We are aware of some anti-Yoruba statements coming from dregs of inconsequential cohorts. And they are products of juvenile reasonings. Do these layabouts know the Yoruba aphorism that it is only a bastard who uses the left finger to point at his father’s house? Do they know how far the train’s been gone on these issues before the South-West governors decided to birth the Amotekun security outfit for their region? Do they have statistical data or inventory of the number of innocent Yoruba, including those who travelled from abroad to visit home, but suddenly met their death at the hands of the blood-thirsty killers and kidnappers?
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The active bearers of the Oodua course will not be discouraged, neither intimidated by coolant statements that are deliberately framed to pour acid of confusion on Yoruba unity and collective resolve to resist enslavery of our people for the second time after the experience of the 1840s. Neither would the strategic power house be dribbled to sell out its plans and readiness for resistance. Let those who are sceptics, let those whose words are grenades of discouragement, and whose mouths are bellows of confusion, be reminded that AWON ALALE ILE O’ODUA NBO LATI GBE WA NIJA! INA ORI ESU N’BO WA JO AWON OTA ILE ATI OTA ODE NI ILE O’ODUA … ASE EDUMARE.
Like others in your negative commentary on Amotekun, you have given us a considerably valid point – that Amotekun needs to be legislated into law by each state House of Assembly in the South-West. However, may I say that the legal luminaries and elders who challenged AGF Malami’s volatile utterance are very much aware of that possibility. The governors of the South-West are also aware of that possibility. The elders of Yorubaland, and leaders of intellectual and public opinion, including our revered Leader of the Yoruba World Congress, the distinguished Prof. Banji Akintoye, Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, legal luminary Aare Afe Babalola, and legal Amotekun Femi Falana, are very much aware of that option.
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But, I like to inform you that the option is a short range of reasoning on the matter. The Yoruba people and leaders are not ignorant. There are longer range of reasons and deeper implications for the legislation of Amotekun into law. The implications would have created a more aggressive implosion of suspicious reactions. However, it is sufficient, for now, to note that the Yoruba nation is imbued with the wisdom and resilience of the ancients. Here is another attempt to derail the course of sound judgement and reasoning over the survival strategy for all Nigerians and foreign nationals in the South-West amidst the dread of killings and kidnappings, and the forced incursion into people’s farmlands. Your reference to Biafra is itself a negation of your personal ideologies and an ironic positive underscore for the just effort to protect our Commonwealth in the South-West. Amotekun was not created to invoke secession of the South-West from Nigeria.
I take a walk away from your rantings and insinuations. You erect the attempt to secure the region as a bid to secede? Wow! I need not drag the matters any more. I think I need a glass of cold water to rehydrate myself after listening to your malicious homilies of war, hate and division. Personally, I don’t need to put on the light on the darkness of your ignorance about political ideologies and economic survivals. We need a united Nigeria. Yes. But, the genocide in the North-East and North-Central, which is replicating itself in the South-West itself cannot be the conveyor belt to that unity! For the unity to be achieved, we need to have a safe and secure country where we can all go about our duties in search for a better living condition. Think about that! Omo Iya! Lo ronu jinle gidi gidi.
Prof. Fashina wrote from University of Ibadan, Oyo State.
