‘Why Tinubu’s presidency will not stop agitation for Yoruba nation’

Despite President Bola Tinubu’s ethnic background, his kinsmen in the South-West are insisting that the country remains a contraption as long as the 1999 Constitution remains amid Tinubu’s slow-paced restructuring agenda, SEYE OLUMIDE reports.

The ongoing trial of some Yoruba Nation agitators, which commenced on Wednesday November 6, 2024, at the Oyo State High Court in Ibadan, has again brought to the fore the debate about the seriousness and determination of Yoruba nationalities to exit Nigeria.

Also, on April 13, 2024, 27 Yoruba separatist, led by Mrs Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, attempted to declare a sovereign Yoruba Nation at Oyo State Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, when they lowered Nigerian flag and hoisted the Yoruba nation flag. They were eventually overpowered by the Nigerian police force before being arrested.

This again brought to the memory how in January 2023 some group of Yoruba nation agitators stormed the Ojota Freedom Square in Lagos to demand for a Yoruba nation. The clash that ensued between the agitators and men of the Nigerian security force led to the death of one person and several other injured.

Unfortunately, those developments were taking place at a time when a Yoruba man, President Bola Tinubu, was at the helm of affairs in the country.

Like the renowned columnist, Tola Adeniyi succinctly put it while talking to The Guardian that President Tinubu’s administration does not represent Yoruba agenda, and neither does it showcase what Yoruba people want in the country.

Before the situation degenerated into where Yoruba desperado now resolved to demanding for secession in the Nigeria union, several socio-political and socio-cultural groups and the progressives wing of South-West politicians have been persistent in agitating for the restructuring of the country to true federalism, where each of the geo-political zone would thrive and develop on their own and also manage their resources.

The crux of the demand was the anger that a particular section of the country, the north and precisely the Fulani political hegemony had over the years dominated and suppressed other sections of the nation under the warp and lopsided 1999 Constitution.

Long before now, prominent Yoruba leaders, mainly the progressive’s wing of politicians in South-West and almost all the adherents of major socio-cultural, political and economic group do agree that something cogent and derisive needed to be done about the existing governing structure of Nigeria and the 1999 Constitution if the Yoruba nation must realise its full potentials.

This philosophy has continued to manifest in different forms of agitations like the demand for restructuring of the country to true federalism where the Yoruba nation will control its resources and channel it towards her development while contributions are made to the center.

Other groups were demanding that the 1999 Constitution needed to be totally replaced with a new one, which would guarantee regionalism as it was practiced under the 1963 Republican Constitution.

But towards the last general election of 2023, even when it was obvious that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) stood a better chance of winning and President Bola Tinubu, who had emerged as the presidential candidate of APC was going to win, some Yoruba separatist organisations under the aegis of The Yoruba separatist agitators were not budged but gathered at Ojota, Lagos, on January 9, 2023.

Crisis began during a mega rally by the Yoruba Nation group to press home their demand for self-determination by the Yoruba race in southwest Nigeria.

The Yoruba Nation movement, posited that creation of an independent Oduduwa Republic, citing marginalisation, ethnic cleansing, and insecurity as reasons for their demand.

The movement has continued to gain momentum in recent years, with various groups and individuals calling for self-determination.

A major underlying factor is that most people feel excluded from Nigeria’s political and economic power structures, which according to them Tinubu’s administration cannot solve, especially in the midst of the crucial economic hardships the country is undergoing.

There is also the apprehension of a targeted violence against Yoruba communities in the larger Nigeria context, which they insisted Tinubu’s government would not be able to stop as long as the current 1999 Constitution remains in vogue.

It was also argued that the incumbent administration has been unable to guarantee the kind of security that was prevalent across Yoruba land under the Old Western Region when the regional government led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the then Action Group (AG) was able to put in place.

The persistent demand for a Yoruba Nation has made the situation complex and sensitive, with ongoing debates about the legitimacy of the movement and the Nigerian government’s response to their demands.

While some believed that the development poses a serious distraction to the government, others were of the views that there were sinister political moves surrounding the development ahead of the 2027 re-election ambition of President Tinubu, should the Northern political hegemony decide not to support him for a second term.

One of the fundamental arguments against the sincerity behind the Yoruba Nation project is that Sunday Igboho, who recently visited London said he took the bold step on behalf of Yoruba leader Prof. Adebanji Akintoye.

In 2019, Professor Akintoye, who was a staunch member of Yoruba socio cultural group Afenifere, suddenly pulled out of the group to emerge Yoruba leader.

He was elected as the fourth Yoruba leader with 73 votes to defeat President Tinubu who polled three votes.

Akintoye, became the fourth Yoruba Leader, coming after the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo; Pa AdekunleAjasin and Senator Abraham Adesanya.

The event, which took place at Glory View Hotel, Bodija, Ibadan was moderated by an activist, Dr Tunde Amusat, convened by Comrade Victor Taiwo, founder of Oodua Redemption Alliance.

Since then Akinyoye has abandoned the philosophy of restructuring and true federalism to embrace the idea of secession of Yoruba from the Nigeria union. He had been severally accused of being sponsored by some politicians to achieve some ultimate agenda.

There is also skepticism about Igboho’s recent action especially bothering on how he escaped arrest from DSS in 2021 but was later arrested in the Republic of Benin on his way to Germany.

Throughout the administration of the immediate past President MuhammaduBuhari, Igboho was detained in Republic of Benin while the then Federal Government made several efforts to extradite him to Nigeria for trial.

However, the politics behind his recent move, which several Nigerians are querying is how he returned to Nigeria recently for his mother’s burial, made some contacts and interaction with media fanfare while Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) who was extradited to Nigeria to face treason trial has been denied bail?

Some pundits believed there is more to the Yoruba Nation’s agitation, especially under the current government than ever before. Copious among the skepticism is that the idea may be deliberately targeted towards 2027 as a negotiating tool for President Tinubu’s re-election.

But the most senior military officer in the 1999 Gideon Orka military coup, Colonel Tony Nyiam, dismissed the sentiment, bothering on the fact that the agitation has a political agenda or it is a child’s play.

He said it is important to investigate why almost all the ethnic nationalities in the country are not having a sense of belonging to the existing Nigerian State or the post 1963 Constitution Nigerian State?

He said the answer is because the existing Nigerian State is an imposed one, and at that fraud engendering nation state.

Illustrating his argument, Nyiam said if any member of other ethnic nationalities, except from the Fulani, emerged president like Tinubu did, there is no assurance that secession agitation would seize.

He said, “Let me illustrate it.  The 1999 Constitution’s preamble is an obvious lie, a number of key provisions of the Constitution are clear falsehood, a federation of states with a centralised National Electoral Commission is a contradiction in every sense of the term. What do they expect from elections, which are conducted by those who are to benefit from the outcome of the elections, particularly when the top dogs of the security agencies, who are to ensure that the elections are free and fair, are appointees of politicians who are taking part in the same elections.”

He also said the judges are appointed and the funding of the courts are done by the politicians in power “surely you can see why some of the major ethnic nations don’t want to continue to be part of the institutionalised fraud.”

An adherent of Oduduwa Republic, George Akinola, said there was nothing in the Nigeria union, which the Yoruba are waiting to benefit or have benefited since the 1914 Amalgamation contraption of the British.

He said the Nigerian union ultimately disrupted the sovereignty of Yoruba nation state, which its people enjoyed before independence under the various kingdoms. To him the Tinubu presidency is not benefiting the Yoruba “but rather it has made the race worse economically, socially and politically just like the previous administration.”

Akinola insisted that nothing can better benefit the Yoruba in Nigeria other than to allow it to return to what it used to be or at worse Nigeria should return to regionalism of 1963.

According to Akinola, “Let the north and whatever region willing to pull out go. Tinubu has no business ruling Nigeria because he cannot save it. This country is beyond redemption and it may likely not survive under this arrangement. Give Nigeria 10, 20 or more years under the present arrangement it will not thrive. Before the birth of Nigeria there were agitations against it and after its birth there was a conspiracy to emasculate Yoruba people that was the reason they carved out Mid-West to divide us. The Southeast also agitated against it which led to the three years civil war. The agitation is what we see continuing today.”

But the President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), YerimaShetima said the reasons behind the persistence agitation for secession and or restructuring is because of bad governance.

While he posited that the Igbos, in asking for Biafra Nation, Southwest demanding for Yoruba Nation and the South-South unrest have at various time expressed their misgivings about Nigeria’s unity “the time the north will ask for secession might likely be the final blow that would disintegrate Nigeria. I therefore urged the political class to do the needful and put the nation on the right path.”

Adeniyi said it was a wrong notion to think that Tinubu’s presidency will resolve the problems of Yoruba in the Nigeria context “be it four or eight years Tinubu will stay in office, if he mistakenly return Nigeria back to the North under this arrangement, the Yoruba nation will be made worse.”

The columnist lamented that the present-day Nigeria had completely destroyed Yoruba legacies and that is the reason we want to exit.

A lawyer and one of the leaders of Ohanaeze, an apex socio-cultural group in Southeast, Goddy Uwazurike, said it should not come as a surprise that any ethnic nationality in Nigeria is agitating to secede. “To any sound mind and right-thinking person, the current constitutional arrangement is not sustainable where you see your people being marginalised with impunity.”