Yoruba leaders deserve the gold medal for perspicacity and consistency in advocating for devolution of powers to federating units, based on regional and ethnic affiliation, since the days of the inimitable Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The advertorial of the Council of Yoruba Elders (CYE) in the Tribune of May 19, 2024, with special reference to the composition of the Yoruba nation, falls squarely in that space. Nigeria is an agglomeration of nationalities with strong historical and cultural bonds.
At the corporate level, most Nigerians are more patriotic to their ethnic nationality than to the country. No sincere effort has been made to change this mentality, which is rather worsened by orchestrated geopolitical imbalances and decadent constitutional, resource and religious manoeuvres. Therefore, we should stop living in denial and face the reality that, given the range of mismanaged diversity, Nigeria can never achieve peace and inclusive growth and development as a unitary federation.
Overwhelmed by centrifugal forces, it has failed to achieve simple self-sufficiency in anything, more than 60 years after independence, not to talk of the larger mission of emancipating Africa and the entire black race, despite God bestowing on it everything (from a large population to an awesome range of natural resources) to become one of the greatest nations on earth. Since patriotism is imperative to corporate prosperity, let’s utilize it where it resides and then propagate a national worldvie.