OPINION: Yorubas, Think. It’s Time To Go! By Bayo Oluwasanmi

When Muhammadu Buhari clinched the presidency, many Nigerians believed it was a year of a big, bloodless political revolution. But now we know this wasn’t so much a revolution as a restructuring of the political order, a transfer of power from one elite to another, not the sort of bottom-up popular uprising that many Nigerians had in mind.

The economic melt down, unrest, protests, violence, the long intractable poverty, the sense of hopelessness and helplessness, the leadership vacuum created by the hospitalisation of President Buhari, and the tyrannical abandon of problems facing Nigerians by the do-nothing National Assembly have spurred the long-dormant spirit of activism. The snowflakes, it seems, have whipped up a snowstorm.

Lately, Yorubas are being terrorised from all angles by the Hausas and Fulanis. The Fulani herdsmen are killing Yorubas like flies. Even the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, was not spared of the incursion of the Fulanis. He’s being harassed, intimidated, insulted, humiliated, taunted, and turned into a ping pong ball by Aso Rock Hausa and Fulani cabals led by Bukola Saraki. The latest plot by Saraki and Aso Rock cabals published July 5, 2017, by SaharaReporters headlined “Aso Rock Cabal, Senator Saraki Commence Sabotage of Acting President Osinbajo As Buhari’s Health Crisis Deepens” detailed how Saraki in an unholy alliance with other reactionary forces at Aso Rock plot to unleash tsunami of political upheavals to dislodge Osinbajo from assuming full presidential powers. On the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC Chair, the Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami, said Osinbajo’s statement on the issue didn’t reflect the collective decision of the Federal Executive Council. Though, Malami had since denied the statement.

It bears repeating that were Osinbajo a Hausa or Fulani, he’ll never have been subjected to such trauma and torture. It’s troubling. It’s dangerous. And it’s saddening. What further evidence do we need that Nigeria isn’t one country? What more reasons do we need to justify Yoruexit from Nigeria? It’s in the best interest of Yorubas to start working on ways and means to disengage from Nigeria.

Like I have argued many times, it’s too late to save Nigeria as is. In other words, the continued existence of Nigeria as one nation is beyond “restructure.” I believe the only way out for Yorubas is to hasten their exit from this hell hole call Nigeria. Anything short of that is unacceptable, unrealistic, and unworkable. We don’t have to ask for anyone’s permission to leave Nigeria. We don’t have to wait for the primitive, decadent, hostile, system to evolve or for bad laws to change. In the best interest of direct action, we have to walk out of this pit of hell – now! The reckless political provocation by the Hausa and Fulani Aso Rock cabals should stretch Yoruba political imaginations. Yorubas are known to be tolerant, accommodating, liberal and refined. However, being reasonable and civilised should not be exploited by the Hausas and Fulanis. Of course, we have corrupt and selfish politicians among us. In the new Yoruba nation – Oduduwa Republic – We’ll take care of the corrupt ones among us. We’ll cut their wings. We’ll tame them. We’ll uproot them from our midst.

When we talk about secession, separation, call it any name, some Nigerians are uncomfortable acknowledging the contradictions, crises, and confusion in which a divided one Nigeria has been submerged for 58 years. When confronted with the reality of Nigeria’s 58 years of misery, the apologists of one Nigeria have no cogent and convincing reasons other than tirade of trite cliches: “It’s costly and destructive to break up,” “bigger is better,” there’s strength in diversity,” “we cannot go it alone,” “we have much to lose than to gain.” And on, and on, and on. They conjure up these imaginary ghosts to justify the self-serving present. They forget we cannot erase or cover up the historical dystopian reality of Nigeria.

Why Yorubas Can’t Wait

We waited 58 years hoping for miracles. It never came. Meanwhile, as we waited for a better Nigeria, things have gotten worse. Our education system once the envy of the world, has been dismantled and mutilated. The curriculum has no content, no rigour, no substance, no value, no philosophy. It’s an empty shell. As we waited, disparities in wealth increased with the looters prospering and the poor starving. The long running poverty slaughtered and uprooted as it were, the present generation and generations yet unborn. The persistence and prevalence of untamed corruption and infectious poverty daily consume our people. Inflamed ethnic rivalries and religious intolerance grow daily with intensity among the poor. It has fostered distrust and festered old ethnic prejudices.

As we waited, the excesses, evils, injustices, and wickedness of the ruling class have further chiselled the great divide between the haves and have nots and have collapsed our civilisation and culture. Our society has been turned into a Hobbesian horror that a normal person must escape. An extended meditation of Nigerian maladies has turned citizens into a surviving appendage that begs for life support. As we waited, Nigeria remains a country of misery characterised by a rainbow of misadventures. The citizens of a country blessed with the world’s most abundant resources live in one of the worst places on earth. The federal system of government has been rendered useless, ineffective and made impossible to work. It’s a failure. It’s a tombstone. It’s fragile foundation built on a corrupt and deceitful Nigerian political model that doesn’t make sense.

As we waited, Nigeria has turned into a jungle alien to rule of law, where might is right and where injustice reigns supreme. Nigeria provides a textbook example of a country being governed by fools, idiots, thugs, looters, and ignoramuses. These elected ruffians and con artists are the real enemies of our people. As we waited, Nigerian unskilled poor have exchanged rural poverty for even deeper miseries of the shanty towns with disaffection-filling movements. The swelling urban mobs, abductors, rapists, armed robbers, kidnappers, and hired assassins in the ghastly alleys of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Kano, Benin, Otuoke, etc., are unchecked, disregarded, left to grow and fester.

You see, we’ve waited for 58 years. Every death hurts. Every impoverished Nigerian enrages. Every jobless Nigerian is a walking dead. The God given blessings for Nigeria are not shared or enjoyed in common. Justice, liberty, and prosperity are exclusive illusion of the poor. The sunlight that brought light and healing to the few, has brought stripes and death to our people. While the ruling class rejoices and relishes for one Nigeria, the poor are in perpetual mourning in the same country.

Can you hear the mournful wail of million of Yoruba youths whose lives are being wasted before our eyes and whose lives are being cut short by cheap preventable deaths? Can you see the bleeding of sorrow from Yorubas – the hungry, sick, helpless and hopeless children turned scavengers roaming the streets looking for food in the garbage dumpsters? Can you see Yoruba young girls turned prostitutes for lack of jobs and opportunities? Can you see Yoruba young men turned armed robbers as a result of being uprooted by poverty and precarious life? Can you see Yoruba gaunt, haggard looking senior citizens badly squeezed by hunger and disease and nowhere to turn?

Nigeria is false to the past. Nigeria is false to the present. Nigeria has solemnly bound herself to the false in the future. Nigeria is ruptured and fragmented. Lives of Yoruba people are split open like water melon ravaged by poverty served loosely together by jagged stitches of fear and insecurity.

Can you see the Yorubas…running helter-skelter from pillar to post … confused and in disarray, groping, gripping, dripping in the dark … See… Can you see…? Enough is enough. It’s time to go!

Author: Bayo Oluwasanmi

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Oriental Times