Voice of Emancipation: Donald Trump Presidency: Implication for Yoruba Nation Struggle

By Kayode Emola

In 2020, at the peak of the Yoruba struggle for self-government, Donald Trump was rounding up his time in office as President of the United States. It was widely believed that Donald Trump would help us achieve our sovereign nation. Four years later, we are still nowhere near the end of our struggle. The only difference is that this time, we are better equipped with the tools needed to liberate our people.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter who sits at the white house, the will of the Yoruba people to get out of Nigeria must be stronger than the forces that are holding us down. That I believe is the ingredient we haven’t added to our struggle. To get that part right, we must actively engage our people back home on the need to sever ties with Nigeria.

This is no fault of the people back home but as leaders of the self-determination struggle, we must acknowledge that it is not a self-determination vs Nigeria struggle. It is a Yoruba vs Nigeria struggle and it doesn’t matter where people stand we should be ready to emphasise that our objective is independence for the Yoruba nation.

Personally, I don’t think Trump’s presidency will either work in our favour or against our collective goal of Yoruba independence. The determination to leave Nigeria needs to be vigorously ignited among our people worldwide such that it reverberates in several capitals around the world. This will send a strong signal to the world that the Yoruba people and indeed Africans are ready to liberate themselves.

When Chairman Mao sought liberation for his people in China, he made it a doctrine that everyone must believe in the dream. As a matter of fact, you are made to profess it openly and carry the little red book even if you don’t wholeheartedly agree with it. Today, China is the better for it as successive governments in China over time have been able to lift over 700 million of their population out of poverty, catapulting China into one of the greatest nations if not the greatest nation in the world.

If we truly desire a prosperous Yoruba nation, we must imitate success stories like that of China and similar countries who have liberated themselves fully from colonial shackles. China is being demonised by America and many Western European countries today because they didn’t see the rise of China coming.

For them, every other country must be beneath them, and for China to dictate the terms of the global trade is a blow too big to handle. This is why we as leaders of the self-determination struggle must not for one second think that our liberation is coming when America says it will happen. We must realise that the onus is on us to mobilise our people to be ready for total liberation both from Nigeria and the neo-colonial powers that are tying us down.

Our Yoruba people must realise that for any one day we spend in Nigeria, it is another day wasted in achieving our God given potentials. We must completely dissolve the idea that Nigeria is going to one day be a great nation and begin to embrace our Yoruba identity to the fullest.

Yoruba is unique in so many ways that our culture and traditions are well known and respected throughout the world. This gives us the advantage of developing ideas that will attract the world to what we do

The time has come for us to be emphatic about our desire to leave Nigeria. We need to impress it on our people, our traditional leaders, and even the politicians such that they will become the advocates of our message. This will enable us quickly to achieve our desired goal of total liberation from the bondage we find ourselves.