Destroying Age-Old Myths About The Yoruba
There are many myths circulated by various ethnic nationalities about the Yoruba people of the Southwest, and a personal experience with a non-Yoruba provoked me to address some of these myths using historical facts. Please bear with me, this is a long read. Myth one: The Yoruba are betrayers A lot of this angst, which has refused to fade away decades after the dramatis personae exited this world, is centred around a supposed betrayal of Emeka Ojukwu and the Igbo by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
And sadly, this has now become an emotive issue, where fiction has been fed to many young people as fact.
The truth is that Chief Awolowo went on a peace meeting to Enugu, to try to persuade Igbo leaders to adopt a peaceful way out of the crisis that had unfolded in Nigeria after the January 15, 1966 coup and the July 29, 1966 counter coup.
Awolowo met with the leaders of the Eastern Region for two days from May 6-7, 1967. THERE IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THAT MEETING, WHICH WAS PUBLISHED WHEN BOTH AWOLOWO AND OJUKWU WERE ALIVE.
Please note that this transcript was taken from a tape recorded by then Colonel Ojukwu’s own recorder.
I encourage those who are still bitterly accusing Chief Awolowo, and by extension all Yoruba, of betrayal, to please read that transcript.
At the time, Emeka Ojukwu wanted Chief Awolowo to follow his lead by announcing the secession of the Western Region after his own declaration of secession of the Southeast, there were tens of thousands of armed Northern troops all over the West. It does not take a genius to guess what would have happened if Awolowo had gone that route.
Moreover, unlike Ojukwu, Chief Awolowo had no control over any troops. He was also not the Governor of the Western Region (Adeyinka Adebayo was then the military Governor). As a result, he had no executive powers. Whatever powers he had were at best residual and persuasive.
Chief Awolowo had earlier called a meeting of Yoruba officers of the Nigerian army, and key officers of Yoruba stock refused to attend, with one of them sending a message to him that he was a Nigerian soldier, not a Yoruba soldier.
So given all of that, it was rather naive for anybody to have expected him to declare the secession of the Western Region from Nigeria.
It would have been like expecting Nnamdi Azikiwe to usurp Ojukwu’s powers as Governor of the Eastern Region, and announce the secession of Eastern Nigeria, and the creation of a new Biafran nation. The Ojukwu we know may have even arrested, and probably executed Zik if he had done that.
If the grudge against Chief Awolowo is founded on the £20 pounds payment to persons of Igbo origin, then I can understand it. But even that grudge is also not well founded. Because the £20 policy only affected those whose bank records could not be verified. I hazard a guess that if another person other than Awolowo was on that seat, the payment may have been £0.
But to hold a grudge against the Yoruba stemming from that Enugu meeting is in my view an injustice to a man who only went there to seek a way to avoid bloodletting.
In any case, have those who hold this view ever considered that the man, Emeka Ojukwu, for whom they hold this torch, after his return to Nigeria on May 18, 1982, joined the National Party of Nigeria, the very same party that was peopled, sponsored and supported by the very same people who prosecuted the Nigerian Civil War against him and Eastern Nigeria?
The NPN was a Northern Party that did not win a single state in Western, Midwestern (Bendel) and the Igbo states of Eastern Nigeria. The same people who founded the NPN were the very same people who advised and perhaps tele-guided Gowon.
In fact, the first National Leader of the NPN was Makaman Bida, a former member of the inner caucus of Ahmadu Bello’s Northern Peoples Congress.
This is the party that Ojukwu joined, contested for election into the Senate (and lost), and campaigned for during the 1983 Presidential election.
Taking all of this into consideration, there is no way the myth of Chief Awolowo, and all Yoruba being betrayers, can stand. Myth two: The Yoruba Are Cowards The late Sani Abacha was the most brutal dictator in Nigeria’s history. I do not need to elaborate. His rule was a dark era in our history, and the nationwide spontaneous celebration of his death is enough shame on his memory and his family and survivors.
Having said that, Nigerians may want to recall that a certain Moshood Kashimawo Abiola stood up to the bully that was Abacha, and rightfully declared himself President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on June 11, 1994.
That took guts! That was not the act of a coward. It was a display of bravery.
Chief Abiola was arrested on June 23, 1994, and taken to Abuja. While there, he met with General Abacha, and told Abacha to his face that he was Abacha’s boss and Abacha should show him respect. That is more than guts. That is what is called Command Presence in the military. Audacity if you will.
On August 5, 1994, Chief Abiola was offered freedom, via a bail, with certain conditions, including that he “stay away from politics”. Abiola’s response was terse. It was given by his wife, Kudirat Abiola, who said “Chief Abiola is not interested.”
That is bravery to the point of self-sacrifice. Bear in mind that this was a multimillionaire in US dollars, with access to private jets, and all the modern conveniences money could buy, yet he inconvenienced himself by refusing to betray his mandate.
And after Abacha died (I never call him General. It is an insult to call the world’s biggest political thief, who is still coughing up billions 23 years after his death, a General of the Nigerian Army), Chief Abiola refused to give up his mandate, and probably died because of his principled stand.
It is therefore ridiculous for anybody to call an ethnic nationality that produced such a personality cowards.
And this is not a recent phenomenon. Whereas the Fulani jihadist army completely defeated the Hausa, they could not defeat the Yoruba. A Yoruba regiment from present-day Ibadan, and led by Balogun Oderinlo, routed the Fulani army and drove them out of Oshogbo in 1840, and eventually from Yoruba land. In the process, they captured four Fulani Generals.
The popular case of Ilorin was not a military defeat, it was a case of over ambition by a rogue Yoruba, Afonja. And it was isolated to the Ilorin area. I just hope history will not repeat itself in Lagos.
During the Nigerian Civil War, Murtala Mohammed was an unmitigated military disaster. The Biafrans defeated him soundly at Abagana and almost captured him. If not for the Yoruba-led Third Marine Commando, Nigeria would not have defeated Biafra at the time it did.
In the history of Nigeria, only two men have returned to Nigeria to face almost certain death even when they had the option of a very comfortable political asylum abroad. Both of them are Yoruba. In 1985, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida toppled the Buhari regime while Major General Tunde Idiagbon (mixed Yoruba/Fulani) was at Mecca yet Idiagbon returned.
In 1995, Olusegun Obasanjo (pure Owu Yoruba) was accused of planning a coup by the blood-thirsty tyrant, Abacha (if you do not like that truthful description of Abacha or if you believe that ‘Abacha did not loot,’ you can go and join him where he is) while he was away in Copenhagen.