History has a way of repeating itself.
It is no secret that, over the years, the Yorubas have suffered very badly from a lack of leadership. This has been exploited by various interests within and outside the homeland to the detriment of the larger population. Sowing seeds of discord between the people to divide and rule has been the strategy used by external interests very effectively. Their ancestors sold their own people to invaders as slaves. And thereafter, as strong as the Yoruba nation was even as at the time, those that came after them were manipulated by the colonialists. They signed up to join in the structure called Nigeria. Throughout its history and up till today, there have always been Yoruba leaders who benefitted immensely from selling out the whole race, so long as the price was right and they could enrich themselves.
The visionaries
But the race was not short of gallant men and women with vision. Such people were among those who fought for independence from the colonialists even at the time when this had looked unrealistic and impossible. But even then as it is now, the biggest obstacle that the visionaries faced came not from outside, but from their own people.
It could not have come as a surprise that the Egbé Ọmọ Odùduwà was formed in diaspora!
It took the progressive Yoruba youths like Obafemi Awolowo, Akinola Maja, Oni Akerele, Akintola Williams, Saburi Biobaku, Abiodun Akinrele, David Ojo Oguntoye, Ayo Rosiji and many other like-minded patriots like these to work for the emancipation of their people back home.
That was in England, fifteen years before independence finally came.
Today, these heroes with foresight must be turning in their graves watching in horror what has become of the Yoruba nation they spent their lives believing in and fighting for.
Yorubas have had leaders that they can for ever be immensely proud of and grateful to. Men and women that have served their people selflessly in various spheres of life and have passed on as heroes. Leaders that have left behind names that will for ever remain in the history book of honour. In addition to those who carried the struggle for independence in those early years, there were others who came later. Even in the military. One can not forget heroes like Adekunle Fajuyi, Akintunde Akinsehinwa, Samuel Ademulegun, Ralph Shodeinde and Victor Banjo who paid the ultimate price. They were people that never sold the Yoruba race to any other tribe or interest for personal financial or political gains. The institution of Yoruba Obas and traditional rulers was a sacred and respected one. Those were traditional rulers and elders that did not sell out their own people. They were like fathers to their subjects. They were much respected and loved, and they never used their office against the interest of their people. They never defiled their honour or the privileges bestowed on them.
In the good old days, wisdom came from the elders. Not anymore. Encouraging and motivating the youths used to be part of the functions of the leaders. Not anymore. Having foresight and vision used to be traits of the sage. Today, the sage does not see further than 2023.
One Yoruba state governor with nothing but a 2023 vision dismissed the plight of the Yoruba race in today’s Nigeria as a mere headache. He claimed that one does not cut off a head simply because of a temporary headache. If what the Yorubas face in Nigeria today is nothing more than a headache, then one does not want to imagine what a real illness would look like.
Yes, this is the mind-set of the kleptomaniac leaders that history will never remember kindly. That is because a headache that has got progressively worse over the past 61 years needs more than just a pain reliever. The reality is that these leaders have no understanding of, or sympathy for the plight of the Yoruba people, especially for the youths who have no hope for the future.