‘’A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Abraham Lincoln.

Yoruba leaders are the major enemies of the Yorubas. They have always been. Yoruba lost Ilorin to the Fulanis mainly because Yoruba leaders fail to speak with one voice and put personal interest aside. Even when all effort has been made, large armies had been raised by the Alaafin, Oluyole Ibadan with the help of the other Yoruba leaders to stage a decisive war on Fulani over Ilorin, even the Fulanis had to call for help from Sokoto. But the usual rivalries and disaffection broke out from the Alaafins’ camp complicated by jealousy. Before Ilorin was reached, a conspiracy had been made among some Yoruba leaders to desert Alaafin and his ally, and a message was sent to the Fulanis by these traitors. Yoruba lost the war against the Fulani not because of the Yorubas incapability, but betrayal by some section of the Yoruba leaders and the rest is history. The culture of greed, jealousy and unnecessary fights for supremacy which are quite common among the Yoruba leaders also led to the decline and fall of Old Oyo.

The propensity of putting personal ambitions over common course has been a norm among our chosen leaders over the years. This can be seen all through Awolowo days, despite all his effort to take Nigeria to the promise land, his effort was frustrated even by faction of the Yoruba leaders. This trend can also be seen today among the Yoruba leaders, who most of the time put their own rapacious desire above the Yoruba common course, they will eat with the devil at the detriment of the ordinary Yorubas for their personal gain. They have been chosen to represent the ordinary Yoruba but time and time again that trust has been betrayed. In the history of the Yoruba which was punctuated by inter-tribal war borne out of jealousy and greed, we will rather fight ourselves than join hands together to fight our common enemies or pursue common goals.

The socio-economic benefits that comes with regional autonomy, true and fiscal federalism, regional courts, regional police, regional regimental armed forces, regional constitution, regional public service, regional sports administration, cannot be stressed enough. It is incomprehensible why some Yoruba leaders are against the agenda. If we (Yorubas) don’t put our house in order, if we believe the Igbos or the Hausas/Fulanis are our sole enemy that will prevent us from getting the Regional autonomy that we so desire, am not saying they might not be in some respect, but we need our Yoruba leaders to speak with one voice where necessary, they need to work together and do things in common for this generation and posterity. The actualisation of regional autonomy will be a daunting task if the Yoruba leaders are not united and do not speak with one voice, as we have been perceiving in the ongoing National Conference where Yoruba delegates across the region was there with different agendas, the Ondo state delegates went with their own agenda, Lagos state delegates did not even want to associate with anything about Yoruba, even the Oyo state delegates are not coming out strong about regionalism.

Yoruba nation will be great if everyone works together, if our leaders think less of themselves  and then become real role model. Our Traditional leaders (father of the nation) need to uphold the accustomed Yoruba dedication of rulers to the well-being of the Yoruba people, they need to speak unambiguously to the movers and shakers of Nigeria whenever and wherever they are opportune on this very desire of the Yoruba people, their people, and not allow themselves to be caught in the whirlwind of the heavily corrupted political and economic life of Nigeria. The theme in our quest to regionalism is the importance of our leaders speaking with one voice, ensures that the Yoruba is not embarrassed by multiple inconsistent pronouncements from different branches. Such acoustic dissonance from the Yoruba leaders could potentially result in a loss of credibility, a reduced capacity to achieve our goals.

Let’s join hands together and show we love Yoruba land.

Oduduwa a gbe wa o!

Azeez Olaitan

@aaolaitan on Twitter.

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