The world in which we live is a school where everybody has one thing or the other to learn. This is regardless of the socio-political, academic, and economic status of an individual. Our teacher is Mr Experience. Therefore, both the leaders and the led must be good learners in order to remain afloat the tidal wave of life and living. Politics is basically about experiential knowledge without any significant space for rigidity. The central government of Nigeria has to begin to embark on some political engineering capable of halting the current drift towards war or disintegration.
Even a primary school boy is not oblivious of the fact that Nigerians have been going through hell in the last three years or thereabouts. The tempo of agonies arising from starvation, insecurity, and nepotism has increased astronomically. This is a monumental crisis-ridden period of Nigeria’s chequered history. The most affected area of south western Nigeria is Oke-Ogun in Oyo State. Rural settlers here can no longer enjoy their sleep as terrorists pretending to be cattle herders, continue to rape their women and kill innocent people. Indeed, Igangan and its neighbouring settlements are under siege. Economic livelihoods have been substantially paralysed, leading to dire poverty and aggravated community health challenges.
It pains to note here, that Dr. Fatai Aborode, a big-time farmer with hundreds of workers was killed by suspected herders in December 2020. According to Premium Times, Alani Olalere was stabbed to death by a herder as a result of a disagreement over the destruction of his farms. Another indigene called Afolabi was also attacked by a cattle herder leading to the cutting off of his left arm. His “offence” was that he insisted that cattle should not eat his harvested cassava. Alhaja Serifat Adisa, a popular business woman was shot dead near her petrol station in January this year. Indeed, the current political leadership is an utterly ruthless dictatorship with the blood of thousands on its hands.
It was alleged that two Fulani leaders- Sarkin Salihu Abdulkadir and Iskilu Wakili were the chief coordinators of the activities of these criminal herders with their unbridled, primitive arrogance that is second to none in the global village. It is a sad reality that the fellow has allegedly sacked several settlements like Kajola, Konko, and Dagbere. The settlers are now refugees in Ayete and Idere. Salihu ruled Igangan de facto until the recent emergence of Sunday Adeniyi Adeyemo (popularly called Sunday Igboho).
In Ogun State, several villages especially in the Yewa locality had been deserted following the incessant raiding and kidnapping by these untouchable cattle herders. These are dare-devil criminals from within and without Nigeria. Many innocent Nigerians were/are being ethnically/culturally prejudiced in their fatherland. The civic space is shrinking at an alarming rate. This is because our political leadership is deficient in public morality. No idea of the common good. What a tragedy! How sickening! I have never heard or read about a country in the whole world, pampering and/or nurturing criminals like in today’s Nigeria.
State governors are largely powerless as security operatives take orders from Abuja. But apart from this, most of them (governors) are playing smelly politics with the issue of security. They want to satisfy at all costs the centre, as a guarantee for their second term in office or to get to the senate. After all, there is no business as lucrative as politics in Nigeria. Ending this ugliness is basically in the domain of political will. Thus, for example, the federal government dealt decisively with bandits and armed robbers from a part of the Niger Delta, who were raiding some riverine communities of Lagos and Ogun States a couple of years ago. Why is it now difficult for the same government to silence those evil men regularly inflicting humiliating pains on innocent people? The political leadership owes Nigerians an honest answer. No more time for empty, nauseating rhetoric because not all Nigerians are frozen brains.
It is against this backdrop that Sunday Igboho’s emergence gains its importance. He is an indigene of Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State. He was/is legitimately tired of the atrocities of these bandits masquerading as cattle herders. Consequently, Sunday began a non-violent struggle to liberate his people including the entirety of the Yoruba race from the bondage of cultural colonisation and imperialism. The Igboho’s style has led to the development of an ideology or system of thought hereby christened, “Igbohoism”. It is firmly embedded in persuasiveness including extra-terrestrial/ancestral methods of approach. As a philosophy, it has the capacity to outlive the originator, so long as tyranny including narrow political interest persists in any given country. By this token, “Igbohoism” disappears in the face of robust governance. Things have almost totally fallen apart now because the centre is too weak to hold. Therefore, every fine brain will accept the fact, that Sunday Igboho is a hero by all standards. In other words, nobody with a sane mind can deny the justice of the cause of Sunday Igboho and his men. “Igbohoism” is primarily about equal rights and justice-two essential preconditions for peace and progress on a sustainable scale. All those who are envious of Sunday Igboho’s growing popularity and consequently resort to mischievous/infantile criticisms have to begin to do a rethink. This is not about an ego trip!
A way forward is for the government to bury its pride and revisit its plans with a view to amending or cancelling some of them. There is a popular Yoruba adage: the baby that says his mother should not sleep would also keep awake. Power belongs to the people! Tyranny or blatant disregard for the rule of law, can only last for a short time. African rulers such as Idi Amin (1971 to 1979) of Uganda, Francisco Nguema (1968 to 1979) of Equatorial New Guinea, Sani Abacha (1993 to 1998) of Nigeria, and Mobutu Sese Seko (1965 to 1997) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were notorious tyrants who once held sway over their countries. They have now gone into oblivion. Their ill-gotten material possessions especially palatial mansions were in ruins later. This is food for thought.
Therefore, harassing Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu in order to silence everybody is not an act of wisdom. The Nigerian followership has finally shunned passivity and dangerous complacency. Suppression of free speech and the truth will only provoke a greater storm of protest or resistance from the oppressed Nigerians. Henceforth, the Nigerian political space must be managed by some of our finest minds as opposed to cranks, ethnic bigots, and intellectually/spiritually bankrupt persons. In addition, the judiciary has to be truly independent with a great deal of professional integrity needed to move the country forward.
- Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.
