A TIME TO PONDER: Strange Things in Yorubaland

by

Moses Oludele Idowu

I have heard strange things today. Just opening this Platform this morning. I have heard and read things that should be secret, abuses that should be left out of conversations of friends and family.
I have heard proverbs questioning the royalty of an entire city and its inhabitants. I have heard snide remarks, sayings that should not be mentioned in the community of gentlemen. I have seen private letter posted showing the nakedness of a prominent king…
Yorubas, what a people! Strange people, only good at subverting themselves. I said this in my now famous essay – Against Secession: A Memo to Yoruba Leaders
I am vindicated.
I have said it before in two essays, Yoruba are not a great people. Let us stop deceiving yourselves. Our fathers might have been great. They actually were. A deeper consideration of Yoruba proverbs, pithy sayings, panegyrics, oral poetry shows the ancestors of Yoruba were indeed great men and women – great in versification and word power and verbal facilities. I am glad that I have inherited that from them.
Unfortunately, I have not seen any element of greatness and what constitutes greatness in this generation of Yoruba. Read again my essays – The Myth of Yoruba Exceptionalism and Yoruba Don’t Cease to Amuse Me, Something Has Happened to the Yoruba
This morning my fears have been confirmed.
It is said that even when you are fighting with your enemies you do not expose their secret flaws as a matter of courtesy – no matter what. It is considered unethical and shooting below the belt. Even in established Democracies Opposition cease all wranglings and criticism during period of national crisis and rally round the Government. Witness how Democrats rallied round George Bush during 9/11? Witness how Labour and Tories came together during London terrorist bombing? Or how Israeli politicians closed ranks when attacked on October 17?
What I read this morning here is saddening. About a royal father borrowing money from a woman to marry her in return? And why is that or should that be a public post here? Why should that letter come to the public in the first instance? It is a shame on all Yoruba.
Proverbs that actually insult an entire people group just because your traditional ruler missed a chairmanship slot or position?
How long are we going to continue like this? Meanwhile enemies within and without are closing in daily!
Do you know how Constantinople was lost to the Ottoman Turks? Do you know how Christianity lost North Africa to Islam? Do you know how Christian Syria, Alexandria were lost to the jihadists? We often say it is Jihad and Islamic violence. But that is not totally true.
For hundreds of years Turks fought against Constantinople and they could not take it and couldn’t even penetrate it.
For three times Islamists tried to take Alexandria – the second largest city of Christianity – and they could not. Until a betrayer from within helped them to open and scale the Gate. Similar stories for Antioch in Syria, the land where the name “Christian” was first mentioned.
Constantinople had been weakened by assault from one of the Crusades who failed to focus on their assignment and went on wrong tangent. Thus they made the city succeptible to the Mohammedan mobs and Turks years later. Christian Spain is the most painful story but they recovered their land.

In all these cases there was no external victory that was not preceded by internal bickering, strife and mutual antagonism among internal forces. In some cases we see tribes long emasculated working for the enemies to take over their own land.

Today I see the same factors playing out in Yorubaland. To pray that Yoruba won’t be divided is a wasteful exercise. Yoruba is already divided and the enemies of the race can see it and are taking notes. Do you know the implications of this?

When my people in Igbomina land were being massacred under a Yoruba President we cried but how many answered us? I posted some essays here how many of you responded? The Ilorin / Fulani elements here were able to downplay the atrocities. Even the Offa members here who are quick to abuse me when the characters in my literary essays make some truthful but uncomplimentary remarks about their town; they were all muted. ( You need to be very sorry for “educated” people who cannot differentiate between works of fiction and non- fiction or reality)

But I warned then that this coffee will be served round. If you abandoned Igbomina to its fate, the same fate will soon befall you. Now it has befallen you.
Oyo is now under attack. Bandits have attacked National Park killing 5 and Ikoyi and have given them a date to be prepared. The same children of warriors and war mongers are now being threatened in their own land. That is how low the Yoruba has fallen. Stop praying that Yoruba will not fall. Yoruba has already fallen. The prayer is for God to raise this noble tribe again.

How far is Ikoyi to Oyo town?
They have attacked Omifunfun, one of.the farm villages of Ife. How far is that to Ife itself? Ekiti was attacked the last week.

I know this would happen because I follow the lessons of history. Remember during the French Revolution when Danton one of the leaders was being taken to the Guillotine he saw Robespierre grinning at his balcony and he told him: “You will follow me.” And he did within one month.

You have allowed your kinsmen in Igbomina and Kogi to be taken to the Guillotine and now you all, one by one will follow. Unless you quickly make a course correction. This fate awaits you, sooner or later. It is your choice.
Keep on being distracted about what does not matter, about which king is chairman or which is not; about which is shaking hands or which is snubbing. In the final analysis you will discover these are diversions and distractions.

It is because there is a land first that you struggle about who is preeminent or who is supreme. It is because there is something to be shared that children quarrel about who is older or younger. If there is nothing it doesn’t matter who is first. If Yoruba land is invaded and taken over by alien forces does it really matter who is superior between Ooni or Alaafin?
When the Fulanis conquered Ilorin does it matter that Igbomina have been there in the areas for countless years? Are all Yoruba obas not secondary to the Fulani emir of Ilorin today? By fire and by force?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ( George Santayana, A Life of Reason, 1905)

All these are happening when a Yoruba man is President, Inspector General of Police, Minister of Interior…
What then will be the fate of the Yoruba when a Shetimma or an El- Rufai or Peter Obi or Emeka becomes …?

“O that they were wise, that they understood this, That they would consider their latter end!”
( Deuteronomy 32:29)