When the occasion is piled high with difficulty, rise with it – Abraham Lincoln
The Yoruba nation is fraught with many crises. But myopia is not one of them. The Yorubas are a cosmopolitan people who respect the feelings of other. But then, making a generalization has its limits as there would be pockets of non-conformists in any human community.
Since the demise of Obafemi Awolowo, there has been no clear Yoruba leader with a vision that is nationalistic, liberal and strategic. The political class has failed as much as the traditional rulers. The latter are indeed worse because they have jettisoned their ‘divine rights’ as custodians of societal ethos. Many of the traditional rulers have been vilified for churning out titles against all known norms of their forebears.
The proliferation of hitherto non-existing one got to a head in this Republic with notorious politicians getting titles in the most scared of Yoruba royal courts. Many of the new chiefs don’t even have a clue what the meaning of their titles neither can they give the job description. How then can these rulers be trusted with a dignifying role in the constitution and governance process? Some extremists will argue that regard that institution as an anachronism in a democratic setting. However, it is truism that many of the kings are also political jobbers. They give out these titles to curry favours from the seats of power either in Abuja or in their state capitals.
These people hardly learn from history. This chameleonism had in the past got some caught up in the maelstrom of power struggle. Each time, power changes hand they earn more opprobrium in the hands of their supposed subjects who read through their shenanigans. They are either dethroned or exiled or eased out and only through divine providence have some of them returned to the reckoning.
I therefore found it curious that some didn’t see through the archetypal simulation of ‘Oranmiyan’, the victorious builder of nations that extend beyond the shores of Nigeria as the sobriquet for Rauf Aregbesola’s campaign organisation. Loved and deified by his people so much that he offered to pay the supreme sacrifice when it mattered most, but ironically things are no longer so at the cradle of civilization and Yorubaland. Perhaps they should be reminded that the obelisk known as the Staff of Oranmiyan is a reminder to the mystery of Oduduwa’s son whose legendary exploits, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose political scion, Aregbe has come to emblematise.
The spirit of Oduduwa resides in Bola Tinubu, who is surreptitiously taking over the oversized shoes of Awolowo that no one had been able to thrust their legs in since May 9, 1987. More than anyone else, Tinubu, in spite of his human shortcoming is reinventing nationalism in an age where politicians have sold their minds to the spirit of anything goes. Clearly, he doesn’t stand on the same moral high ground as Awo, but he symbolises his progressive leaning.
Tinubu, waded through the drudgery of political chicanery, made friend across the country and as governor made non-Yoruba Lagosians in the nation’s economic capital commissioners and before other governors saw the light of a cohesive and possibility of national integration devoid of the rancour inherent in the dichotomy between indigenes and settlers.
Controversy rages till today as to Tinubu’s ancestry still. But whether he swirls from Iragbiji in Osun State or sired in Lagos Island, there’s is no doubt stamping his authority on the soil of Nigeria as the undisputable leader of the APC in the country. Those he ‘anointed’ or engaged have demonstrably displayed a capacity for delivering. Ask Lagosians – whether autochthonous or settlers. Raji Fashola has justified him.
The emergence of Gen. Mohammadu Buhari has thrown him into national reckoning. And the frenzy surrounding how to demystify Buhari and the political chicanery of Asiwaju speaks volume about the ever-humorous Accountant, who like MKO Abiola has become a national brand.
2015 is a destination to define this myth.
Credit: 247 Nigeria
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