Oduduwaland: Neither Buhari nor Jonathan stand for our liberation

If you areYoruba/Itsekiri, we urge you to spend the next 5 minutes to read this message. It is about our survival as a people.

1)    From all indications, this instant has been unkind to the children of Oduduwa. It has fashioned the worst set of Yoruba political leaders in any living memory. We are seeing individuals driven by nothing except ego and self-interest. At this critical moment in human history, we in Apapo Oodua Koya speak to all the descendants of Oduduwa, the Yoruba and Itsekiri to draw attention of this generation to the horrific plot to set Yoruba people off the track of freedom and liberty.

2)    Two individuals are now in the ring, to wrestle for power in 2015. Both lay claim to strength and wisdom to free Nigeria from her miseries. But we should begin by  asking ourselves, what are the critical challenges facing Nigeria? What are the demands of Yoruba people which have spanned over half a century in the scramble for Nigeria? What are the aspirations of ethnic minorities in Nigeria that have been our historic partners?

3)    In Nigeria, at the root of the country’s miseries is the forceful amalgamation of 1914, the introduction of a garrison state, the subversion of self actualization and the design of a mono-culture, a one-dimensional axiom, in a plural country. This spurred the mass killings of Yoruba people in the 1960s by Hausa-Fulani security operatives during the operation wetie, the imprisonment of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and 29 Yoruba leaders, this led to the civil war and the massacre of millions of people, including children and women, this led to the annulment of June 12 election, the consequent pursuit and assassinations of several Yoruba icons, the eclipse of the bourgeoning Yoruba industrial trade, the mob killings in the North, the armed uprising in the Niger-Delta and now the Islamic insurgents in Nigeria, the world’s most atrocious place to live.

4)    The new political calculation of All Progressives Congress, (APC) of Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in the South West now stand to subvert this real cause of the agelong horrendous depression in Nigeria under the slogans of ‘credible individuals’ they claim to present in coming elections. This is the fraud of the century; the shenanigan of the new age and the deliberate waterloo they seem bent to plunge the entire Yoruba nation, in their blind rage for power and profit.

5)    Thousands of Yoruba people have been killed in the North by Boko Haram, these so called leaders have not raised a voice; thousands of our people have been displaced in the North, they have not deemed it fit to raise a finger; our territories are surrounded and overwhelmed by dagger-wielding miscreants from the Hausa-Fulani North, who at the least provocation will slaughter us, the so called leaders have turned their eyes.

6)    In the North, South-East and South South, communities are on the edge of a cliff in a nation that is drifting fast into mayhem and bloody oblivion. While the other territories are arming themselves, our politicians are trading the potential state of genocide against Yorubaland, on the platter of elections and elections, nothing but elections, that cost billions, at the expense of our people’s wellbeing.

7)    What have elections given to us since 1999? In the entire Yorubaland, no single industrial base has been established than can employ up to 500 people; essentials of life like common drinkable water, good food and housing are not available for us. The cheapest homes they build are in the range of 4million naira. Our towns, villages and cities remain rusty; public works have collapsed, decent inter-state transportation is zero. Our people are angry, hungry and fagged out. The political space they have taken over for themselves and their children, or cousins, or rookies. They have failed to provide security; our people are at the mercy of bandits and armed cultists. They have only privatized the police for themselves and their households.

8)    On top, they build mansions abroad and cozy empires around the country in the midst of the human gloom that surround them. So, what special miracle have they performed in the South West that they wish to replicate when they win at the centre? Our governors live in whole city-homes when the Prime Minister of Britain, one of the richest countries in the world, live in a 3-bedroom flat. Worst still, we have seen the manifesto of the two political parties, which all glorify a garrison Nigeria, against all what we have fought for this century. This is not to talk of Gen Buhari and the agenda of the Fulani which he represents without apology.

9)    We insist that nothing drives the ambition of these individuals apart from profit and economic gains. This is the reason why we must stand up and resist the grand conspiracy against our history, against everything our forebears stood for.

10)                      Yes, we are likely to be dismissed, because, this is no longer the age of reason, It is the age of perverted thoughts and logic which the ruling class continues to fuel, the era when common sense and truth have been trampled upon, that is why we are being presented with the illusion that either General Mohammad Buhari, a Fulani or Dr Goodluck Jonathan will lift Nigeria from her stupor.  The ruling candidate has no vision. He is inept and has no iota of an idea on how to run a complex country that has been in turmoil for one century. We do not think just one person will make a difference in a defective country that does not wish to shrink and bow to self-actualisation, especially when the worst set of political class, the Hausa-Fulani caliphate has adopted him as their ‘heroic candidate.’

11)                      We stand here before the children of Oduduwa, at home and abroad, that 2015 will be just another fleeting illusion, head or tail. Neither Buhari nor Jonathan has the skill, the passion and the depth of knowledge to free Nigeria not to talk of saving the despairing Yoruba population. Have you ever read any book by Buhari or Jonathan on the future of Nigeria or on federalism? Awo and Zik wrote when both were less than 30 years.

12)                      Great leaders are known from their thoughts and vision, expressed in black and white. Neither Buhari nor Jonathan has one. Honest leaders are known by their unblemished records. Neither Buhari nor Jonathan has their apron yet unstained. Buhari’s silence in the face of the June 12 election annulment is instructive. He later became one of the most formidable building blocks for the brutal and atrocious Gen Sanni Abacha, who turned Yoruba into a killing mine filed.

13)                      We commend Gen Buhari who had established his Congress for Progressive Change, (CPC), nurtured by the Islamic fundamentalist norms. The Action Congress, (AC) had been established initially to promote Yoruba agenda. Both now seem to have dropped their regional manifestoes, or we admit that with the new realignment, the hitherto Yoruba agenda has been subsumed under the caliphate’s jackboots.

14) Today, it is the first time Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is forming alliance with “Mainstream Yoruba Leaders”. That tells you something: what we are seeing in the APC is the realignment of the old forces that prosecuted the 1967-70 civil war. Yoruba people, never, it will never happen again, that we shall be used as cannon folders in the end game that serves only the Hausa-Fulani hegemony.

15)                      We call on children of Oduduwa not to put their hope on Buhari or Jonathan, our future lay right in our hands. We must think deep; we must organize, we must mobilize, we must act, else our peril is certain. We trust the energy and resilience of our people, their intelligence not to be fooled and we are certain that the future is OURS. Stay tuned!!!

 Issued by the Central Working Committee of Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA)

SIGNED OGBENI OLUTADE OJO

(Head, Public Awareness Bureau)

FOR AOKOYA