Opinion: The Yoruba And National Politics: Past, Present & Future (1)

Towards the end of January 2012, I delivered a lecture at Ogbomosho to commemorate the forty-sixth anniversary of the death of Papa S.L. Akintola, a one time deputy to the late sage Papa Obafemi Awolowo as leader of the Action Group. Papa S.L. Akintola died in the first ever military coup in Nigeria on 15th January, 1966.

Ambassador Yemi Farounbi was also there to give a lecture. I believe Nigerians and readers of this column deserve to know the contents of that lecture.

Some national events have prevented my publishing this lecture on time. I hope you will all enjoy reading the words that came from my mouth the last Saturday of January at Ogbomosho. I wish you a happy reading:-

“In 1962, a political crisis had broken out within the Action Group, a party in which Papa Obafemi Awolowo was the undisputed leader and Papa S.L. Akintola was the Premier of the then Western Nigeria controlled by the party. It was a political crisis that eventually led to the death of Nigeria’s first republic.

During the crises, Papa Obafemi Awolowo was incarcerated and jailed for treasonable felony charge. A lot of things happened during the period that unfortunately led to the death of Papa S.L. Akintola in the military coup of January 15, 1966.

This is not a time for recriminations. This is not the time to start apportioning blames on the sad activities of those times. These are times for sober reflections on the politics of that era and time to find out how we can move on, particularly how the Yorubas will use the activities of those times to ensure a beautiful future for our people within the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I also say it here and with all respects that what we are doing today is HISTORIC. Historic because the organisers of today’s event have raised the stakes in the quests of the Yoruba people for truth, justice and fair-play in national scheme of affairs.

As a follower and disciple of the late Papa Obafemi Awolowo, let me state here clearly and unambiguously that when I talk of raising the stakes by the organisers, what I am stating emphatically is that the efforts we are witnessing today have climaxed all previous activities by some political groups to bring about unity among the followers and adherents of the politics of the two titans of Nigerian politics (Awo and S.L.A) of Yoruba extraction.

This is not the first time that I will be here in Ogbomosho to visit the Akintola family. About fourteen years ago, Master Oluwole Awolowo (Papa Obafemi Awolowo’s son) and myself visited Chief Yomi Akintola in the family house of the Akintolas. It was a visit that had been arranged by the then United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) then led in the South-West political region by Senator Bode Olajumoke. On that occasion, Yomi had arranged visits to the Soun of Ogbomosho, Kabiyesi Oba Atewogbade. We equally prayed at the grave of Papa S.L. Akintola and we equally ate there. It was an event that people had felt could never have happened between the Awolowos and the Akintolas. Mama H.I.D Awolowo when told of the proposed visit, gave her unflinching support fir it. The efforts would have continued but for the sordid events of that time that eventually led to the extinction of the political party activities of the Abacha times.

I equally want to bear testimony to an event that occurred right in my presence during the life of Nigeria’s second republic. Papa Obafemi Awolowo had gone for a rally of his party, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) at Osogbo early in 1979. After the Osogbo rally, Papa’s entourage had left for Ikirun for another rally. Papa’s entourage had passed Ikirun road where Mama Faderera Akintola then lived. Papa Obafemi Awolowo’s car and the frontal cars had driven fast past the residence of Mama Federera Akintola without noticing that the woman had come out enthusiastically waving to the Awo entourage. I was at the near end of the entourage and I saw the event vividly.

When we concluded the political rallies of the day, I moved to Papa Awo and recounted to him what had happened at Osogbo when his entourage had passed Mama Federera Akintola’s house along Ikirun road, Osogbo. Papa Obafemi Awolowo was visibly moved that he had not seen Mama Federera. He said he would have stopped to exchange pleasantries with the old woman. The sum total of these events I have recounted is that, until their deaths, these leaders never allowed the tragic events of those times to turn into personal family feuds.

I say it again that Awolowo and Akintola were two great Yoruba sons who did everything in their power to advance the supreme interest of the Yoruba nation within the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I want to say again that throughout my years by Papa Awolowo’s side, I never heard Papa Awo denigrate Papa S.L. Akintola’s name in any manner.

I was very well acquainted with the late Ladi Akintola. I had always conceived of him as someone very opposite to my views as a strong and irredentist disciple of Papa Obafemi Awolowo. It was a different ball game for me when I saw Ladi physically at the residence of the late Alex Ibru at Agbarah-Ottor in Delta State when we had both gone to participate in the final burial rites of the late Mama Ibru (the mother of the Ibru brothers).

Ladi, Enitan Osunkoya (my junior at Igbobi College in the early 60s) and myself had stayed for three nights at the residence of our friend, the late Alex Ibru fondly called by me ALEXY KOSYGN. Ladi and I talked extensively most of the time on national politics. Ladi was brilliant, focused and objective in his ideas about national politics. Ladi was unemotional in his presentation of very deep analysis of men, matters and events of Nigerian politics. He cut a very positive image on my mind. When Ladi unfortunately died some years ago, I paid him an open tribute in my column POLITICAL PANORAMA in the Nigerian Tribune newspaper.

The examination of the topic of this Lecture “YORUBA NATION AND NIGERIAN POLITICS, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE” is without doubt an examination of the lives and times of Papa Awolowo and Papa S.L. Akintola in Nigerian politics. The two leaders were never pretentious about the fact that they were Yoruba people. The two of them had a vision of a country, Nigeria, liberated from British colonialism and ensuring the peaceful co-existence of all the tribes and regions that make up the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The nationalist claims of these two great sons of Nigeria can never be in doubt.

It was never an accident of history that the two leaders (Awo and SLA) were both reputable journalists of their time. Their pens against British colonial rule were incisive and progressively belligerent. The Action Group of their days was without doubt the best organised political party in Nigeria. Papa Obafemi Awolowo was indeed a leader of men. Papa S.L. Akintola was master of oratory.

I say it with respect once again, the crisis of the Action Group of those days was based on the different political approaches of the two-leaders on how to position the Yoruba people in the national scheme of things.

It was a crisis that was largely ideological. A critical loot at Chief Ayo Rosiji’s biography written by the late Ninah Mbah gives clear picture to this conclusion. On hindsight, it could be said that the two leaders never preached isolationist policies of the Yoruba people from national politics. The two leaders believed religiously in the agreement of the Yoruba people to the federation that we have concluded with other Nigerians at the various constitutional conferences with the British Colonial administration between 1946 and 1959. Alliances of the Action Group with other political parties in Nigeria formed a central basis of the crisis. While one leader and his group felt the AG should strike an alliance with a particular political party from the North, Papa Awolowo and his supporters believed that ideological question cannot be removed from what was to be a correct alliance of the AG with other political groups in Nigeria. What I am therefore submitting is that, put in proper historical perspective, none of the contentious groups within the Action Group ever preached a Yoruba disengagement from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Both leaders (Awo and SLA) believed in Papa Awolowo’s often quoted statement that “you can only a good Nigerian citizen, if you are first and foremost a good person from your tribe and place of birth.”

It is no longer history that while Papa S.L.A’s Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) later went ahead to strike an alliance with the then Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), Papa Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group equally went into alliance with the then National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). No one can state that these two great leaders ever preached the disintegration of Nigeria in favour of an emergent and independent Yoruba nation.

Papa Obafemi Awolowo and Papa Ladoke Akintola advocated consistently a proper definition of the Federal nature of Nigeria’s political existence. Instead for Nigeria (particularly the other political groups opposed to the Action Group) to fully understand the messages of these two leaders, all efforts were made to decimate a political party that truly cemented its existence on one and indivisible Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This failure eventually led to the coup of January 15, 1966 and the declaration of Eastern Nigeria as an independent republic of Biafra.

The challenges of the positions of these two leaders have remained with the Nigeria of today. We in this country are still groaning under the yoke of giving proper meaning to the redefinition of Nigeria’s Federal existence.

What Papa Awo and Papa S.L.A were saying in their days was that Nigeria as a federation must be governed by its essential features of being a political arrangement that involves consensus, compromise and coalition of interests among all the groups that make up our federation.”

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•To Be Continued

Ebino Topsy – 0805-500-1735 (SMS ONLY PLEASE)

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