Let it be clear. All these so-called Yoruba leaders are not fighting for your interests, your growth, or your well-being. They don’t care about you. Whether they are Afenifere or Afenigbepe, Baba Ekiti, or whatever, all they want is power, money, and influence for themselves, their families, and their allies. All the Igbo leaders have also been found wanting in the area of amassing wealth for themselves and negotiating supremacy using several sociocultural and sociopolitical groups without any significant improvement in the lives of the Igbos. As for the Hausa-Fulani, only 5% of the elite can only boast wealth and well-being, while the majority remain the scum of the earth, clinging to religion for succor.
These political elite don’t care whether you have eaten this morning, or are in great health. They did not care about you during COVID-19 when everything was on lockdown and they still don’t care. They don’t care if you have jobs. They are just using the sentimentality of culture to climb into prominence. They are also employing the rhetoric of the same to pitch us against one another. The battles in Lagos, PortHarcourt, Abuja will only aggravate the existential poverty of the impoverished while the wealthy will remain buoyant, negotiating amongst themselves on golden tables.
Recently, Nigerians began to discover warehouses full of COVID-19 palliatives stashed in warehouses in Lagos and Osun states. These palliatives had been stashed and have been largely unavailable to Nigerians they were starving. Although the Lagos State Government expressed concern on the looting of the warehouse, informing the public of its plan to distribute the palliatives contributed to the government by private FCMG companies for the people, the explanation was a whitewashing of the truth in order to placate Nigerians not to ask further questions. The grains were intact but other foodstuff had begun to decay, according to pictures shown on social media. Therefore, what is the basis of loyalty to the tribe?
There will be no need to state that those who benefitted from COVID19 Palliatives before the crisis in the Southern part of the country had affiliations with government while others lamented the single loaf of bread issued to whole communities. Government at that time explained that they did not have enough for everyone. The questions are left for you all to engage from here.
If you also notice, the many political factions in the opposition are surreptitious that all of this is playing out in their lifetime. They can be quiet but the truth is that celebration cannot be accompanied by graveyard silence. We know that while the nation mourns, they consider it a leverage to woo many into electoral shifts in the forthcoming elections. Lives have been lost, the finances of many Nigerians are at an all-time low and the disillusionment in the land is palpable. Nigeria has been unfortunate with leaders who continue to demand tribal loyalties and subservience from its tribal followers without deploying dividends to them.
So it has nothing to do with collective tribe. It has everything to do with power, money, influence and having a canon fodder of sentiments and bodies that can die for them.
Recenlty, some facebook intelligentia began to peddle a mantra that has the capacity to make young Yoruba men take up arms against Igbo man. Thankfully, seasoned men and women from both tribes have called for caution. Humane and intelligent people know this that is why we are are not buying any ‘Yoruba Ronu’ figuratives. And that is why it is important to lose all sympathies for such cultural affiliations. Until Yorubas, Igbos and Hausa-Fulani, as well as other 250 realise that the political class need to be questioned, criticised and upbraided without any favouritism based on tribal affiliations, Nigeria will remain a country of warring tribes waiting on their leaders who can afford to clink glasses, negotiate and collaborate to harness power for their own selfish interests.
Until we can remove these problematic loyalties, the ruling class will continue to. enrich themselves while peddling the propaganda that do not improve the lives of anyone. The hospitals are terrible, the infrastructure is closer to the realism of war-torn zones, and the youth are searching for the most available to migrate, even if it means through the harrowing desert.
If you are out there inciting the embers of discord in the spirit of cultural biases which are fuelling killings in Lagos. You need to revaluate your humanity and aspire to greater developmental discourses.