YORUBA POLITICS AND AWOLOWO LEGACY: MISTAKING SOCIAL WELFARISM FOR DEMOCRACY

YORUBA POLITICS AND AWOLOWO LEGACY: MISTAKING SOCIAL WELFARISM FOR DEMOCRACY

By Oluwaseyi Oduyela/Washington, DC

These Yoruba politicians are funny. When Obasanjo organized his yeye Constitutional conference the Yoruba group did not organize pre-conference. They attended the circus show without a communique or some sort of dumb agenda. Now an Ijaw man without shoes is planning his own circus show, they went to Ibadan, met and issued communique.

They let the Speaker of House of Representatives slip because their Asiwaju is afraid of sharing his prominence in the southwest with a PDP Speaker from the southwest. They inflicted an internalized marginalization on themselves and they are now looking for Regional constitution, Parliamentary system of government because presidential system is more expensive?

Let’s ask: what is the cost of Presidential and what would be the cost of running a parliamentary system?

Why issuing a communique when you have state houses of assembly that can pass resolution and effect review of the constitution? They claim almost everybody has crossed to APC in the Senate why can’t they use that strength now to review and amend the constitution?

The question is what part of Yoruba are they representing? Who commissioned the Ibadan convention? Was there a referendum for such convention by Yorubas?

Yoruba always pride themselves as people with more democratic values than other parts of Nigeria. They claim and call it Awo’s values or legacy. The truth is that Awolowo’s legacy is not democracy but social welfarism. Social welfarism is not the same as democracy.  Provision of free education is not the same as democracy.

Democracy is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” I don’t know what happened in the days of Action Group but I saw what happened in the days of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Most of those who contested in the general elections in the South west under UPN were not elected but selected. No one can challenge Baba Awolowo, at least not openly; but Bola Ige insisted on primary election against Baba Awolowo’s wish to field Baba Alayande as Oyo State Governorship candidate, Baba Ajasin did not have opponent in Ondo and when the younger Omoboriowo came out to contest against the Septuagenarian Ajasin he became an outcast, Sunday Afolabi also was cast out of UPN when he wanted to run against Bola Ige in 1983.

In 1998, the same Awoist political legacy came to play pitching Pa Dawodu in Lagos against Pa Adesanya and Pa Ayo Adebanjo over Tinubu and Funsho Williams.

This is why the Yewa people as saying now that it’s their turn to rule Ogun state. It is simply because we don’t elect in Yoruba land we select. Why should Yewa expect Ijebu or Egba to step down for them? In a democracy, where you come from should not determine your election but your ideas and program.

Yorubas are blessed with benevolent dictators who grease the palms of their followers with goody goody in the name of social welfare which the followers see as favor and they pay back with blind allegiance.

We see Adisa Akinloye, Richard Akinjide, Ladoke Akintola, Adelabu Penkelemesi as traitors because they are not Action Group members. I grew up to know all that, I bought those political ideologies. When in the 90s one of Awolowo’s daughters contested for Lagos Governorship primaries against Yomi Edu and lost people turned against Lateef Jakande for not allowing Tokunbo Dosumu (Awolowo) to get the ticket. Was that democracy?

Tinubu had stepped into the shoes left by Awolowo and has become a benevolent dictator. Dishing out elective positions from Ogun state to Osun, to Ekiti, to Oyo. To run for election, just know someone who knows Tinubu, Bingo, you have won your political lottery. Many of have spoken against this while someone of us like the arrangement.

Many of those in the Senate and House of Representatives from the South west are there not on their merit but their association with Tinubu. You have to know Jagaban ot someone close to him and that’s it. Ondo people rejected Tinubu’s imperialism and people started calling Mimiko names because Yorubas have been brainwashed and this political elite have replaced a fake reality for the true reality.

I think it is high time that we came out in Yoruba land to stop the self-acclamation of being the most enlightened and exposed race in Nigeria.

Why would some people gather in Ibadan, organize a meeting and claim to speak for Yoruba?

In 1998 they founded Afenifere, which gave birth to Alliance for Democracy (AD), but because Bola Ige lost the AD presidential primaries, he pioneered Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) and they broke AD into two.  AD later became AC and now APC.

Is it not clear that those that are parading themselves as leaders in Yoruba presently are clueless or spent? Is it not a sign that these are people imposing their selfish views on ignorant Yorubas as Yoruba views?

Nigeria has moved past all these ethnic or tribal agenda. The new generation of Nigerians is not interested in the politics of amala and gbegiri. Where are these elders when ASUU shut down academics for over 5 months in Federal universities? Tinubu is busy acquiring wealth in the name of what?

The new Awoists embraced the politics of selection but dropped the social welfare ideals of Awolowo. There are more private schools now than ever; doctors and nurses now go on strike. They are fast killing the middle class, yet these ignoramus Yoruba followers sing their praises.

So what makes Yoruba politics better than that other regions of Nigeria?