A Tracer for the Crisis

www.yesneko.com A tracer for the crisis By Akin Osuntokun There is now a one million naira political question being bandied around and it goes as follows: who between Ige and Adesanya/Falae on one hand and between the Afenifere and the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), on another, do you see carrying the day in the subsisting supremacist struggle within the Yoruba political establishment? My response is that it is necessary to properly characterise the crisis and perhaps the principal protagonists in order to guard against superficiality and wishful thinking in the conclusions we reach. Secondly, we must anticipate the role of intervening variables which may not feature presently but whose eventuality may prove decisive one way or another. Third is that my own prognosis will be heavily laden with a personal preference for a conflict-resolution perspective. The first observation to make is that the present scenario is far more problematic than most analysts and vested interests have been willing to concede. And it centres mainly on the tension between the Yoruba frustration with the Nigerian set-up and the obligation it (the Yoruba nationality) owes towards the stability and sustainability of the Fourth Republic – presided over as it were by a fellow Yorubaman. Beyond the well-justified aspiration for regional autonomy and self-determination which must be understood as maximum political demands, there should be at the same time a recognition that there is an irreducible minimum condition which is presently fulfilled in the reality of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s incumbency. And the irreducible minimum condition, not just for the Yorubas, but for the entire Nigeria stakeholders is that the incumbency of Aso-Rock is open and accessible to every part of Nigeria. So long as this condition holds firm and true especially where the incumbent is seen to be a progressive reforms crusader, the agenda of Yoruba ethnic particularism will always provoke a division within the Yoruba political establishment. This is the plank on which Chief Bola Ige has chosen to express his resentment at his colleagues in Afenifere over their indifference or (in his own thinking) tacit collaboration in his defeat at the Afenifere presidential primaries. Although talk of treachery and betrayal is rife in the air, it must be noted that in the context of Yoruba ethnic politics, it will be difficult to argue and sustain the logic that a Yoruba nationalist who has chosen to actively ally himself with the task of ensuring a successful tenure of a fellow Yorubaman (who is Nigeria’s President) should thereby be deemed a traitor. There is also the fact that the leadership of Senator Abraham Adesanya is rather elitist and collegial as opposed to a mass-oriented and charismatic personality-type which can directly inspire and fire the imagination of the public. I have always thought that once Senator Adesanya accepted the ascription of Yoruba leadership, he should begin to live the role by criss-crossing the length and breadth of Yorubaland to present himself to the people. As it is, he is more renowned for cosmopolitan political activism and less recognised as a grassroots political leader. Herein lies one of the crucial distinctions between contemporary Yoruba political leadership and the Awolowo leadership precedent. Perhaps on account of his rigorous electioneering campaigns for political visit us at www.yesneko.com www.yesneko.com office, which repeatedly took him to the nooks and crannies of Yorubaland, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was able to evoke the empathy and personal identification of the average Yoruba with his political causes and struggles. This is a trait that is not shared by the present Afenifere leadership – with perhaps the exception of an estranged Chief Bola Ige who once held office as Governor of old Oyo State and is known to be an effective grassroots mobiliser. One other factor which has shaped and will continue to affect the evolution of the crisis is the breakage of the monolithic Western region into a multiplicity of States. Although a sense of regional unanimity was momentarily fostered by the one party domination of the six South- Western States, it was quite obvious that the six States were natural platforms for the manifestation of ethno-regional fractiousness. Western region as a political administrative and constitutional unit was evidently a complement and reinforcement to the notion of a pan-Yoruba leadership, and by the same token the region’s mutation into six different units was guaranteed to weaken and detract from a leadership, that acts and speaks for the Yoruba community. Indeed the theoretical basis for the first State, creation exercise in 1967 (apart from the civil war strategy of weakening the Biafra secession effort) was the need to detract from the capacity of the federating units to constitute themselves into regional blocs sufficiently strong to serve as countervailing centres of political mobilisation. Needless to say that the exercise has grown to become acutely dysfunctional to the capacity of the States to stand as viable political and economic units. Underlining the argument on how the States now act and are able to act autonomous of ethno-regional rallying point was the following submission by Governor Adebayo Adefarati of Ondo State. He said the State decided to support the Yoruba leader, Senator Abraham Adesanya for two main reasons. Adesanya supported the late sage Chief Adekunle Ajasin (former Ondo State Governor) up to the point of death with zeal and vigour, saying it is only logical for the people of the State to support the former with the same zeal. In addition, he traced the present factionalisation in the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to the election of Chief Olu Falae, an indigene of the State as the presidential flag-bearer and for this reason, the State would forever support Senator Adesanya". Here, the point is clearly made that the two reasons adduced border on the principle of goodwill reciprocity between Ondo State and Senator Abraham Adesanya. All these factors have combined to render the crisis quite problematic and with it any projection of a probable victor and vanquished. In the circumstance it is a lot more easier to predict a stalemate and reconciliation. And so may it be in the New Year. The writer is a journalist and avid watcher of Nigerian affairs visit us at www.yesneko.com.

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