Of the tripod in Nigeria, Yoruba is the only one that has never questioned the corporate existence of Nigeria. After the legislative crisis of 1946, the Sadauna was quoted to have said “the mistake of 1914 has come to fore”, that is the amalgamation was a mystic. And in the revenge coup of 1966, the theme was ‘Araba’, lets divide Nigeria. In fact, after the 1953 motion by Enahoro for independence, the North came out with their own agenda which amounted to nothing but confederation. When the Igbo got frustrated, they took up arms against Nigeria for three and a half years. In fact, at every point, in spite of what they did to Awolowo between 1960 and 1965, Yoruba never took arms against Nigeria, to say let us divide the country. For five years, we engaged Abacha; there was no resolution that we should divide Nigeria. So we believe Nigeria can prosper through federalism and Yoruba will be going to the conference asking for true federalism and regional autonomy. That is what we want out of this conference because we know the benefits and we know that dangers of not having it. Any experiment with a unitary Constitution in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingua nation is bound to fail. And if you are in doubt, go to Sudan – two major nationalities on unitary constitution were at war for over 50 years. In Cyprus; the Spanish speaking and the Turkish speaking, for over 1,000 years they have been together, there is still tension. In Syria today, the Kurds have been asking for autonomy for a long time. Even the problem in Iraq was because the one million Kurds there were asking for autonomy. Yugoslavia has disappeared from the world map since 1991. So we believe that for Nigeria not to disintegrate, we need to come together, understand ourselves and then constitute ourselves in a way that we can live together in peace and harmony. Why Nigeria is not working is that it is said that the speed of a convoy is that of the slowest moving vessel. That is, if you have ten vessels and there is one among them that does not have locomotion like the rest, that will be the speed of that convoy; except the others get frustrated and decide to break away from that convoy, they will continue to move at the same speed. That is what Nigeria has been doing in 53 years, because we are not exposed to the same level of speed at the same time. Between 1955 and 1965 when Awolowo led Western Nigeria, the least we spent on education was 29.8 percent in any year. There was even a time he spent 41 percent. Now suddenly you came and say you want…unitarism – you want to standardise – you want all of us who have not invested that kind of money to go at the same pace. So for as long as your son cannot score 200 in JAMB, my son who scores 201 does not have a place in the university whereas your own son who scored 100, because he is not from my area where I’ve invested in education over a long time, must go to the university while there is no space for my own. The second thing, it is said that birds of identical pulmage flock together. That is the normal thing, but in order not for birds of identical pulmage to flock together in Nigeria, Nigeria puts all the birds in one cage and locked them up and then because the birds are not in their natural habitats – because birds are supposed to fly – but they cannot fly anymore, then start to peck and bark at themselves inside the cage. -Yinka Odumakin
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:19:25 +0000
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