Isokan
Yoruba Magazine
Summer 1997
Volume III No. III:
Editorial
The
Houston Yoruba Declaration: Regional Autonomy, Not National
Disintegration
The declaration that resulted from the 1997 Yoruba
Convention in Houston deserves a special mention, especially in
view of the confusing reports on the declaration at home in Nigeria
and elsewhere on the globe.
While the delegates from the Egbe Omo Yoruba in
North America, Oduduwa Movement in Europe, Oodua Foundation in Nigeria,
and Oduduwa Youth Movement in Nigeria deserve to be congratulated
for their realistic approach to the problems facing the Nigerian
state, it is important to observe that the reporting on the conference
by news houses in Nigeria over stretches the truth of the convention
for various reasons.
Some objective or neutral newspapers reported for
sensational reasons on the cover pages that the Yoruba may secede
while others over interpreted the declaration to mean that the Yoruba
are to secede. In a country where there had been attempts at secession,
it is not unexpected that this kind of reporting might raise the
blood pressure of supporters and enemies of the Yoruba alike. The
sensationalization of the Houston declaration has given detractors
of the Yoruba and those committed to the repression and underdevelopment
of the Yoruba another occasion for Yoruba bashing. Apart from several
statements warning the Yoruba of the dire consequences of secession,
some Yoruba traditional rulers on errands for the junta have assured
the international community that they, as traditional rulers, are
in the best of positions to gauge and characterize the true intentions
of Yoruba people nationa-wide. At home in Nigeia and abroad, some
of these leaders have appealed to their audiences that their reading
of the Yoruba mind is that Nigeria is more united now than ever
before!
What the royal emissaries of the junta in Nigeria
and others have emphasized is the issue of secession while the Houston
declaration is about the restoration of autonomy to the Yoruba region
and other regions in the federation. Common sense requires that
a demand for autonomy as a basis for reinforcing unity in diversity
in a federal republic should be addressed on its own merit rather
than on the wishful thinking of masters of disinformation and agents
of distraction.
The noise about secession in Nigeria and by agents
of the dictatorship abroad is a childish attempt to draw attention
away from the real message and occupy the mind of the national and
the international community with nonissues. What the Yoruba are
asking for at present is a return to a demilitarized constitution
and polity that guarantees a return to the regional autonomy on
the basis of which the British granted independence to Nigeria as
one nation-state. Even if Abiola is released today to actualize
his mandate, it is crucial for the Yoruba to insist on the restoration
of autonomy as part of the transition to full democracy in a post-military
Nigeria. There is no connection between autonomy for the regions
and secession or disintegration. Ethiopia is a united federal republic
with a constitution that guarantees autonomy for its diverse nationalities.
In view of the desperate campaign by the junta and
its messengers to confuse regional autonomy with secession or disintegration,
the Yoruba organizations that met in Houston need to take their
message of autonomy directly to the people of Nigeria and the friends
of Nigeria in Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the rest of Africa.
Now that Britain is talking about national renewal through the devolution
of power and the United States, as ever, religiously respects its
time- honored federalism, it is important for the Yoruba and other
Nigerian nationalities that believe in the principle of autonomy
as a basis for unity in a multiethnic state to intensify their campaign
for sustainable democracy in London and Washington, two cities currently
inundated by messengers of the Nigerian junta.
As the Yoruba people say: One hundred pieces of
rags do not automatically make a masquerade. The Houston communiqué,
as honest and forward looking as it is, requires to be sold to lovers
of democracy and genuine federalism all over the world. The Yoruba
Autonomy Bond should be taken to Yoruba people wherever they are
on the globe as soon as possible. This is the best way to create
a conducive environment for taking the crusade for a lasting democracy
and true federalism to the world. As noisy as the
errand boys of the junta may be at present in Europe and the United
States, it is important for lovers of the cultural rights of Nigerians
to remember that ideas can only be debated; they can never be killed.
In addition to launching the Yoruba Autonomy Bond, there is an urgent
need for starting Yoruba Autonomy Newsletter as an organ for total
demilitarization of Nigeria.
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