By Kayode Emola
In 2 days-time, Yoruba all over the world will celebrate 138 years since the signing of the peace treaty signalling the end to the Kiriji war that devasted Yoruba land for over a decade. Last week, I wrote about the tragedies of that war and how it has shaped the current political landscape of Yorubaland.
The consequence of that war was the fatigue of war, which made us vulnerable to colonialism. This saw the Yoruba country divided into two with one part added to other ethnic nationalities forming what we know today as Benin Republic. The other Yoruba country was amalgamated with strange bedfellows to form Nigeria. Now, everything we’ve laboured for over the years have been stolen including our culture, and traditions. If care is not taken, our very existence cannot be guaranteed.
As we celebrate the labours of our Yoruba heroes who fought gallantly in that war for the freedom of their people, we must realise that the war is still not over. We cannot say there is peace when many of our people are still living as slaves in Nigeria. We need to fight for total liberation where our people anywhere in the world will be able to decide their own future and happiness.
As we mark the end to all wars among us in Yorubaland, it is time to stand united as one family to be able to resist any onslaught against our existence. We must begin to build back capacity among our people to ensure everyone of us in individually and collectively independent.
To this end, we must take bold steps in highlighting to our people that the only way we can truly build anything enviable is if we have our own independent country. Our ancestors who lived in the times of the Mali, Songhai, Ghana empire never dragged themselves down to become slaves to those mighty empires. They built their own enviable domain and ruled for thousands of years.
Therefore, those of us who believe in the self-determination of Yorubaland must begin a massive campaign of awareness to our people. We must drive our message to the hearts and minds of our people. We must encourage them to be bold to demand their emancipation from the politicians who are holding us captive in Nigeria.
If we begin to put direct and enormous pressure on the elected political office holders from our Yoruba ethnic nationalities. Then, there will be an increased level of awareness of the urgency for which we should leave Nigeria.
For those still hoping that Nigeria will be better one day, they need to understand that the British who built Nigeria did not build it to succeed. This is why they don’t even trade with us anymore. Nigeria’s trade with Britain is mere 0.4% and it is not even going to get better.
Without trade and commerce, there is no way we can build a viable economy. So, we need to get our Yoruba country out of Nigeria so we can establish trade with countries that really matter in the world.
We know what to do to be a great Yoruba country again and we must not fail to do it. I call on our comrades pushing hard for Yoruba nation to continue to strive for excellence in all that we do.
Our struggle is gradually moving to a phase where we need to begin to think of governance and moving away from merely protest. We ought now to begin to establish governance structure for the new nation so that we can deliver to our people their hopes and aspiration for now and into the future.
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