When
Muhammadu Buhari clinched the presidency, many Nigerians believed it
was a year of a big, bloodless political revolution. But now we know
this wasn’t so much a revolution as a restructuring of the political
order, a transfer of power from one elite to another, not the sort of
bottom-up popular uprising that many Nigerians had in mind.
The
economic melt down, unrest, protests, violence, the long intractable
poverty, the sense of hopelessness and helplessness, the leadership
vacuum created by the hospitalisation of President Buhari, and the
tyrannical abandon of problems facing Nigerians by the do-nothing
National Assembly have spurred the long-dormant spirit of activism. The
snowflakes, it seems, have whipped up a snowstorm.
Lately,
Yorubas are being terrorised from all angles by the Hausas and Fulanis.
The Fulani herdsmen are killing Yorubas like flies. Even the Acting
President Yemi Osinbajo, was not spared of the incursion of the Fulanis.
He’s being harassed, intimidated, insulted, humiliated, taunted, and
turned into a ping pong ball by Aso Rock Hausa and Fulani cabals led by
Bukola Saraki. The latest plot by Saraki and Aso Rock cabals published
July 5, 2017, by SaharaReporters headlined “Aso Rock Cabal, Senator
Saraki Commence Sabotage of Acting President Osinbajo As Buhari’s Health
Crisis Deepens” detailed how Saraki in an unholy alliance with other
reactionary forces at Aso Rock plot to unleash tsunami of political
upheavals to dislodge Osinbajo from assuming full presidential powers.
On the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC Chair, the Attorney
General of the Federation Abubakar Malami, said Osinbajo’s statement on
the issue didn’t reflect the collective decision of the Federal
Executive Council. Though, Malami had since denied the statement.
It
bears repeating that were Osinbajo a Hausa or Fulani, he’ll never have
been subjected to such trauma and torture. It’s troubling. It’s
dangerous. And it’s saddening. What further evidence do we need that
Nigeria isn’t one country? What more reasons do we need to justify
Yoruexit from Nigeria? It’s in the best interest of Yorubas to start
working on ways and means to disengage from Nigeria.
Like
I have argued many times, it’s too late to save Nigeria as is. In other
words, the continued existence of Nigeria as one nation is beyond
“restructure.” I believe the only way out for Yorubas is to hasten their
exit from this hell hole call Nigeria. Anything short of that is
unacceptable, unrealistic, and unworkable. We don’t have to ask for
anyone’s permission to leave Nigeria. We don’t have to wait for the
primitive, decadent, hostile, system to evolve or for bad laws to
change. In the best interest of direct action, we have to walk out of
this pit of hell – now! The reckless political provocation by the Hausa
and Fulani Aso Rock cabals should stretch Yoruba political imaginations.
Yorubas are known to be tolerant, accommodating, liberal and refined.
However, being reasonable and civilised should not be exploited by the
Hausas and Fulanis. Of course, we have corrupt and selfish politicians
among us. In the new Yoruba nation – Oduduwa Republic – We’ll take care
of the corrupt ones among us. We’ll cut their wings. We’ll tame them.
We’ll uproot them from our midst.
When
we talk about secession, separation, call it any name, some Nigerians
are uncomfortable acknowledging the contradictions, crises, and
confusion in which a divided one Nigeria has been submerged for 58
years. When confronted with the reality of Nigeria’s 58 years of misery,
the apologists of one Nigeria have no cogent and convincing reasons
other than tirade of trite cliches: “It’s costly and destructive to
break up,” “bigger is better,” there’s strength in diversity,” “we
cannot go it alone,” “we have much to lose than to gain.” And on, and
on, and on. They conjure up these imaginary ghosts to justify the
self-serving present. They forget we cannot erase or cover up the
historical dystopian reality of Nigeria.
Why Yorubas Can’t Wait
We
waited 58 years hoping for miracles. It never came. Meanwhile, as we
waited for a better Nigeria, things have gotten worse. Our education
system once the envy of the world, has been dismantled and mutilated.
The curriculum has no content, no rigour, no substance, no value, no
philosophy. It’s an empty shell. As we waited, disparities in wealth
increased with the looters prospering and the poor starving. The long
running poverty slaughtered and uprooted as it were, the present
generation and generations yet unborn. The persistence and prevalence of
untamed corruption and infectious poverty daily consume our people.
Inflamed ethnic rivalries and religious intolerance grow daily with
intensity among the poor. It has fostered distrust and festered old
ethnic prejudices.
As
we waited, the excesses, evils, injustices, and wickedness of the
ruling class have further chiselled the great divide between the haves
and have nots and have collapsed our civilisation and culture. Our
society has been turned into a Hobbesian horror that a normal person
must escape. An extended meditation of Nigerian maladies has turned
citizens into a surviving appendage that begs for life support. As we
waited, Nigeria remains a country of misery characterised by a rainbow
of misadventures. The citizens of a country blessed with the world’s
most abundant resources live in one of the worst places on earth. The
federal system of government has been rendered useless, ineffective and
made impossible to work. It’s a failure. It’s a tombstone. It’s fragile
foundation built on a corrupt and deceitful Nigerian political model
that doesn’t make sense.
As we
waited, Nigeria has turned into a jungle alien to rule of law, where
might is right and where injustice reigns supreme. Nigeria provides a
textbook example of a country being governed by fools, idiots, thugs,
looters, and ignoramuses. These elected ruffians and con artists are the
real enemies of our people. As we waited, Nigerian unskilled poor have
exchanged rural poverty for even deeper miseries of the shanty towns
with disaffection-filling movements. The swelling urban mobs, abductors,
rapists, armed robbers, kidnappers, and hired assassins in the ghastly
alleys of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Kano, Benin, Otuoke,
etc., are unchecked, disregarded, left to grow and fester.
You
see, we’ve waited for 58 years. Every death hurts. Every impoverished
Nigerian enrages. Every jobless Nigerian is a walking dead. The God
given blessings for Nigeria are not shared or enjoyed in common.
Justice, liberty, and prosperity are exclusive illusion of the poor. The
sunlight that brought light and healing to the few, has brought stripes
and death to our people. While the ruling class rejoices and relishes
for one Nigeria, the poor are in perpetual mourning in the same country.
Can
you hear the mournful wail of million of Yoruba youths whose lives are
being wasted before our eyes and whose lives are being cut short by
cheap preventable deaths? Can you see the bleeding of sorrow from
Yorubas – the hungry, sick, helpless and hopeless children turned
scavengers roaming the streets looking for food in the garbage
dumpsters? Can you see Yoruba young girls turned prostitutes for lack of
jobs and opportunities? Can you see Yoruba young men turned armed
robbers as a result of being uprooted by poverty and precarious life?
Can you see Yoruba gaunt, haggard looking senior citizens badly squeezed
by hunger and disease and nowhere to turn?
Nigeria
is false to the past. Nigeria is false to the present. Nigeria has
solemnly bound herself to the false in the future. Nigeria is ruptured
and fragmented. Lives of Yoruba people are split open like water melon
ravaged by poverty served loosely together by jagged stitches of fear
and insecurity.
Can you see the
Yorubas…running helter-skelter from pillar to post … confused and in
disarray, groping, gripping, dripping in the dark … See… Can you see…?
Enough is enough. It’s time to go!
Author: Bayo Oluwasanmi
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Nigeria Newspaper
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