By Kayode Emola
Last week, the entire African community came together in solidarity with Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the leader of Burkina Faso. However, it was not because he paid anyone to support him, nor did he lobby the African communities around the world to stand in solidarity with him.
The support for Traoré came from a genuine love for a leader who is simply doing the right thing for his country. My hope and prayer is that he stays alive and able to help build a better Burkina Faso; and, when time comes for him to leave the stage, not just Burkina but the entire African continent will be the better for it.
The story of Burkina Faso should teach our Yoruba people, as well as the entire African community, that Western imperialists do not seek our welfare in Africa. They only seek what they can exploit from us to better their own society.
Therefore, the time is now for us to realise in Yorubaland and in Africa that our liberation will not come out of the Western Europeans and Americans wanting us to be free. We must, as citizens, rise up and free ourselves from these centuries of bondage. It is high time we in Africa took a stand to do the needful, else we risk remaining in perpetual bondage.
It is a pity that all the institutions that are supposed to strengthen the African community, such as the African Union and ECOWAS, are now mere puppets of Western Europe and America. It is not surprising that no African president or head of state has to date spoken a word about the travails experienced by Traoré from those that are seeking to take his life. How can they, when they and their respective peoples are also in bondage from the neo-colonialists who have seized total control of the nations in the African continent.
We, as African citizens, cannot think for one minute that the Americans or Europeans have our best interest at heart when it comes to their dealings with our continent. We need to stand up for ourselves, just like Ibrahim Traoré is doing for his country, Burkina Faso. It is the same thing that great leaders of the past like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo et al did for their individual countries in the 1950s and 1960s.
The great work of freedom for the African continent rests in our shoulders now. It is our duty to ensure that we advocate for the liberation of our people from the foreign governments who strive to keep African in perpetual poverty.
However, we cannot talk of Africa’s freedom without the understanding that every individual nation within Africa needs to work out what freedom means for themselves. This is why we as Yoruba must rise to save our nation from both the internal and external threats facing us today.
There is much that we can learn from Traoré’s example. He has sought to remove foreign influence from policy-making, and endeavoured to ensure that decisions made in his Burkina Faso are made prioritising the best interests of the people and country. In the same manner, we must ensure that our political and economic strategies are rooted in Yoruba interests, rather than kowtowing to foreign pressures or allowing the political elite to limit policy only to what favours themselves.
We have a moral duty to speak truth to power and to hold our leaders accountable. We need to grasp the realisation that those currently representing the Yoruba people are the architect of our problem; and we need to start striving for the understanding of what our society truly needs.
Our people deserve a country that invests in them. They deserve one that puts money into developing local industries, technology and infrastructure, that promotes self-sustainability and, above all, invests in the greatest resource our country has: our people. They need economic policies that promote creation of jobs and support entrepreneurship, not ones that exist merely to line the pockets of the political elite whilst the rest of the country languishes in poverty.
As we press on with our journey for the liberation of Yoruba nation, it is time to let our people know that we have entered a state of affirmative action. This is no longer the time for us to stand idly and talk endlessly about what freedom will do for us. It is time to do the work that is needed for the liberation of our country.
We have seen that a large part of Traoré’s success comes from the support he has from his people. By promoting his vision of national pride and self-determination for the average man on the street, and by ensuring his policies reflect the aspirations of ordinary citizens, he has won the hearts and minds of his populace. As he advocates for his people, so his people, in turn, advocate for him.
The Yoruba independence movement is likewise championing the interests of the Yoruba people. It stands to advocate for all our people, regardless of class, gender, region or age. We therefore entreat every Yoruba person to support the efforts of the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement (YSDM) in return, seeking a Yoruba nation independent of Nigeria. Your support of us, as we fight for you, can have the same groundbreaking effect that has been seen with Ibrahim Traoré and the Burkinabè population. We have a golden opportunity to liberate our Yoruba nation once and for all and I believe we should step forward to do just that.
