Kiriji, Unity And True Federalism
The pursuit of peace and unity, which had eluded Yorubaland as a consequence of the collapse of the Oyo Empire prompted the Ibadan forces to embark on what they conceived and declared as the “war to end all wars” against the Ijebu and the Egba; the ultimate aim being the imposition of such peace and unity under its military supremacy.
This bold politico military scheme in the face of British colonial ambitions hovering over the land failed largely because those already under Ibadan authority simply revolted.. Needless to say, British rule forced on Yorubaland effectively neutralized any attempt at peace, unity and the rebuilding of the Nation under autonomous Yoruba terms. A Peace Treaty was eventually signed on September 23, 1886, an event which is being celebrated today.
In retrospect, Egbe Omo Oduduwa can state that the co-operation of the Ibadan-Egba-Ijebu forces would probably have removed the necessity for the “war to end all wars” and the resultant mutual destruction and necessitated a new political paradigm combining Ibadan military might with the political and economic environment of the Ijebu/Egba to serve as the backbone for an engagement with the British forces which would have turned the tide of history through strengthening prospects for peace and unity in Yorubaland thus creating an obstacle to British colonial attempts.
The failure of the “war to end all wars” rested more on the false definition of the topical issue to be addressed, the main contradiction to be resolved, as one of Ibadan forces enforcing peace and unity through its military dominance by defeating the Egba/Ijebu while neglecting the foreign invaders in the British.
By the above, Egbe Omo Oduduwa is not advocating “unity” of all forces in the land as always a political necessity but rather, the recognition by any dominant political force at any point in time to situate its dominance within its alignment with the Nation’s aspirations. Thus, even though the land desperately needed peace and unity at the time in question such could not have been achieved by the enthronement of one formation over the other. The causes of the confusion became multidimensional when colonial aspiration became intertwined with existing disorder and power struggles creating various types of alliances even with the invading colonial forces. For all practical purposes, neutralizing the colonial fox became the imperative which was not addressed by the resort to the “war to end all wars”.
In today’s circumstances, the main contradiction is already identified as Nigeria’s economically unsustainable Unitary Superstructure erroneously classified as “federal” which forms the backbone for the country’s underdevelopment. It behooves on any dominant formation to tackle this fundamental contradiction as it is rather than embark on a hopeless journey towards a form of unity which will of course demand some form of internal battle for, or at the minimum, a recognition of continuous dominance.
Fortunately the SW APC, being the dominant political formation in the land, by formally throwing its weight behind calls for Restructuring Nigeria into a True Federation, is not only keeping faith with the party’s Manifesto and not only balancing its reality as a regional power formation with its subordination to the National Party ordinances but also following the Yoruba historical trajectory.
It is precisely at this point that the question of unity must take second place behind the pursuit of the quest for True Federalism/Restructuring.
Recognizing that various suggestions have been made towards Restructuring/True Federalism within Yorubaland, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa is of the view that such clamor can have meaning only when it becomes a practical political effort, unleashed in a political environment where the SW APC is currently the only political party ready to follow through at both the national and sub-national levels. Other political formations are more concerned about getting into political offices which translates simply to supplanting the APC without more : a preoccupation that bears the risk of distracting the SW APC itself from the quest for True Federalism and reducing everything to electoralism!
Therefore it is necessary that the SW APC, even while pursuing its own electoral goals should simultaneously leverage its dominance in Yorubaland with the quest for True Federalism by focusing on the methodologies to be adopted towards its realization regardless of what other political parties in the land demand as the latter have no political leverage to wield, except to ally with external forces to try to checkmate the SW APC.
They can thus only weaken the SW APC through their attempts at securing electoral victories and in the process tie down SW APC’s efforts at achieving True Federalism; whereas they will have no choice but to flow with the tide, once the SW APC takes and pursues the initiative to its conclusion.
Two options are already on the table from which the SW APC can choose, to wit: revisiting the reports of all of the previous Conferences and making these the basis for that Restructuring through the instrumentality of some committees working on these reports. Conversely, the APC Manifesto states that the Party will initiate an amendment to the Constitution in order to achieve True Federalism.
The committee methodology will compound the problem as Nigeria witnessed in 1978/79 when the military decided to set up such a committee known as the “49 wise men”; all that these wise men came up with was a copy of the US Constitution albeit with some adjustments, an action which negated and neutralized whatever is considered human in our own society, thus alienating us from that which was supposed to regulate our existence and which ordinarily should throw their wisdom into doubt.
This was the foundation upon which all other conferences were held since it provided their political context. Such conferences, by definition, did not reflect the wishes and aspirations of the Peoples, especially when their deliberations and conclusions were never subjected to any form of validation by the Peoples through Referendums hence turning the entire exercise into a form of tokenism.
When the APC Manifesto now says it will set in motion the process to “amend the Constitution”, and if the SW APC is to follow that route, it must be conscious of the possibility of a Legislative ambush, especially with the current leadership of the National Assembly being a major component of the problem as it is a major beneficiary of the over-bloated Federal Superstructure.
Moreover, the National Assembly had been found wanting in its approaches to issues of Nigeria’s economic development since its establishment in 1979. It failed to address the then brigandage and creeping economic downturn of the Second Republic when the alarm was raised by the opposition UPN party which led to the military overthrow of that Republic without its lifting a finger; it failed to stand up to its responsibility during the annulment of the June 12 elections and in today’s terms, was complicit, since 1999 in the humongous corruption by the defeated Party and Administration.
Furthermore, this Assembly is pursuing what it called its own Constitutional Amendment totally outside the participation of the Peoples of Nigeria and intends to finalize it by 2018 in anticipation of the 2019 elections thus leaving room for all sorts of electoral permutations and alliances and without any validation by the Peoples of Nigeria. It is thus an Assembly without the consciousness of itself as the valid representatives of the people.
The question before the SW APC therefore, is whether it will allow itself to be mired in a Legislative ambush or proceed on validating the Peoples preferences via a Regional(Yoruba) Referendum which is a vital aspect of Constitution-making but which had been lacking in Nigeria since the return to civil rule in 1979.
The SW APC cannot afford to be constrained and cannot constrain itself in engaging the Yoruba People and Nation as to her Federalist Preferences for Nigeria, but should take a critical look at all the possibilities created by the Nigerian conundrum and stay on course with Yoruba People by pursuing the Yoruba Regional Constitutional Referendum as the imperative. As it is for the Yoruba Nation, so it is for other Nationalities in Nigeria. Kiriji reflected failures in appreciating the context of engagement. Our history should be our guide.
Shenge Rahman Akanbi, Femi Odedeyi
for and on behalf of Egbe Omo Oduduwa
e-mail: [email protected]