It is now generally agreed that internal colonization, which flows from our mind to ballot boxes constitutes a historic disruption of the normal evolutionary process of Nigeria. The old order seems to have been shattered together with most of its binding institutions. In some instances, the modern colonialists tried to reinvent the wheel, while in other places, their intervention has been constituting a truly revolutionary restructuring of the political process, such as the one we saw in Ondo.

There is something fresh about the current order, our second decolonization seems to be under way, and as the new nation-state with its new political methodologies becomes operationalised, a fresh wave of energy has been released in the various emergent states in Nigeria, beginning from Ondo state.

There has never been any disunited  people like the perspective Yoruba people. The continued emergence of Tinubu as the pillar of the Yoruba political process has thrown him up as  a product of  political fantasies, structured on the basis of one party region. Historically, the Yoruba could be said to have benefited from two benign historical conjunctures which forced them to look forward with unflinching determination, obviously now being led by Tinubu. To look back was to be confronted with the glorious ruins of the old Yoruba empire, institutional chaos, political disorder and a nineteenth century in which they had fought themselves into a state of political coma until the colonialists came and ordered the warring generalissimos to go home and fight no more.

Being proximate to the coast, and having produced a sophisticated and westernised elite by the middle of the nineteenth century, the Yoruba were also historically positioned to be at the vanguard of decolonization, anti-colonial exertions, current re-colonization and ongoing decolonization.Tinubu, with his political armoured tank, ACN, has been struggling to breed a set of angry elites among the Yoruba. Many of them see themselves as a unique creation, a crossbreed of the ruling party and some parts of the opposition. But these elites, including Fashola, are now being challenged and surpassed in terms of raw energy and unburnished determination by a new hinterland faction predominantly made up of products of the ruling party money bags and some scions of pseudo-activists, as in Mimiko.

Unlike Tinubu’s ACN and its wholly idea-less governors in Oyo and Osun, Awolowo’s Action Group (AG), a pan Yoruba socio-political movement was a moving train. The Action Group was highly organised, efficient, cohesive and deadly on the prowl. Indeed, it was more like a fighting machine, relentlessly advancing with panache and precision, quickly regrouping when surprised into a retreat and then resuming its remorseless advance. Can Tinubu’s ACN move away from Ondo defeat, and still sell itself as a national commodity using, as usual, Fashola as its performance based model? As it is, the ACN is defined on two subjects – Tinubunology and Fasholalism.

Now that the ACN is beginning to vie up to the central, and with more revelations on its tribal tendencies, the bolts are beginning to come off the armoured car of ACN. The spectacular success Tinubu achieved to enthrone Fashola and sweep off the ruling party from what I call Awo’s sacred region also combined to demobilise him at the federal level. Now that he is the leader of opposition, several negative connotations had already been foisted on him: a Yoruba hegemonist and a parochial opportunist. Even the glittering successes of the ACN in Lagos and Edo have become  liabilities and sources of political anxiety.

It is clear that it is Tinubu, who by his dogged persistence in imposing his vision/candidate panicked and frightened his adversaries into a series of pre-emptive measures which boomeranged and eventuaIly resulted in the mutual ruination of the contending classes such as we are probably witnessing today.

Why is it that after each successful mobilisation of the Yoruba people behind their cause, the struggle for the next stage, which often masks a struggle for preferment, usually leads to disaster and desertion? In 1959, the consolidation of Action Group’s hold on the Western Region also marked the gradual estrangement of Chief Ladoke Akintola and his supporters from the fold. In 1983, with the entire western Nigeria in tow for the first time, the same drama in UPN saw to the exit of the Omoboriowos, the Adelakuns and the Afolabis. In 1993 after successfully rallying their people behind Abiola’s cause, a similar dispute gradually deteriorated and led to the estrangement of Chief Jakande and co. In 1999, the very same dynamics led to the loss of Chief Bola Ige and his eventual tragic demise.

This is enough for Tinubu and his boys to learn from. History is always there as a teacher, if you don’t approach it for learning, then you are preparing for your own ruination.

It is me, @Obajeun

Jonah Ayodele Obajeun. Blogs @www.obajeun.com. Catch him on twitter via @Obajeun