It is written:

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to break down, and a time to build up” Ecclesiastes 3: 1,3b


The time:

Now, for the Yoruba Nation.

A Yoruba President for the Nigerian Post-Colonial State is immaterial, in this period, and under the present circumstances; for not only was there a Yoruba President between 1999 and 2007 , without making a dent on the underdevelopment of the country, the template for continuous Unitarization of the country was formalized, and this, resulting from the compromises that had to be made as a precondition for assuming power.

Compromises with a foundation on the false Census figures engineered by the Colonial State and now reinforced by the Post-Colonial State and which ultimately determines the function and purpose of the presidency; more so when the electoral system is already tweaked in favor of the Unitarist, homogenizing forces from the North.

Moreover, there is nothing new under the sun that had not been previously advocated and not being currently presented as to the development of the Nigerian political economy; yet underdevelopment remains a constant for the Post-Colonial State.

By which we know that the problem is not in the Nationality of the occupier of the Presidency but in its architecture from which methodologies of development must arise.

A “Yoruba President”, a “Nigerian President of Yoruba extraction”, to have any meaning, must be chosen by the Yoruba People, and reserving the right to determine his/her relevance to the process of development of the Peoples of the country; and this, resulting from the historical and existential paradigms of the Yoruba People, thereby making the Presidency a collaboration between the Peoples, the manifestation of social and cultural realities on social and economic development thereby making these the “building blocks” of the new State.

To breakdown:

This Nigerian Post-Colonial State.

With nothing new to offer; having passed through various phases of underdevelopment falsely clothed with the language of development.
At Independence, political power at the center, aimed at the destruction of the Western Region, pitting the Unitarization preached by the North and East against the Federalism of the West, which, among the three Regions, advocated Regional Rights for the minorities; opposed the Anglo-Nigeria Defense Pact which would have given the British total control over Nigerian air space; instituted the minimum wage for workers; created an economic paradigm based on development finance.

The other two Regions, in opposition to all these, creating conditions for the January 1966 military coup led by Nzeogwu, ostensibly as a “nationalist” move to negate “tribalism” and “balkanization” but whose hypocrisy was revealed in its execution and countered in a July 1966 “northern” coup, eventually resulting in the Nigeria-Biafra War.

Regardless of the Ethno-National composition and execution of these military coups, both exhibited a common feature – the imposition of an alien and alienating force on the Yoruba Nationality by either mostly Igbo or Northern military officers, both with the aim of forcing their vision of the Post-Colonial State on Yorubaland.

Despite which the militarist moves pitted the two competing Igbo and Hausa-Fulani Nations against each other for the control of Nigeria; one, the Hausa-Fulani with a history of imperial ambitions, the other, the Igbo and without such a history and actually a pretender to such imperial ambitions, ending up with disastrous consequences, and the Unitarization of Nigeria as the ultimate achievement.

After which the victorious military regime under Yakubu Gowon made a pretense at “reconstruction” and “rehabilitation” only to be exposed by the regime’s lack of knowledge and understanding of the relationship between “money” and “capital”; its political economy engineered as a colonial marketplace to which the Post-Colonial State is beholden for its sustenance.

Succeeded by a Yoruba general as head of State, who eventually handed over power to its anointed civilian counterparts, promising an agricultural revolution at the same time neutralizing it with massive importation of rice and other foodstuff; ignoring the warning about economic collapse, capping it all with a moon-slide electoral victory.

Giving way to various military regimes with a standard rationale for taking power, all anchored on addressing questions of underdevelopment in its various manifestations, up till the present, where the Post-Colonial State is beholden to political economies competing for global dominance.

The reality of the Nigerian Post-Colonial State.

This story of Nigeria, just like the rest of Africa, was and still is based on the corruption of the social and cultural paradigms of the African Nationalities, being subjected to the overarching necessities of the Colonial State and forced into complying with its dictates mainly by negating their existential paradigms and substituting these with a form of social organization in-congruent with their existing values and mores; leaving a void, to be filled with the worst of the characteristics of the colonial society, the direct opposite of those values.

The substitute, not an improvement of an existing paradigm but its negation, which created the cycle of continuous underdevelopment.

The Colonial State, having acceded to the demands of the North to ensure their political dominance through the spurious Census giving it a parliamentary majority as the political foundation for Independence, albeit through its collaboration with the East.

Both, accusing the Action Group of the West, of promoting “balkanization” of Nigeria because of AG’s promotion of Federalism of the Nationalities as the basis for an independent Nigeria.

Disregarding the reality of colonial plunder having already “balkanized” the peoples of Africa into different countries maintained by artificial boundaries, but also within Nigeria by the Post-Colonial State, where many of the Peoples of Nigeria were “balkanized” into different “states”.

The Yoruba, either as the military Head of the Post-Colonial State or as its civilian President, heavily instrumental to the Unitarization and homogenization of the Nigerian Post-Colonial State, to the detriment of not only the Yoruba Nation but also of other Nationalities in Nigeria.

Which any prospective pursuit of a Yoruba Presidency must address; having now known that the Nigerian Post-Colonial State, whose Unitarization and is being pursued apace, is incapable of creating any foundation for the expression of the humanity of the Peoples of Nigeria.

Mandating such a pursuit to be anchored on a completely different paradigm.

To build up:

The Nations, the Peoples in the Nigerian Post-Colonial State.

Without prejudice to other Nationalities in Nigeria, the Yoruba Nation clearly determining for itself, the parameters for Nigerian Presidency.

Mandating the Constitutional Re-Formation of Nigeria.

It is written:

“…. A time to keep, And a time to throw away….” Ecclesiastes 3:6b

By which endless promises and journeys of economic and political development to nowhere, coinciding with electoral contests for the Presidency, must be thrown away; and, together with all the above, be placed within the context of addressing the question of Federalism in Nigeria, by which the Peoples of the Nationalities push for and assert their right to Self-determination via re-establishing the Peoples in their cultural and existential self-conception(s)and expressions.

Overcoming the pitfalls of the Post-Colonial State, neutralizing its mechanistic application of “global” solutions, imbibing the cultural essence of the Nations; these, being the manifestation of their humanity, denied by the Post-Colonial State.

Necessitating the establishment of the Multi-National State as the alternative State Formation.

Where the Presidency is to be arrived at via “A Federal Nigeria, through a Federal Constitution, to be known as The Union of Nigerian Constituent Nationalities, with a Federal Presidential Council, whose members will be selected or elected from each of the Nationalities as Federating Units and from whom a Head of State will be selected or elected as the primus-inter-pares with an agreed term.”

The pursuit of which is to become the political reality of Yorubaland which the Post-Colonial State must respond to.

“That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you”.

Wale Odeku