Arewa Songs Of Conquest (3) By Yinka Odumakin

General Olusegun Obasanjo in a moment of delirious delusion took his pen and scribbled some comic script to the effect that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the architect of his own power misfortune in Nigeria.The inferior scholarship in him read power and office as the same thing. He boasted that he was walking barefooted when Awo was already a famous adventurer in power but that the office of the President of Nigeria which he could not attain was his on a platter. He went further to ridicule the sage that even when he gave him clues as to how to placate Arewa to concede power to him, Awo remained his rigid and principled self as the Pro-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University to which he deliberately appointed him to learn Arewa ways.

That reminds me of another power muppet of Yorubaland, Chief Sunday Adewusi the notorious Inspector General of police under Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He was among the delegates to Obasanjo’s Political Reforms Conference of 2005. The Yoruba agenda committee had sought audience with the delegates and the Governors of the region before the conference commencement. We were all assembled in the office of Oyo state Governor, Alhaji Rashidi Ladoja when Adewusi asked “e joo awa melo lo gbo awusa ninu awa to nlo soke lohun to ri o ma mun nkan rorun fun wa o?. He was asking that, how many of Yoruba delegates could speak Hausa as that would make things easier for them as if they were people of the colony going for some constitutional conference in London.

I took time to count the number of traditional marks on his cheeks as I wondered if any gathering of Arewa would be asking how many of them could speak Yoruba even when the fellow calling the conference was called a Yorubaman. Obasanjo indeed became Nigerian Head of State which Awo did not achieve but all they made him to do was to convert many of the great things Awo did in Western Nigeria into Federal holdings in a unitary fiat.He sacked Admiral Akin Aduwo as Military Governor of the region when he dallied over Obasanjo instruction to turn the great “Ife fortress” (apology to another Arewa spokesman, Prof Jubril Aminu) to the Federal.

If Shekau were to find himself in Ife today, he would yell with pride “Boko Haram” given what that centre of learning has become. Either as Military Head of state or President, I ask Obasanjo to point at one pride of such he was able to give to Yorubaland outside his personal mansion and hotels in Abeokuta. In between his military rule and civilian dictatorship, Arewa found a place for him in prison and till date he is said to bear their marks of torture on his back. Before him was Ladoke Akintola who took that route against Awo’s well thought-out federal engagement in a multi-ethnic state.

He was brutally assassinated before he could take stock. Bashorun M.K.O Abiola also emerged from that school. He did everything imaginable for the Arewa. He built many mosques, gave out cash in tons, took titles uncountable. He even established National Concord to desecrate the Yoruba essence in service to Arewa (National Concord reincarnate owned by the new kid on the block has been repeating history). Abiola was a good boy until he wanted to share power with Arewa. In 1983 he was told “power was not for sale”. Before Awo died, MK0 was reconciled with him and the sage told the business mogul in the course of their meeting” those who put me through all the travails are your best friends, I pray they don’t take your life”. Instead of saying “Amen”, Abiola responded “I know my people”. By 1993,he won a presidential election but his “people” kept him in prison until they liquidated him and returned his body bag to Lagos.

While Abiola was in gaol, Oladipo Diya took the Akintola road as the new traveller as Abacha’s No 2. His assignment was to consign the Yoruba leadership to the dustbin. He raised the Imeri Group to displace Afenifere and nicknamed NADECO “Agbako”. It took only three years for Arewa hammer to fall on him. It was to “Agbako” he turned in the moment to salvage his life the way Obasanjo found lengthy sheets to write epistles to Afenifere leader, Chief Michael Ajasin when Arewa “bulala” became unbearable. Luckily for Diya, Abacha dozed off eternally the night before his execution but he is said to still bear the scars of torture on his head till date.

I have gone through this narrative only to show one thing: it is foolhardy for anyone to think Awo was wrong in concluding that Arewa DNA does not share power and that Nigeria would only do well if the constituent units live their civilizations and we run a centre that allows them their autonomies within corporate Nigeria. A new team is now on the Akintola route and soon we shall be able to say if they are able to turn the tide of history or we shall once again play Bob Marley’s: “Now you get what you want. Do you want moreeeeeeeeeee…” …….concluded.

Note: If you missed 1 & 2 of this piece, click on the following:

Arewa Songs Of Conquest (1) By Yinka Odumakin

Arewa Songs Of Conquest (2), By Yinka Odumakin