‘Yoruba Nation’ Agitators’ Storming Of Agodi: Matters Arising
For a long time now, ostensibly due to the political misbehavior, administrative nepotism, corruption and abject incompetence of individuals who, by whatever means, found themselves at the helms of affairs of Nigeria, there has arisen a corresponding disregard of the legitimate authorities of Government along with the sovereignty of the Republic. People are increasingly feeling alienated from the system of government. From all indications, our governments have not been able to earn that traditional respectability and even legitimacy from the people because of poor governance.
The ordinary citizens in the streets have been able to clearly see the rotten underbellies of successive post-colonial Nigerian administrations, be they democratic or military dictatorship and with that degrading awareness went the traditional aura of government and everything associated with it; the influence of government over the people has been diminished by the government failure to live up to the expectation of the governed while the notion of sovereignty is losing its essence.
That explains the casualness and ease with which anarchic people openly dare the State and its security apparati these days. Rather than being the official agency for their security and welfare, the perception of the people about government nowadays is that of an enemy that must be resisted. The only question now, is how do they do that within the present constitutional order without running afoul of the law thereby setting up themselves against brutal and punitive State coercive machine? The reality is that under the Constitution of Nigeria, whoever takes the presidential “Oath of Office” has vowed never to allow the dismemberment of the territorial integrity of the country as boldly enunciated under the Constitution.
Just three weeks ago, precisely the 27th March, 2024, we tabled here for discussion following the killings of soldiers in Okuma and other places, the vexed question of the relationship between the nationalities of Nigeria and the emergent Nigerian State under the alarming title: “Why Ethnic Nationalities Are seemingly At War with the Nigerian State”. Unfortunately, many readers, as usual, did not deem it worthy of serious consideration or even a cursory ponder. The ill-fated storming of Agodi, the historic seat of power for the post-colonial Yoruba nation of Western Region, by a group of self-styled agitators for the restoration of the Yoruba nation within the bowels of the present Republic of Nigeria last week must have jolted the intellectually ill-prepared.
Nigerians are more attracted to lewd and salacious stories involving high-profile personalities such as that of the trial and conviction of a certain Idris Okuneye, alias “Bobrisky”, the self-confessed male crossdresser or the unmitigated buffooneries being regularly displayed by politicians instead of serious issues that have greater impact on their national and personal destinies within the framework of the Nigerian State. Such are generally considered as “theories” that are of no immediate or material impacts on their lives, forgetting that the world is ruled by ideas, be they good or bad.
Since the fall of the First Republic on January 15, 1966 and the subsequent imposition of military dictatorship which effectively truncated the original architecture of the post-independent Nigeria through the deliberate diminution of the federal system, in which every part of the country enjoys considerable autonomy, various national groups who felt left out in the power distribution system have been agitating for a return to the old template wherein the regions more or less governed themselves.
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