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The Igbo — Yoruba Mistrust by Chukwuemeka Oluka

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There is no way one can write on the Igbo — Yoruba mistrust without opening some healed wounds. Sadly, this is what the essay will do. In the end, however, the writer provides enough collagen to help the wounds heal and then help to avoid the sustenance of more wounds. Highlighted in this essay is the role of principal actors (between the Igbo and Yoruba) in the civil war, and how previous working agreements and the attempts to have a ‘handshake’ between the two tribes collapsed. The essay also explores how ethnicity was used in the 2023 general elections in Lagos to widen the growing mistrust between the Igbo and Yoruba. There is always a complicated blame game between the Igbo and Yoruba, and one that is as old as pre-independence. History witnessed the intrigues and drama. This blame game has inadvertently led to a level of mistrust that has continued to alienate the Igbo and Yoruba, making the prospect of any beautiful political marriage a mirage. The fallout of Biafra — Nigeria civil war meant that the Igbos are always in a hurry to describe their southern brothers, the Yoruba as betrayers. There is the allegation that the Yoruba failed to secede from Nigeria as purportedly agreed during a meeting between Obafemi Awolowo and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. These two arguably were the symbolism of the Yoruba tribe and the Igbo tribe. That allegation held that instead, Awolowo joined forces with General Yakubu Gowon the then Head of state to fight Biafra, as he (Awolowo) was the brain behind the use of starvation as a weapon to destroy Ndigbo during the war that occurred from 1967 to 1970. This is one side of the coin. Another side of the coin maintained that during the meeting between Awolowo and Ojukwu, what the premier of the Western region said was that “if the Igbo were ‘driven’ out of Nigeria, the Yoruba would take it seriously and reassess their own position.” With this, the Yoruba would absolve themselves of any accusation of betrayal. Yet, what is certain was that Awolowo came to Enugu, after which Ojukwu declared Biafra, which later led to the civil war. The Yoruba would also turn around and accuse the Igbo of first betraying them, laying pointers to the 1965 elections of the first republic. In that election, the Yoruba alleged that the West and the East had agreed to boycott the election. While the Yoruba kept to their side of the bargain, the Igbo went ahead to vote. However, some political observers say that the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) which were in power at the time in the East faced a dilemma, which was either to boycott the election — (that saw the Federal Government-powered Nigerian National Democratic Party NNDP of Akintola which was opposed to the then mainstream Action Group AG) — and lose power or to play along and stay in power. The observers said the Igbo looked at political reality and then chose to hold on to power. This, according to the observers should cut the Igbo some form of slack in the blame game. In another twist of blame, the Yoruba have accused the Igbo of never trusting them. They say the South-East always preferred to form an alliance with the North, even when the Yoruba extended their hands. The Yoruba would site an instance where a joint government between Zik’s NCNC and Awolowo’s AG, offered by Awolowo was jettisoned by Zik. In that arrangement, Awolowo conceded for Zik to be the Prime Minister while he would become the finance minister. Recall also that the Sardauna (Sir Ahmadu Bello) had also offered an alliance to Zik. This deal eventually saw (Tafawa) Balewa become the Prime Minister while Zik became the President. In the defence of Zik’s decision, it is opined that he had more of a Nationalist inclination and disposition in his decision, in that he felt that an alliance with Awolowo would be judged as a Southern alliance. Another defence was that Zik sensed some form of double play by the Yoruba because at the time Awolowo, who was the Premier of the Western Region offered the alliance to Zik, a principal actor in the West (AG) Ayo Rosiji, was also patronizing sir Ahmadu Bello in the North (NPC). Some would wonder, why would an alliance even work when in the 1951 Western House of Assembly election, Zik aspired to be the premier but some Yoruba allies in the NCNC dramatically cross-carpeted and teamed up with Awolowo’s AG leading to him becoming the Premier. These interplays of accusations and allegations meant that the two tribes would continue to demonize each other and the consequences of the hate-filled exchanges continue to haunt the two tribes. Just in the recently concluded 2023 general elections witnessed in Lagos, we all saw how ethnicity was deployed as a weapon to execute the elections. Hurtful and hateful words became catchphrases used by miscreants on the streets of Lagos and the ‘vawulence’ streets of Twitter. The zenith of it all was during the 2023 governorship election. Lagos became the centre of attention for its attempts at vilifying Ndigbo for holding contrary political positions. Social miscreants known as ‘Area Boys’ allegedly instigated by certain political heavyweights, attacked Igbo-dominated areas of Lagos. It was alleged that their grouse against the Igbo was their inability to vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Recall that Tinubu, the godfather of Lagos politics lost at ‘home’ to Mr Peter Obi the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) during the February 25th, 2023 Presidential elections. It was unheard of because many didn’t imagine that such a feat could be reached by Obi. After Tinubu lost to Obi in Lagos, barely five days before the gubernatorial election, nine governorship candidates stepped down and declared support for the incumbent Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC. Political analysts say the Labour Party may have instilled some level of fear into the ruling APC. Somehow, Mr

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Deep admiration, False Hatred, Strong affection!!! by Okeke Godwin Iyke

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Nigeria is a country where different tribes and religion discreetly and deeply love and admire each other but publicly castigate and hate each other. Let me give you a practical example: I traveled to my village last month and was discussing with a group of people at the market square. Behold one top retired civil servant drove pass and discussion changes. … 1st man: “This man has retired and he didn’t help any of our people to get a job”. 2nd man: “Our people can never help each other. If it Hausa and Yoruba people they will fix themselves. This is why I love Hausa people, they help themselves but our people hate themselves” Me: if Hausa and Yoruba are so good, why then do we say that they are our problem? 3rd Man: They are not our problem. We are our problem. My daughter was giving an insurance job by a Yoruba man. OK Kontinu. I accompanied a friend to buy a cow he is using for burial at the market. This man is an IPOB die hard. On arrival at the market, the first Igbo man we met told us that the last price for the cow size we pointed was 250k. My friend was provoked with that price and told me that we should proceed to Hausa man’s stand. When we met the Hausa man, he communicated by speaking Hausa language. Both of them were excited and he gave him the bigger size of the cow for 200k. My friend was excited. He told me never to buy a cow from Igbo man because they will cheat you with price. He told me to look for Hausa man whenever I want to buy meat or fruits. OK Kontinu. I recalled one of my visit to Katsina to buy a goat with a friend. We needed 100 goats but managed to get only 55. They asked us to give them money so that they will help us and complete it the next day. We gave them and started to discuss. 1st man: I love Igbo because they love themselves. They teach each other business and help their brother. 2nd man: They build big houses and accommodate all their brothers. They show us love more than our people. 3rd Man: I was in Lagos as maigaurd for one Igbo man for 20yrs. Kai walahi, the man is good to me and my children. OK. Kontinu! As a Yorubanised Igbo man in Lagos, an average Yoruba friend will tell me how lovely the Igboss are. How industrious Igbos are. How they join in development of where they live and how they easily feel at home with Igbos. This discreet admiration of each other across tribe is what make this country indivisible! !! Nigeria will be worst than Syria if the hate and bitterness you read online everyday is a true reflection of what you witness in reality. Many people are not even aware that the Shettima of Arewa youth that gave igbos quit notice in Kaduna is married to an Igbo woman ??. The minority that are suffering from ethnocentrism are negligible. Their noise cannot exceed their dry page. The field reality contrast the online vile and hatred. My duty is to harvest good people in every part of the world. Feel free to conjugate with the evil ones if that will give you mental orgasm. Okokobioko is your anchor man Stay tuned Okeke Godwin Iyke tweets @comradop

Blog, Essays, Monishots

How the South-East should respond to Amotekun.

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“It is the opinion of many great authorities that every nation or people build its future on its past, that is, a past that has been properly studied and understood, and whose seminal experience has been extracted and redeployed for further use”. ~ Prof. Adiele Afigbo Ever since Mohammed Yusuf was extra-judicially murdered by the police in 2007- a costly insurgency that has so far claimed over fifty thousand lives and displaced about three million continues to ravage the nation. The hydra-headed problem turned into a conflagration which continues to oxygenate the activities of bandits in the North-West and killer herdsmen across the nation. The inability of the national defence and security apparatus to contain the insurgents has seen an otherwise localised conflict permeate the other regions in different guises. In the South West kidnapping became so rampant that even the high and mighty were not spared. Chief Olu Falae is lucky to be alive while Pa Fasoranti’s daughter -may her soul rest in peace- wasn’t so lucky. What’s more, President Buhari’s lopsided appointments in the security architecture and his reluctance to replace the service chiefs in the face of perennial insecurity culminated in the birth of Operation Amotekun. Well, so the Yoruba leaders say. I am not sold on that narrative. I believe that Operation Amotekun is actually more about politics than security. Why do I think so? Well, part of the reason should be obvious to the discerning observer. With the exception of some Nordic countries and a few others, even the most liberal democracies have its security framework usually designed with the principal consideration of protecting the ruling elite let alone Nigeria where ours was largely shaped by long years of military dictatorship. Precisely, the established operational paradigm in the country can rightly be described as regime security rather than national security. This is better exemplified in the fact that it is normal to have the number of security operatives attached to the office of a local government chairman supersede what is left to guard the local government area itself. Tinubu himself is very much aware of this. As the political godfather of the South West, his measured statement calling for dialogue with the federal government couldn’t have been better crafted given his rumoured ambition to succeed Buhari. Who wants to stir the applecart? And did his caution prevail? Certainly, the northern dominated federal government is aware of existing security outfits like Hisbah, JTF and the rest. So it makes little sense to boisterously oppose a similar initiative by the politically aligned South West. Moreover, any other amorphous security organisation out there that exceeds set boundaries as the so-called legal framework will definitely outline can always be tamed. Cut to size and reduced to omonile like Obasanjo did to the Oodua Peoples Congress OPC. So, as the Federal Government led pally with South-West Governors on the contentious issues concluded with a mutual agreement public attention will understandably switch to other regions particularly the South-East. Leaders of the region will be inundated with more calls to reproduce something identical. Already we ‘ve had some chest-thumping from usual vocal quarters. While Ohaneze Youth Council called on the conspicuously silent South-East Governors to resuscitate the defunct Bakassi boys, IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu promised to relaunch the disbanded Biafran Security Service with the aim of supporting Amotekun with one million men. However, our leaders need not succumb to these chaotic and discordant demands. There are factors to be taken into account before any coordinated response if at all there will be one as different geopolitical regions in the Nigerian enclave has its peculiarities. This is even more so with the South East. For one, baring Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state, the remaining South West Governors will face reelection sooner or later with Akerodolu of Ondo state looking to renew his mandate later this year. The region’s electorate often described as the most politically sophisticated couldn’t care less about the fact that bulk of the governors are members of the ruling APC. Given the opportunity, the Oyo state experience may be replicated in states where the governor’s report card is subpar. Now given that the security of lives and property is always a paramount factor in electioneering campaign and if your people have been lamenting the poor security situation, what better promise than an indigenous outfit to secure the region? Moreso, when it will likely be opposed -as we have seen- by perceived traducers or invaders like Miyetti Allah as Odumakin and Femi Fani Kayode, would have them believe. We can now see the reason behind the collective insistence and perhaps desperation of the governors to fly the spotted cat. Perception is key. In reality, the converse is the case in the South-East. Only Hope Uzodimma will seek re-election. The rest are doing a second term. Moreover, the region has fared best in terms of security over the last two years. According to the statistics released by Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), it had the least percentage (1%) of reported cases of kidnapping between Jan-Sept 2019. Compare that to (43%) in the North West and you can see who really needs to emulate Amotekun. The truth is that silently the South-East governors though often perceived as inept by a majority of her people have performed creditably in the area of security. Gone are the days when the region was notorious for kidnapping. In Anambra state, for instance, Governor Obiano encouraged community policing from day one. Each town union is well funded to maintain a vigilante group who collaborate with the police. The governor also regularly equips the state police command with vehicles, communication and security gadgets including drones. This laudable initiative has earned the state several accolades as the safest in the country and is currently being xeroxed in Abia and Ebonyi states. So Igbo leaders need to be circumspect and proactive here. Ours is a region blessed with abundant natural resources like oil, coal, zinc, limestone, salt and much more which remain largely

Blog, Essays

The importance of indigenous languages by Thisday

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An incisive editorial from Thisday newspaper on the importance of indigenous languages as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launched its Igbo and Yoruba language services…Read on ————————————————————————————————————————— Government must take concrete steps to protect indigenous languages by enforcing the national policy on education As the world marks the 2018 International Mother Tongue Day, it is important for all stakeholders to pay attention to the growing extinction of many of our indigenous languages and the implication to the future of our country. It is all the more remarkable that this year, the day is being marked in the same week that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) launches Igbo and Yoruba language services in Nigeria as part of an expansion in local languages aimed at more in-depth reporting of countries around the world. “It’s time for people to try to tell their own stories,” said Peter Okwoche of the BBC. To the extent that languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing both tangible and intangible heritage, according to the United Nations, “all moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue”. Incidentally, long before the intervention by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on the promotion of indigenous languages, the federal government had shown concerns for the plight of Nigerian languages when it sought to encourage their teaching and learning in our schools under the national policy on education. Section 1 (8) of the policy emphasises that “the Federal Government shall take official interest in, and make policy pronouncements on the teaching of the indigenous languages, instead of concerning itself solely with English Language’’. Accordingly, the policy stipulates that every pupil must in the course of primary school education study two languages, namely, his/her mother tongue, if available for study, or any other indigenous language of wider communication in his/her area of domicile alongside English Language. The policy also requires that students in Junior Secondary School (JSS), (which is of three-year duration) must study three languages, namely, mother tongue, if available for study, or an indigenous language of wider communication in his/her area of domicile, alongside one of the three major indigenous languages in the country, namely, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, provided the language chosen is distinct from the child’s mother tongue. In Senior Secondary School (SSS), which also lasts three years, a Nigerian child, according to the policy, must study two languages: an indigenous language and English Language. As we have consistently reiterated, several studies have shown a relationship between level of development and language with the attendant result that those countries that use their indigenous languages, called mother tongue, as their lingual franca have a faster rate of development than those that use a second (foreign) language. However, many schools are unable to offer these indigenous languages because of lack of teachers, a cumulative effect of several years of indifference. Obviously, the policymakers were aware of this acute shortfall when they used the phrase “if available for study” in the policy. This optional nature of the policy undermines its implementation. Since embedded in our indigenous languages is our rich culture, history, traditions, and values, government must take deliberate and concrete steps to protect them by enforcing the national policy on education with regard to learning and teaching of mother tongue. That must be the starting point because education is the base of the future of every society. One of the ominous signs of danger today is the incremental loss of our rich arts forms, particular in music, dance and fashion as our youths have taken to the Western genre, threatening our cultural identity as African people. What critical stakeholders must therefore never forget is that as our indigenous languages face extinction, so are other aspects of our culture, including history, traditions and values.

Blog, Essays

Ethnic Pride And Prejudice In Nigeria by Simon Kolawole

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If your Sundays do not include his column then you are missing. Once again Simon Kolawole hits the nail on the head in this piece originally published by TheCable. Read on…     Riddle: name the Nigerian ethnic group known for being “arrogant” and “clannish”. I will give you one or two clues to make things easier. They are perceived by others as thinking and acting like they are God’s greatest gift to Nigeria. They think they are by far superior to the other ethnic groups. Give them a space in public office and they will take a yard, filling every available position with people from their ethnic group. Even the gateman, the cook and the cleaner will be from their own part of the country. When one of them starts a line of business, sooner than later they will populate and dominate that space with their kith and kin. Any guesses? Yoruba? Hausa/Fulani? Igbo? Maybe your guess is Yoruba. They are accused of “ethnic arrogance”. They actually call themselves the “Yoruba race”, meaning they are not just an ethnic group like others but a whole race — as you have the white race, the black race and the human race! In fact, the Yoruba pride themselves as the “most educated” and the “most sophisticated” in Nigeria. Their elite often say “the rest of the country is holding us back”. The solution is the revival of the defunct Oyo Empire under an Oduduwa Republic! There is this Yoruba saying: “Ajise bi Oyo laari, Oyo kiise bi eni kookan” (“You can only imitate Oyo; Oyo do not imitate anyone”). Pride? Arrogance? On clannishness, some argue that the Yoruba are the kings of “tribalism”. Some say Yoruba started ethnic politics in Nigeria when the Greak Zik was denied premiership of Western region in 1952. President Olusegun Obasanjo was initially accused of running an “Afenifere government” in 1999. Mr. Louis Odion, respected columnist, wrote in Daily Sun (November 9, 2003) that Obasanjo had established a “new Yoruba oligarchy”; the NNPC GMD, the police IG and the CBN governor were all Yoruba, he said. Most recently, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was accused of filling government with Yoruba and Redeemed Church members within two weeks of being acting president! Being classified as “arrogant and clannish” is not limited to the Yoruba, so my riddle remains unsolved. You want to make another guess? The “born-to-rule” Fulani and their Siamese twin, Hausa! I grew up being made to understand that the “Hausa/Fulani oligarchy” think they own the country. In fact, I used to hear of the “Kaduna Mafia” that decided everything about political power in Nigeria. The rest of Nigeria believed (believes?) if you do not pander to the Hausa/Fulani interest, you can never become president. The late Alhaji Maitama Sule, former minister, was once quoted as suggesting that northerners were the ones divinely gifted with the leadership of Nigeria. As for clannishness, one of the raging accusations against President Muhammadu Buhari is that he has filled his government with the Hausa/Fulani. Since he came to power in May 2015, there has been an outcry that most revenue-rich agencies (“plum jobs”, as we call them in Nigeria) and key security bodies are headed by the Hausa/Fulani. The recent recruitment by the DSS, in which more people were employed from Katsina state than the entire south-east, is further given as evidence. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was also intensely accused of not just filling strategic positions with northerners but making sure they were from the Katsina-Kano axis. So maybe Hausa/Fulani is the answer to the riddle? Or Igbo? I recently got entangled in a protracted but decent argument with a reader over my article, “Biafra is Not a Dirty Word” (May 28, 2017). In it, I broached the possibility of a president from the south-east in 2019 to balance the national equation and continue the nation-building project. The reader objected furiously. She said she would never support an Igbo to become president. She said the Igbo think they are superior to everyone else “and that the rest of us are just making up the numbers”, reminding me that the Greak Zik was quoted in 1949 as saying the Igbo were created “to lead the children of Africa from bondage”. She referred to a statement attributed to Mr. Charles Onyeama, an Igbo lawyer and member of the central legislative council, in 1945 that “Igbo domination of Nigeria is only a matter of time”. She argued that the central thesis in Prof. Chinua Achebe’s book, “There Was a Country”, is that Nigeria was making progress when Igbo were the ones calling the shots — “an arrogant suggestion that merit is an exclusive Igbo thing”. She added: “Achebe more or less said Nigeria was no longer a country because his Igbo brethren lost their strategic positions at federal level after the July 1966 countercoup. That is conceit undisguised.” Sure, I am aware of the arguments being articulated against the Igbo by other ethnic groups, particularly the charge of clannishness. They are often accused of seeking to dominate anywhere they operate. It is said that when an Igbo trader rents a shop, he will soon make sure all the surrounding shops are taken by fellow Igbo traders. I am aware of the accusation that Senator Anyim Pius Anyim filled his office with Igbo when he was secretary to the government of the federation, and that the financial sector was overwhelmingly Igbo when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was minister of finance. So, is Igbo your final answer to the riddle? Wait a minute — what about the Ijaw? They were also accused of being “arrogant and clannish” when President Goodluck Jonathan was in power. Ijaw leaders and youth constantly reminded the rest of Nigeria that it is “our oyel” (also known as “oil”) that is sustaining Nigeria, isn’t it? The haughtiness of Ijaw militants such as Asari Dokubo and Government Tompolo, it was said, stank to high heavens. They were accused of walking

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Aare Ona Kakanfo: Gani Adams as a metaphor by Jesse Bay

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Ile Kaaro Ojiire. A place where intelligence built a system and an empire. There were many civilisations members the old Africa. And a few empires. They all had a system of belief and gods. Perhaps the best of them all was Kemet. The crowning glory strangers have loved and despised and have been occupying forever. The Mohammedans who currently occupy the place can’t give up on the treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom its archeology is still throwing up. But that’s by the way. My point today is about the Yoruba. Since Kemet, there’s no other civilisation with a more robust pantheon of gods and a religious system which is unmistakably Yoruba but also have global worship and devotion. Yemaja, Oshun, Sango, Ogun, are stories which the classic Greeks can’t touch. And these are the results of an intelligent people. If ever there were to be a global religious renaissance of the African type, it will certainly come from the Yoruba system of divinatory knowledge. As we write, over 100 million practitioners exist in South America alone. Santeria, Lukumi, Voodoists and much more are a proof of my assertion. (And Haiti has proven that a Yoruba religious construct could be used to create the faith system of a vibrant nation-state. But this is a discourse for another time). This civilisation that is adored world over, has now gone to Gani Adams as a symbolic representation of a powerful semiotic figure. Aare Ona Kakanfo. I admire the man’s rise from the base of society to some personal importance within it. Albeit in a way which was crude and opportunistic. We know when Frederick Fasheun conceptualised the OPC as a cultural and intellectual response to the Yoruba deterministic clamour within the Nigerian nation-state. There was a method to the organisation then. Along came a cruder band among the cohort, espousing violence some dark, primitive cult codes as their modus operandi. Like cancer, they were able to eat up the more considered and intelligent approach to the organisation of culture, politics and the economy of the Yoruba, struggling to rediscover its ethos at the intersection of the Nigerian federal conundrum. The virulent and anarchic manifestations of the Gani Adams faction of the OPC drew its lifeblood from the age-old enemy of African societies – reigns of terror and intimidation. It wasn’t long after their triumphant recognition by the Yoruba leaders, who also had selfish interests in endorsing the group, came the issues I feared. Reports came from Sango Otta, where a sub-group within the organisation had been involved in extra-judicial killings for over a period of time. When some were eventually caught by the law enforcement officers and shown on TV screens, I recognised a face amongst the culprits. He was an alcoholic ‘gateman’ (guards) in one of the block of flats at Odukoya Estate in Akowonjo. He was known to be inebriated early in the mornings and would go often buy the alcohol on credit. His salary was mostly on a one way trip to the ‘paraga purveyor’. He would forgo food to feed his drink problem. His types, a motley crowd caught in the throes of failed governments, perpetually low wages, poor self image, and no real skills fit for the modern workplace, found solace in the sudden respectability and power that Gani Adams OPC brought to them. It wasn’t out of place to use their pedestal to entrench their criminal inclinations. At a point, I lived in Meiran. That would be around 2006. A few of them were caught using their cover as ‘Vigilante groups’ to murder citizens and harvest their organs. I had my encounters with a few of them who threatened to shoot me. I had to get the local ‘powers that be’ involved to checkmate them. It took the threat of OBJ to proscribe them to call them to order. At some point, they were usurping police roles and were no better themselves. There are countless instances where they became ‘tax authorities’ to local Okada groups and wee used as alternative rent collectors. They were used to settle scores as well. My assessment of the group was one of the numerous criminal gangs using the instruments of ‘culture’ and ‘self-determination’ to seize power for themselves. I also know the dude was advised to get some education and seek to get out of that extra-legal loop. But can we reasonably expect him to dissociate from his army of criminally minded elements? These are the support base propping him up among the dodgy elite. And politically, my fears about him were realised when he broke ranks with The Jagaban to get in bed with the GEJ government which was decidedly anti-Yoruba. But in a society where the exigencies of the ‘stomach infrastructure’ pursuits have overtaken the collective ability for group intelligence, these things aren’t so obvious. These deprived underclass, making up the core of the OPC groups under Gani, are ironically, the creation of the self-serving, opportunistic, sadistic and thieving upper class. When the other Ooni was busy conniving with the IBB regime to thwart the Yoruba interests, the resources that should go to the people went to him. And the political elite would send their kids to the best universities in the West while relying on the kids of the deliberately deprived to fight their savage and barbaric battles at the bottom of the pyramid. The same classicism, of which these poor gangs are the victims, is what their leaders aspire to. It’s like Ponzi schemes, only the fools and horses work by staying at the base of the ladder. And the Alaafin? His choice of the Aare Ona Kakanfo, which is largely symbolic in the modern era, gives us an insight into how low ambitions have become in the cultural, political, and social spheres of the Yoruba. Some have pointed to the visits of Gani Adams to various ‘Yoruba’ peoples across the world. Hmmmm. I have also seen the jamboree of the latest Ooni. May I

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