₦airaland Forum

Traders at Alaba Rago Market seen cleaning up their very dirty Market environment after Lagos State Government sealed their place for dirtiness and other environmental infractions.

We have heard so much about ethnic strife and loyalty in Africa and Europe based on tribe. We saw it in Yugoslavia, Myanmar etc. and lately in Ukraine. The only Ethnic group in most parts of our ethnic world that has ever rejected their own son and kin as the Presidential candidate while voting for others, are the Yoruba of West Africa. Yet, it is not yet Uhuru since some Africans have become selfish as cash mules that care less about their people.

Unexpectedly, repressed tribal politics has also raised its ugly head in the United States of America. Well, it has always been there, the last United States Presidential Election just boiled to the surface what has been brewing for a long time since the end of their Civil War. It is doubtful if they ever recovered from the vestiges of slavery. But they have taken strides to reach the goal of an equitable society.

Africans and scholars in world universities always use the Yoruba as case study for their civilization, tolerance and accommodation. Nigerians also hold them up to their values and egalitarian system whenever they stray out of line. There may be debate of the falling standard in a country that realized Oil Income windfall since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1972. Unfortunately, Nigeria has replaced Asian countries as the face of abject poverty.

The Nigerian Presidential Election produced some surprises along the Regions. While the Eastern states of the country voted over 90 percent along ethnic lines, the West and the old North were divided. The old North made up of different ethnic groups did not follow the old slogan of One North One People because two Presidential candidates contested, dividing the block voted for Hausa or Fulani candidates.

Nevertheless, the Western states that were mainly Yoruba rejected their own son in his state of origin and his adopted state where he has been elected as Governor in the past. The reason Yoruba voted for the Presidential candidates of other ethnic groups in Nigeria points to their Value System. Unlike their counterparts in the same countries, money has never been at the top of their Values in priorities.

Knowledge, honor, status and caliber are appreciated before money. Ethnic loyalty through the political history of Nigeria has always been secondary. So within the Nigerian Youth Movement formed by Herbert Macauley that metamorphosed into a political Party, it is not surprising that he mentored leaders of different ethnic groups. Such as Azikiwe, Awolowo, Ernest Ikoli, Peter Enahoro and many others.

This spirit of honor, caliber and merit regardless of where members come from produced not only leaders but elites that did very well in businesses and politics. While Nigeria was divided along the North and South politically, they found a temporary unity to claim Independence from the British. Indeed, one of the reasons Nnamdi Azikiwe gave for his Party alliance with the Northern Party was to avoid division along the North and South line.

Nevertheless, the Yoruba made Azikiwe the leader of the Party founded by Herbert Macauiey in Lagos and then elected him as leader into the Western House at Ibadan in the Yoruba Western Region. Very rare in African politics. Other ethnic groups flourished in the West in business, law and other educational activities since the Premier University was in Ibadan.

The Balewa Federal Government installed Prof. Kenneth Dike in1963 at the University of Ibadan, as Nigeria's first Vice-Chancellor. In 1965, after the expiration of another Igbo, Prof. Eni Njoku's three-year term as Vice-Chancellor at University of Lagos, Balewa replaced him with a renowned Yoruba historian, Prof. Saburi Biobaku. Kayode Adams, one of the Yoruba student activists at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and others protested against a Yoruba man and stabbed him.

Fast forward, it is not by accident that other ethnic groups were voted for as Presidential candidates while the Yoruba candidates came second in two important Yoruba states. These two Yoruba states knew the characters of their son and rejected him. This critical moral value among Yoruba may be discounted by those ethnic groups that voted for nobody else but their sons. Their hypocrisy stinks to high heavens, knowing their past voting patterns.

Some even claimed they have voted across ethnic lines before. But we know they only do that when their sons are running mates of the party they form an alliance with. Even Abiola a Yoruba that was duly elected as President, the Military Government nullified his mandate. Apart from one Eastern state, an unknown Fulani, Tofa got more votes than Abiola. They later supported the cancellation of the Abiola mandate.

Then, the Military decided on another Yoruba as replacement candidate. The Yoruba put up their own preferred candidate. In unisom, other ethnic groups voted against the Yoruba preferred candidate, Falaye and voted for Obasanjo, the Military Government’s candidate. A cynical move against Yoruba interest.

Fajuyi, the man that stood by Aguiyi Ironsi who refused to bring Nzegwu to justice for killing each ethnic leader in power except Igbo while Igbo celebrated, was called a traitor. Banjo, the Yoruba man that remained loyal to the Biafrans Army and led Biafrans Army into his fatherland was called a traitor and killed by firing squad when he returned to Biafra.

Wole Soyinka, the man who supported Biafra during the Civil War and almost died in prison for it, was called a traitor by Igbo. Tai Solari and Gani Fawehinmi fought Babangida and Abacha to a standstill at the risk of their life. Both were labeled cowards. When the Fulani tried to keep Yar'Adua in a vegetable state in power and ruled by proxy, Yoruba activists fought until his Vice President, a Biafrans nominated by Obasanjo became Acting President.

Jonathan was later voted into Power by the majority of the country from North to South. As soon as he became President, he squandered his enormous goodwill by marginalizing the Yoruba and labeled his benefactor, Obasanjo, a motor park tout. It was during his reign that he declared: our money, we spend it anyway we want. While he boasted about creating more millionaires and billionaires, he left Niger Delta, his home, an environmental disaster worse than he met it.

Despite these transgressions against Yoruba interest in Nigeria, Yoruba voted for the other ethnic groups and rejected their own son. It has never happened anywhere in Europe, Asia, America or Africa. The only way to understand the rationale behind Yoruba action in the last Presidential Election, one has to go back into their Value System.

You wonder if it is short memory or convenient amnesia. Before and even during the Nigerian Civil War, it was Yoruba that were seeking peace and were called Unity Beggars.

Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa

How can you sit at the comfort of your home and destroy the image of the Military without feeling any remorse?

Well we are in Democracy.

Dear, David Hundeyin ...

I will repeat no single Soldier receive a single allowance ever since former COAS Lt Gen TY Buratai left office till date go and find out.

There's nothing like Tinubu allowance or anything, that I can tell you for a fact.

Maybe they can pay later, since you're already praying for the Military now.

As the CinC he can decide to give Soldiers welfare and we shall gladly accept it with many thanks.

Billionairly:
Wow the Yorubanization agenda continues...Extreme tribalism These ronu people are and have always been the problem of this country. Triple faced Fxckers! You can see how yoruboid countries like Benin and togo ended up being the poorest in the planet,

3ice9ce:
Calm down. This wailing na by zoning. Na Agulu east dey wail. E never reach your turn for Awkuzu West.

Racoon:
A supreme Court that has no usefulness to enthroning good electoral legacies and reversing the ills of corrupt leaders. The judges of this course have taken their place in the infamy of this generation

DMerciful:
Source?

For those celebrating what was apparently their "victory" yesterday, I have very little to say.

Apparently your "Asiwaju" is paying the military rank-and-file a special extra-budgetary allowance so that they don't carry out a coup - such is his level of confidence in his own "mandate."

However long this marriage of strange bedfellows lasts, it will inevitably come to and end. When it does, I will be here to tweet "I told you so" as I always do.

Tomorrow's Max Siollun history books are being written in real time today. Good luck to all of us.

Kate Henshaw and Okey Bakassi last night rejoiced with the APC in Imo State at the Fund Raising Ceremony for APC's Hope Uzordinma's reelection.

I congratulate our dear nation, Nigeria, especially the legal team that handled the major judiciary victory recorded at the United Kingdom Court on Monday in the case against Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited.

Thankfully, the case was decided in the United Kingdom, a nation known for its respect for the rule of law and where the judiciary delivers justice freely and fairly to the people. This, therefore, offers veritable lessons to Nigerians in general, and our judiciary in particular.

Every lawful society is built on a strong system of justice and every democratic society exists on the principle of the rule of law. In handling the identity crisis, electoral disputes, and many high corruption cases that have bedeviled our nation, the judiciary has a bounding duty to protect our dear nation's value system. Nigeria won its bid to overturn an $11 billion damages bill involving the controversial P&ID deal, yet similar, or even greater amounts, have gone unaccounted for in Nigeria, and the culprits are freely walking the streets. I urge our public office holders, in different arms of government, to understand that we have no other nation but Nigeria and we all, are bound to work together for the development of our nation.

As we have gladly received justice in a foreign land, may we learn to give justice to our countrymen so that our nation can enjoy peace, progress, and unity. A truly just and fair New Nigeria is possible if our judiciary embraces the spirit and message of change.

-PO

The IRS doesn't have a record for Bola Ahmed Tinubu which they can provide. IRS replies Aaron Greenspan a couple of days ago.

Then Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo posing for photos for the Associated Press at Uli airstrip, on Monday, January 12, 1970, shortly after its capture by his 3rd Marine Commando forces, in an operation code-named Tailwind.

Hours earlier, Emeka Ojukwu left Biafra from this same venue to, as he put it, "search of peace". He never returned.

Colonel Obasanjo would go on to capture key Biafran officials and accept the unconditional surrender of Biafra's armed forces. A formal surrender ceremony occurred at Dodan Barracks on Thursday, January 15, 1970, ending the Nigerian Civil War, which began on Thursday, July 6, 1967.

The war officially started on a Thursday and ended ceremonially on a Thursday. Subsequently, General Yakubu Gowon announced that there was "no victor, no vanquished'.

Raskimonojendor:
Bob Dee oni je kuje. Some Obidients were even thinking he is Ariwomogbe of the Supreme court of Nigeria. Dunces

Dear authenticsam7,

Thank you for your feedback. Before the election, I maintained that Tinubu was admitted, attended, and graduated from Chicago State University. After the election, I maintained the same thing. Three months before the election, I was interviewed by AriseTV and maintained that though I do not want Tinubu to win the election, I would not lie against him. So, when did I change? What am I saying now that is an opposite of what I said after I went to CSU to verify the truth? Because I refused to lie that a man did not attend a school I know he attended, I am a betrayer?

And are you sure that Yorubas are betrayers? Are you even aware that when Northern military officers came to arrest the then Military Head of State, Major General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29, 1966, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the Military Governor of the Western Region, refused to abandon the then Head of State, choosing instead to be loyal to him until death, even though he was given the option to replace Ironsi as Head of State?

After Nzeogwu’s death (the circumstances of his death are still hazy and shrouded in controversy) at the age of 30 on July 29, 1967, his friend, Olusegun Obasanjo, cared for his family and assisted his siblings with their education and became like a son to his mother. 
 
Obasanjo did not have to do it. None of Nzeogwu’s military colleagues from Eastern Nigeria and the Biafran military did it. But Obasanjo did. Obasanjo went to Okpanam more than 5 times to visit Nzeogwu's mother. Neither Ojukwu or any member of the Biafran High Command did.

Also, when Ambassador Walter Carrington told General Obasanjo not to return to Nigeria from Copenhagen because he would be arrested by Abacha on coup plotting charges, General Obasanjo instead brought forward his return date. When asked why he returned to Nigeria, he posited that if he returned, Abacha would be less likely to kill those already arrested, especially his friend, Shehu Musa Yar’adua.

How many Nigerians do you know who can behave so honourably?

Major General Tunde Idiagbon was abroad in Mecca when Babangida and Sani Abacha overthrew him and Major General Buhari. But he returned. Gowon was overthrown in Kampala and did not return.

Finally, there is the case of MKO Abiola, who returned to reclaim his mandate from Nigeria’s most brutal military dictator ever. He was arrested in 1994. He was offered bail, but refused freedom in exchange for abandoning his mandate. This was a multimillionaire in US Dollars. The richest man in Nigeria at that time. Yet, Bashorun chose prison over freedom. He did not run away and abandon his people.

The Yoruba are a very tactful and diplomatic people. These are attributes that some people mistake for cowardice or sycophancy. They are a people who understand how to stoop to conquer.

No Yoruba leader would abandon his people and side with their opponents during a war or flee and leave them to their fate after a war. Others may behave like that, but not Omo/ti-Olu-Iwa-bi!

However, please be aware that I am Itsekiri, not Yoruba.

Thanks again, and may God bless you.

#TableShaker

A released hostage said she was taken care of. She was given conditioners, shampoos e.t.c and everything a woman needs.

CNN reported this in a different way as expected.

Due to this large amount of hypocrisy from the West, I have stopped supporting the Ukrainians. It's hard to tell what is real and what is not. To think that I have dragged Putin on this Nairaland for so long not knowing that I was been fed western propaganda.

Same way CNN redacted their stories of beheaded babies..

A released hostage said she was taken care of. She was given conditioners, shampoos e.t.c and everything a woman needs.

CNN reported this in a different way as expected.

Due to this large amount of hypocrisy from the West, I have stopped supporting the Ukrainians. It's hard to tell what is real and what is not. To think that I have dragged Putin on this Nairaland for so long not knowing that I was been fed propaganda.

Same way CNN redacted their stories of beheaded babies..

Ingocof:
This will explain better.

Bioboy1213:
Is that a chair or wheelchair ?

Belial06:
Ladies and gentlemen the power of money

see before in 2022



see after in 2023



Is money not wonderful?

Salewa97:
All what he has been doing is to continue to provoke Tinubu so that he will go after him and he can use that ground to apply for asylum in the West.

All his noise of MC Oluomo and Wasiu is all part of the plan. Provoke everybody to generate a critical mass and then shout they are after your life and use that to apply for asylum.

The court that denied the request today was even mad at them because they never gave any cogent reason as to why they need the FBI file immediately.

David should just beg the judge for asylum instead of playing mind games.