Almost exactly three months after Ibadan, the heartland of Yoruba land and capital of the old Western Region, was jolted by a huge explosion that was eventually ascribed to be the handwork of an illegal miner, the old city is in the news once more.
The explosion was on January 16, 2024. On April 13, 2024, Ibadan was exposed to another trauma. This time, it was at the behest of members of a loose radical group that goes by the name, Yoruba Nation. The group is not actually unknown. It has been in existence and its reason of being is also not unknown. The Yoruba Nation wants out of Nigeria. It believes that Nigeria as it is structured, is stifling the capabilities and ingenuity of the Yoruba. The group has carried its agitation and demands to the United Nations in New York, among other relevant international arena.
On April 13, 2024, agitators of the Yoruba Nation simply upped the ante in their campaign. They stormed Ibadan, dressed in military fatigue and armed with ammunition, seeking as it became apparent, to seize the institutions of government in Oyo State; from the Local Government secretariat, to the House of Assembly and the Governor’s lodge.
The group could not go far in their expedition. Combined security forces stopped them short on their mission, not before they had exchanged fire, a confrontation that confirmed that indeed, the agitators were serious with their expedition.
Following the debacle of the Yoruba Nation agitators’ uprising, the Police paraded all of the 29 apprehended members of the group, comprising 23 males and six females. They have all been arraigned at the Magistrate Court in Ibadan, where they were confronted with seven count charges bothering on treasonable felony, illegal possession of fire arms and conduct likely to cause breach of peace, among others.
In the days since the rude shock of the rumble in Ibadan by the Yoruba Nation’s agitators, there have been characteristic Nigerian reactions to the development. While some, even around Ibadan and the rest of the South West can deny, as Peter did in the Bible, that they have never heard of any group called Yoruba Nation, others prefer to dismiss the group and its agenda. Some waved them off as a bunch of misled entities, a collection of rebels without a cause. But is that what they are?
The fact of Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba, being president of Nigeria at the time the Yoruba Nation agitators tried to strike [ they obviously could not strike], would have informed the disposition of many in the South West, to the agitator’s action. Interestingly, that which may have informed wide disapproval of many among their kinsmen, could be counted on the other end, as an affirmation of the authenticity of the spirit behind the agitation of the Yoruba Nation. Whether the essence of their existence is right or wrong is an entirely different matter.
In his commendation of the security agencies for promptly quelling the agitators’ revolt, the day after it arose, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, was quoted as saying that “we must win the war, but we must also win the peace. It is a challenging time”. Now, the governor’s remark threw up critical issues at the heart of the unfortunate incident. If ‘we’ must win the war, the first question is, which war exactly is that? Who are ‘we’? And who are the ‘we’ arrayed against?
If the war is against the Yoruba Nation and the tendencies their type of agitation represents, then it is safe to say that the ‘we’ as the governor aggregated it, are in for a long struggle. Let us explain.
There will always be agitators and rebellious spirits in every society and country. These too, are entitled to their opinion about life and the society. When such non-conformists stray beyond the perimeters of what the law permits, of course, they are reined in. But first, every state that is dutiful to its citizens and rightly expects obligation of unalloyed allegiance, comes to equity with clean hands and heart.
How each society contains non-conformist tendencies within its fold varies. What a state does to reduce the population of the discontent within, often determines the stability and progress of such a state. Coercion as a policy of maintaining order and progress in any society is doomed to collapse, inevitably. That, in a nutshell, is why empires fall, why they fell.
The Yoruba Nation agitators went too far in their revolt of April 13, 2024. Their act was rash, mutinous, a situation that makes it extremely difficult to justify.
Having said that, the germane question remains; what is it about Nigeria and its structural arrangement that makes the various components uncomfortable and rebellious?
President Bola Tinubu spoke as Nigerian politicians are wont, when, in reaction to the Yoruba Nation revolt, he declared that he is “irrevocably committed to the unity of Nigeria and constitutional democracy”. What exactly does that mean? Democracy, true democracy, offers better prospects than what repressive, unjust political structures do, such as in Nigeria.
The Yoruba Nation group predates Tinubu’s ascension to the presidency. Now he is here. And he is Yoruba. For the Yoruba Nation agitators to be aggrieved enough to revolt as they did, under Tinubu the Yoruba president, means that the group seeks something more profound than an individual Yoruba man or a close circle of Yoruba men wielding power. The group must be talking of an egalitarian society, distinct from the stifling unfair Nigeria that has become more intolerable since APC and Muhammadu Buhari happened.
In its comment on the Yoruba Nation revolt of April 13, 2024, Daily Trust newspaper expressed a disposition, captured in the title of its editorial; “Time to deal with Yoruba Nation agitators”. That mindset spoke of all that is wrong with Nigeria. It is the mindset of sympathisers and supporters of an oppressive system. As disapproving as one can be of the revolt of the Yoruba Nation, what seems the right thing to recommend is, this is the right time to address the very foundation of the expanding agitations and revolts against the Nigerian State.
As George Washington wrote in a letter in May 1786 to John Jay,” That it is necessary to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation, I entertain no doubt; what may be the consequences of such an attempt is doubtful, yet something must be done, or the fabric [of the confederation] must fall, for it certainly is tottering”. There is need to look at the Yoruba Nation agitation matter beyond knee jerk reactions that simply seek to be politically correct and no more.