YORUBA WORLD CONGRESS
INTRODUCTORY CONFERENCE
WELCOME ADDRESS
BY
PROF (SENATOR) ‘BANJI AKINTOYE
IBADAN, OCTOBER 10, 2019.
I welcome you all to this conference. We are gathered for the purpose of introducing the organization and forum in which we will work to defend and promote the interest of our Yoruba Nation in the context of Nigeria.
Our Yoruba Nation has declined troublingly since the independence of Nigeria in 1960. Numberless groups of Nigerian organizations of Yoruba people have emerged to respond to the decline and to arrest it. What we are engaging in here today is a convergence of three different efforts in that regard.
One of the three efforts is the one in which I, your speaker of today, initiated in 2006 in America by founding an organization known as OODUA FOUNDATION. Oodua foundation was conceived as a think-tank organization which will gather Yoruba intellectuals from all over the world to study the impact of Nigeria on the Yoruba Nation. Oodua foundation grew until it had members in many countries across the world. Its meetings, seminars and conferences held in the United States regularly and drew participants from many countries across the world. We developed methods for making our recommendations available to our Yoruba State Governors back home in Nigeria. We also frequently invited Yoruba leaders from Nigeria for consultation. Because we, Oodua Foundation, are emphatically and manifestly nonpartisan, we have been able to interact freely and fruitfully with all spectrums of Yoruba leadership in politics, academia, business and religion.
The second effort has been a number of contacts and interactions since the 1950s between the Yoruba people of Nigeria, of Benin and Togo Republics, and of the world-wide Yoruba Diaspora in South and Central America, North America, Britain and other countries of Europe, and even as far as Australasia. Our father, Obafemi Awolowo, invested much energy to promote relationships between the Yoruba of Western Nigeria and the Yoruba of Benin and Togo republics. Later, our leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo, as President of Nigeria, did much to give meaning to the unity of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria and Benin Republic. At the same time, our topmost traditional rulers, particularly the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade Olubuse II and the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, did much to foster the spirit of unity between the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin Republic. The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, also made a habit of visiting the people of the Yoruba Diaspora in Brazil, Cuba and other countries of the New World. From time to time also, various religious initiatives from Yorubaland in Nigeria established very close relationships with Yoruba of Brazil, Cuba and other countries of Southern, Central and North America. Since my return to Nigeria in 2015, I have been engaged in efforts to pull all these together to produce the emergence of a coherent Yoruba movement with power and influence across the world.
In January 2019, the Yoruba people of Benin Republic held a big conference in the city of Ajase, Porto Novo, and founded Egbe `Omo` Oduduwa of Benin Republic. I was one of the keynote speakers at that historic conference. President Obasanjo, the Ooni of Ife and the Alafin of Oyo sent representatives. Early in August, 2019, representatives of the Yoruba of Benin Republic came to Lagos to hold a meeting with the representatives of the Yoruba of Nigeria. At that meeting, under my chairmanship, it was decided that the Yoruba worldwide organization that we had been considering together would be called the Yoruba World Congress, and that the Yoruba of every country in the world would constitute a Chapter of the Yoruba World Congress. Since then we have made contacts withthe people of the Yoruba Diaspora in the countries of South America, Central America, North America and the West Indies.As we assemble here today, in this Nigeria chapter of the Yoruba World Congress, our representative is on his way through North America to the countries of Central America and South Americawith messages for a major caucus of the Yoruba World Congress. I need to add that the enthusiasm is very high everywhere for the Yoruba World Congress. One professor from Benin republic describes the Yoruba World Congress as an idea whose time has come.
The third effort is the coming together of very many Yoruba Organizations and Self-determination groups in a big meeting inthe great city of Ibadan on August 22, 2019. At that meeting, the assembled representatives graciously elected me as Leader of the Yoruba Nation. But in reality, the most important outcome of that meeting is that it has led to the emergence of a strong body of Yoruba people willing to work together along the lines that I have promoted for decades. I am more than excited to work with you in the interest of our endangered Yoruba Nation in Nigeria, and for the optimization of Yoruba prosperity, power and influence in the world. I am more than excited to work with you to put together the united strength of the worldwide Yoruba Nation, through the Yoruba World Congress .
Our message, loud and clear, to all Yoruba in Nigeria and in the whole world is that we Yoruba are not a small nation but a great and powerful nation. With a population of about fifty sixmillion, we are the largest single nation in Nigeria. With our people in Benin Republic, Togo Republic and a little part of Ghana, and Yoruba Diaspora in Sierra-Leone and Sudan in Africa, and large Yoruba Diaspora in the Americas, Europe and all over the world, we are one the largest and most influential nations in the world. Some scholars are telling us now that the Yoruba people worldwide are probably close to 200 million. Inmany countries of the world, emigrants from the Yoruba homeland are among the most educated communities in very many countries and occupy very high positions in governments, public administrations, in businesses, the academia, research organizations, the professions and the military.
In today’s conference, we the founders and members of the Yoruba World Congress have assembled first to introduce and to highlight our Yoruba World Congress. We are gathered to send a clear message to the Yoruba people and to the other peoples of Nigeria that we Yoruba people are a great ancient civilization, the most educated people of Africa, and a people with widespread and enormous influence in the world. We are sending notice to those who harbor dangerous and destructive ideas of conquering and subduing other peoples of Nigeria that our Yoruba Nation is far beyond their capabilities to subdue. While we will continue to honor our tradition of hospitality to foreigners in our land, we will not hold back any effort to force out from our land any foreigners who come with the intent to hurt, to kill, to maim and to destroy. We do not harbor any ambition to subdue any people or to seize any part of their land, and we will make it absolutely clear to the world that nobody can seize any inch of our land.
We also serve notice that we have arisen now to resist and reverse the trend toward retrogression in the life of our nation in Nigeria. We will mount a multi-faceted operation to stop our language from continuing to decline. We will mount powerful operations and campaigns to revive our agriculture, and to revive our industrial development that has been deliberately stopped in Nigeria. We have arisen to energize our people to grow an economy that will provide gainful employment for all our men, women and youths. We will resist the Nigerian encroachments and impositions on our businesses and businessmen, the humiliation of our political leaders and the imposed limitations on our growth in Nigeria. We are embarking on a call to our youths to stop living in a world of hopelessness and to begin to take advantage of their education to carve opportunities for themselves in the growing economy of our nation in Nigeria.
In the spirit of this new era and awakening of our Yoruba nation in Nigeria, we have chosen as the indigenous name of our movement the Yoruba name ONALA. Yes, ONALA. The gates are all wide open for the powerful and confident march of our Yoruba nation to prosperity and power and its God given destiny.
ONALA is a fighting force arising with great determination to combat the many daunting challenges that face the Yoruba nation in the context of Nigeria today. It is a fighting force for the rejuvenation of Yoruba culture, Yoruba integrity, Yoruba moral power, Yoruba language and Yoruba spirit of enterprise. It is a fighting force for the revival of Yoruba confidence; for the promotion of modern Yoruba agriculture; for the promotion and transformation of modern industrial and commercial enterprises among Yoruba people; for seriously revamping confidence among Yoruba businesses, Yoruba entrepreneurs and Yoruba business owners large or small; for the revival of the right level of Yoruba share in the economic life of the Yoruba homeland; and for the revival of the quality of Yoruba education, Yoruba health-care delivery services, and Yoruba self-help traditions. It is a fighting force for promoting revolutionary programs that will empower our Yoruba youths in their own homeland – through a vibrant and massive effort at imparting working skills, entrepreneurial skills, and business skills to our Yoruba youths.
As a tool for all its activities and programs, Yoruba World Congress – ONALA – will engage in serious research, fundresearch projects, and encourage and support researchers working in any field of Yoruba culture and Yoruba enterprise.
As a means of encouraging enterprise and the spirit of community giving among our Yoruba people, Yoruba World Congress – ONALA – will go long distances to elevate and glorify all our citizens who have achieved significant success in any field of endeavour , or who have invested significantly in growth and progress in any part of our homeland (such as founders of universities and other educational institutions, founders of community development programmes, promoters of citizens’ rights and human freedom, etc).
To maximize energy for the success of the whole agenda of the Yoruba revival, Yoruba World Congress – ONALA – will diligently mobilize the energy of the whole Yoruba nation worldwide – the Yoruba of the homeland in Nigeria, the Yoruba of the homeland in Benin and Togo Republics, the Yoruba Diaspora in the rest of Africa, the large Yoruba Diaspora in South, Central and North America and the West Indies, the Yoruba Diaspora in the United Kingdom and other countries of Europe, and the Yoruba Diaspora in the far-away countries of Asia and Australasia. The methodology and processes will be to promote contacts and collaboration through international conferences, interchange programs, tourism activities, intensified flow of investments, intensified business relationships, and an over-arching Yoruba organization under the umbrella of the Yoruba World Congress.
At home in the Yoruba homeland in Nigeria, Yoruba World Congress –ONALA – will studiously and diligently adopt postures and develop relationships that will facilitate the smoothness of its operations, and promote wide acceptance and general support for its programs. Thus, ONALA will be an emphatically and reliably non-partisan organization. ONALA will consciously choose its leaders and functionaries from among Yoruba persons who are known to be non-partisan citizens. ONALA will appropriately honour our traditional rulers as fathers of our nation; it will respect and honour all persons and all organizations engaged in the Yoruba struggle. At all times, ONALA will maintain positive and fruitful relationships with all State Governments and Local Governments that rule over the affairs of the Yoruba people, with all Yoruba holders of public office, and with all Yoruba politicians and community leaders.
The objective in all of ONALA’s agenda, programs and postures are quite easy to see. In the relentlessly deteriorating political, economic, inter-ethnic, religious, moral and security situation in Nigeria, the Yoruba nation, historically a nation of civilization builders, has continually been pulled back and pushed down since 1960. We in ONALA are stepping forth to add a new dimension to the task of protecting and advancing the interests of our Yoruba nation. We are stepping forward to add our own unique direction to the task that countless Yoruba organizations, and countless Yoruba persons, have been giving their hearts and their energies for a long time. Our resolute will is that our Yoruba nation shall find its own path forward, shall progress confidently and proudly along its own path, and shall find its own true destiny in the world.
I need to let all of our people gathered here today know that I am truly overwhelmed and awed by the fact that countless Yoruba professionals and experts have been calling me in the past one month to offer their expertise and services to the new revolution that is unraveling in Yorubaland. Something truly great is in the offing, and the spirit of Oduduwa has arisen to lead his people forward.
Finally, I am sure that almost all of us sitting in this conference today and listening to these statements will recognize immediately that the light shining ahead of the Yoruba WorldCongress or ONALA is the very bright light which our father, Obafemi Awolowo, shone into the life of our Yoruba nation during his great life, decades ago. Our father Awolowo mentors and guides us, and his light illuminates our whole path. In the period of only six years as Premier of our Western Region in the 1950s, he gave our Western Region the most achieving and most democratic leadership in Nigeria and even in Africa. He made our region “first in Africa” in most fields of development and modernization. Unhappily, after him, in the context of disastrous federal control of all power and resources in Nigeria, and in the midst of the persistent and brutal deterioration of Nigeria, most of the great pillars of his accomplishments have been allowed to perish. But his light has never dimmed among us his people. It goes shining on bright and inspiring us. With that light our Yoruba nation in Nigeria rose to wonderful heights once before. We of the Yoruba World Congress – ONALA – believe that our Yoruba nation can rise even higher today. We hereby step forward to beckon our Yoruba nation to return to the path of conscious development, progress and prosperity. We did it before. We can do it again.. Let us do it.
I thank you all.