Dear Yoruba people, this piece may be controversial but you may need to read through to pick a stand. I read it over and over and I decided to copy and paste here after I got the message clearly. Happy reading ….
Fulani Cattle Colony: Let Tinubu Remove the Veil of Partisan Politics
Gbenga Ogedengbe:
While the news of yesterday’s police blockades against the duo of Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu, the senate president and the deputy senate president respectively, is still very fresh, the news of senator Dino Melaye’s road abduction struck the polity like a dynamite again. Like play, like play, this is getting unbearably nonsensical for a country of over 180 million human beings and unknown number of cattle.
Like the seven wonders of the ancient world, the overwhelming conquest of the majority Hausas of the northern Nigeria by the minority Fulanis remain one of some wonders of the precolonial Nigeria.
Moreover, how the Fulanis were able to seize the entire local leadership structure of the whole Hausa north within the little time frame of not up to 200 years should be sufficient as a reason why the Yoruba leaders must not play with the speculated Buhari’s planned Fulani conquest of the southwestern Nigeria using the instrument of cattle colony establishment in every state of the zone in this civilised age.
One thing about the future of the Yoruba race which bothers all friends of the Yoruba nation across the globe is how and when the people would get the leader who would be sensitive to their plight the way Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (JOA) did.
Through conducts in government and conducts after leaving office, hardly could anyone be singled out as a true disciple of Awolowo among the myriad of self acclaimed disciples of Awolowo who have been flooding the politics of the southwestern Nigeria.
Though, Olusegun Obasanjo is not heard anywhere laying claim to being an adherent of Awolowo’s ideals yet he has made marks in his own way. His consistent outcry lately which is centred on sensitising the people about the patriotic need to discontinue with the current Buhari government has already registered him as a soldier fighting on the side of God and the people. In spite of his noticeable historic efforts, there is still cause for alarm.
The people are contending with four realities.
One, the age is no longer on the side Obasanjo.
Two, the younger Ayo Fayose who had shown some skeletal tendencies of being sensitive to the Yoruba nation now and the Yoruba nation hereafter is gradually being surrounded by some constrictors from within the Yoruba circle who are suspected to have been commissioned by Fulani ethnic champions in the current federal government of Nigeria.
Three, Fayose himself is not helping matters by not showing the expected obedience induced readiness to join forces with Obasanjo in ensuring that Yoruba isn’t conquered in this 21st century.
Four, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is dangerously silent at the time when silence can never be golden. Keeping mute over the potential threat to the survival and continuous existence of the Yorubas as a people is least expected of somebody like Tinubu whose Yoruba chieftaincy title is ‘Asiwaju’. Asiwaju can mean leader, trail blazer or foremost person.
Sincerely, Yoruba people are yet to understand the rationale behind Tinubu’s silence over the planned establishment of Fulani cattle colony in the Southwest lest we talk about time to time killings in the north central states of the country.
People are agitated. Their agitations have informed a lot of guesses about what could be hindering the much respected Tinubu from speaking against these obvious ills of President Buhari’s government.
Can the silence of Tinubu means ‘Yes’ to the killings in Benue or signifies approval to the establishment of Fulani cattle colony in the Western Nigeria? Or can we say Tinubu doesn’t understand the implication of such ethnic cleansing attempt by the Fulanis? Or Is Tinubu afraid of the Fulani herdsmen? Or is he ready to sacrifice Yorubas for political gains in APC. Can it be for the fear of being persecuted by the brutal APC federal government considering what Ayo Fayose, Dino Melaye, Bukola Saraki and Obasanjo are facing now?
Come to think of this, if it was in the immediate past government of Goodluck Jonathan that the federal government is desperately making frantic efforts towards constructing fish ponds or fish colonies for the ijaws in the 36 states of the federation, would Tinubu have kept this quiet? If no, why the silence?
It is high time, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, removed the veil of partisan politics and signified where he stands. Yoruba history will never take his silence for a good contribution.