially when Nigeria’s economic policies came under the hammer of the Structural Adjustment Program(SAP), which among others, saw to the demise of the Marketing Boards, which was loudly hailed by an Afenifere leader who also happened to be SAP’s chief enforcer, Chief Olu Falae, as an important element of economic liberalization but which in the end turned out to be an avenue to economic suicide via making local production unattractive at a time which privileged proliferation of imported substitutes, thereby turning a formerly productive sector into an absolute consumer of imported, finished goods which also led to our political and cultural strangulation. In spite of these, some of the ventures retained their viability while some that went under are now being resuscitated by the current APC Governments in Yorubaland. This brief excursion is to let us know that what Afenifere is selling is nothing new as a self-funding Regional Institution already existed in a very functional form in Yorubaland, in spite of efforts to destroy it or take it over by interests sympathetic to the Center.
The WNDC concept was part of a political paradigm that saw to the combined and even development of a Region just emerging from colonial underdevelopment and midwifed by the Action Group as its core demand for decolonization. Whereas Afenifere’s acceptance denied this core political necessity in its approval of further balkanization of the Region via creation of more states which are no longer successor entities of the Western Region and giving us a sop in the form of any form of cooperation between and among the states and which cooperation is dependent upon an approval of the National Assembly.
A “self-funding economic agency” without its political basis is a non-starter, a priori; and a denial of economic self-actualization for an economic platform in a center of antagonistic political configuration is a panacea for economic failure. Recommending a self-funding economic agency without fiscal federalism that makes revenue raising and collection Regional is nothing more than self-deception. A country in which the states or federating units depend on allocation from the center cannot call itself a federal system. None of the Federations in the world: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirate, and U.S.A., operates on the model of state dependency on allocations from the center being touted by Afenifere.
(2) States as“federating Units” that can have their own Constitutions
Afenifere, the organization, already assumed the singularity of the geo-political space called Nigeria and all of its solutions to its problems are relegated to maintaining that singularity while turning issues of Federalism into an administrative convenience even when it is obvious that the problem is exactly in that singularity. That is why this Afenifere will promote the ridiculous position that “states are federating Units”. States, as we have them in Nigeria, are administrative entities, which were not even created by the residents but by military fiat. A country can have any form of administrative unit, which was why Aguiyi Ironsi replaced the Regions with “groups of provinces” which are now more or less the “states” and more so when it is increased from the present 36 to 54.
When the Egbe Omo Oduduwa rejected the Richards Constitution, it was based on the principle of a Union or Federation based on the Peoples and not as administrative units. Indeed, every Union or Federation in the world is based on a Union of Peoples which may now be administered either as states (as in the US) or regions as in Germany. For a federation or Union to exist, therefore, the Peoples inhabiting a geographical space must make that decision. That Afenifere rejected this point underscores its opportunism as well as its flawed understanding of the concept of federalism in a post-colonial State like Nigeria.
And when the case is made that the current states are now a reality which we cannot run away from, the short answer to that is, Yes, we can run away from it, in the sense that the political and economic circumstances that make for their creation is the root cause of Nigeria’s problems today, such that their retention or changing can only be by the Peoples affected themselves and not by fiat from the Center. Thus, the Yoruba Nation may decide to make every Yoruba town or city an administrative center—that will be our choice based on our economic and political imperatives.
A Constitution, being the “basic law”, the grundnorm of a society, embodies the socio-cultural essence of the People; it aggregates their existential paradigms; therefore, it is not simply a series of legal codes that can be altered at will. Arbitrary operation of Nigeria’s Constitution has been a regular practice in the country and always without reference to the people who are to use the Constitution. But for the Western Region, its political space is also a Cultural space with time-honored values, and this was why the People of the West did not really respond to the 1964 Federal elections but chose to respond decisively to the rigging of the 1965 Regional elections, because they had something to defend; their grundnorm and the values that drive the Region’s civilization.
We can relate this to the situation in today’s Ekiti State, where we now have 6 legislators in “control” of the State Assembly as the “majority” while the remaining 17 are considered minority, all because the Center is supporting that abnormality. The question “ooduapathfinder” asks is, what type of Constitution will emanate from Ekiti State, for example? A Constitution passed by a minority in the State Assembly imposed on a majority? Would such even be considered a “Constitution”? We can therefore not accept a situation where our Constitution will depend on the whims and caprices of a governor. So, to promote “states having their own Constitution” through a process that is not authorized by the people or their chosen representatives is to deny the People as the makers of such Constitution.
Besides, there is no correlation between a state constitution and Federalism. Having a state constitution has nothing to do with Federalism. In the Ekiti example, what unity would there be between a Fayose State Constitution and Osun State Constitution in order to form a Region, as we are being told? Or are we saying that state constitutions will depend on changing political circumstances or that the Central Government will determine how and when a state Constitution will come into effect, which will also be dependent on the political forces at the center? So, whichever way this is cut, a state constitution is meaningless outside the definition of the Federating Unit in and of itself. In other words, the issue is not about “state Constitution” but about the Peoples that want to create a Union. Such that if we are talking about federating units being in existence, such federating units are not the states, but the PEOPLES, who are already in existence and can decide to administer themselves as they deem fit, be it as states, regions, cities, etc.
(3) Each State can create its own Local government.
The Central government will retain and disburse all the funds for Local Government; yet Afenifere is telling us that each state can create its own local government.
(4) State Police
State Police is a consequence and not the cause of Federalism as Afenifere wants us to believe. Right now, States depend almost entirely on federal allocations to pay their workers’ salaries; and it is this allocation that will be saddled with funding state police. The state police is to be funded from received allocations when the number of states are increased to 54 such that the revenue allocation will have minimal or no change from the existing allocation structure which translates into such state police being underfunded and unable to achieve its maximum potential in terms of training and professional advancement. Once a state police is under the control of the sole Inspector-General who is responsible only to the President, such arrangement is not stronger than the one that says that the federal government should fund exploitation of mineral resources in states, without any consideration for the centrality of fiscal federalism to a federal system with integrity.
Afenifere also says that the allocation accruing to the center is reduced by 10%. But we know that the increase in the number of states would have already made nonsense of the increase as more states will now share in this increase. Reducing or increasing the amount of allocations is not Fiscal Federalism by any stretch of imagination. Such determinations are precisely what is wrong with the unitary system. Fiscal Federalism proceeds from the control of economic and fiscal policies by the communities whereby it is those communities (Federating Units) that will determine what is to go to the Center for its operations as negotiated.
Derivation by definition, even as practiced in the First republic, presupposes that the center does not “give”; the “owner” gives and the center “takes”. The issue about Federalism is thus not about reductions or increases in such allocations–for even if the “state constitution” recommendation is acceptable, there would be no need for such constitutions if these allocations can be reduced or increased at will by the center or its agency; otherwise such State constitutions would have to be adjusted every time an increase or decrease in allocation is effected.
This Afenifere organization hinged its continuous political trajectory on the implementation of these and other recommendations from the Goodluck Jonathan Conference; and having shown that they are contrary to the age-long Yoruba demands and pursuits, “ooduapathfinder” calls on the Yoruba Nation to follow up on their rejection of Afenifere at the polls by rejecting it as an organization capable of representing Yoruba National Interest in any form or capacity. It could keep its name, that will be its prerogative, but we must not allow it to rubbish our philosophical legacy and political praxis on the altar of its opportunism. Ise Ya

Lagos as never being rule by government of the
center this we go change Rilwan akinolu u never
die eko o gbudo baje jagaban we must not louse
our pride to the none indigene in lagos pls make
lagos safe for all we have come far to louse lagos
now no jimi jump up in April it only come up in
December A P C one family one voice one people i
say this is the spirit of lagos that is challenge let
us speak in one voice