An open letter to Mrs. H. I. D. Awolowo

I HAVE patiently read all that the Sunday Tribune of Sunday, October 22, 2000 published in respect of the newly formed Yoruba Council of Elders and your call on all well-meaning sons and daughters of Yorubaland to support the new body.

I am very happy to tell you very respectfully that all you gave as reasons for identifying with YCE are only excuses, they are neither facts nor truths at all; hence contrary to your appeal I believe no true sons and daughters of Yorubaland would want to identify with the Yoruba Council of Elders, even for a brief second just because of its antecedent.

I am very happy to tell you the antecedent of the Yoruba Council of Elders. Right from the earliest days of Nigeria, Yorubas have always been in the fore-front of the struggle for a better Nigeria but specifically for the purpose of this open letter, right from the day Nigeria's "evil genius" annulled the 1993 presidential elections, the Yorubas had been in the very fore-front of Nigeria's democrats and patriots who fought against the injustice and clamoured for true democracy and rule of law as against the oligarchy being put in place in the country.

When the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime came and gave the true democrats as against the Abacha politicians, the chance to meet, the Yorubas were there. When the first political association of the true demoracts and patriots was in the offing, the Yorubas were there in the very fore-front. It was Chief Bola Ige who led the Yorubas out of that association. The Yorubas once again hobnobbed with another political association. It was Chief Bola Ige who again led the Yorubas away from that association for the reason that "Abacha Politicians" were in the fore-front. After that exit, the Yoruba democrts and patriots and other Nigerians of like mind from other parts of the country came together under the umbrella of A.D. (Alliance for Democracy) primarily to keep alive in the minds of Nigerians the political philosophy of Nigeria's foremost Sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Again, when the Abdulsalami Abubakar government announced its election programme, the national body of the A.D. zoned its presidential candidate to the South west, i.e to the Yoruba nation. Both Chiefs Bola Ige and Olu Falae announced their ambition to contest for the post. The Yoruba democrats and patriots tried without success to persuade either of the two to step down for the other. They then set up a committee of seven Yoruba Elders to pick the A.D. presidential candidate from the two. The two aspirants were given a code of conduct which the two of them accepted as binding as binding. The code to which they agreed and accepted stipulated that whoever emerged as winner was the party's candidate and that the other contestant must not make any public or even private statement on the outcome than to accept the verdict and cooperate fully with the winner.

What did Chief Bola Ige do the moment the result showed that only two out of the seven committee members voted for him? He blew up, even before the committee, lambasted them and spat on them. He fumed out of the hotel where the election took place and broke the contract between him and all decent Yorubas. The Yoruba ghost writer who go by the name of Justice Adewale Thompson, a co-traveller with Chief Ige on the road of intrigue, sneered and poured venom on the Committee members and by so doing on the Yorubas, mostly the thoughtful and obedient members and its verdict. Not only that, while Chief Bola Ige was busy using his weekly column in the Sunday Tribune to sing the praises of the man he calls "his leader" to the high heavens, he went underground maligning his leader. For instance, for as long as Chief Awolowo lived Yorubas held their meetings at Ikenne, and for as long as Pa Ajasin lived Yorubas held their meetings at Owo. Why the underground campaign against Ijebu Igbo being canvassed by Chief Ige?
Madam, according to the publication in the Sunday Tribune edition of October 22, 2000, the Chairman/President of the Yoruba Council of Elders is none other than Pa Emmanuel Alayande, the very man who presided over the committee that chose Chief Olu Falae over and above Chief Bola Ige and the General Secretary of the Yoruba Council of Elders is none other than Justice Adewale Thompson a frontline member of Afenifere and the Alliance for Democracy (A.D.) and Chief Ige's yesman. If that publication is true then no true son and daughter of Oduduwa can believe that the Yoruba Council of Elders headed by Pa Alayande and Justice Adewale Thompson is apolitical. Apart from the fact that it isn't true that the Yoruba Council of Elders is apolitical, it is an unshakeable truth to say that the Yoruba Council of Elders is a TRAITOR organisation to which every true Yoruba son and daughter should distance himself or herself. The true name for that council according to Yoruba custom and principle of morality is Egbe Awon Odale Omo Yoruba.

How I wish Mrs Awolowo would re-read the statement credited to Dr. Omololu Olunloyo on Page 3 of the Nigerian Tribune issue of October 19, 2000. If your conclusion on page 29 of Sunday Tribune of October 22, 2000, that you are of the view that the idea of the Yoruba Council of Elders was a welcome one at this time when the Yoruba nation needed a consortium of elders from whom their wealth of wisdom could be tapped to solve knotty problems confronting her must be regrded as a statement of fact, the Chairman of the Yoruba Council of Elders needs tell the generality of Yorubas how Pa Alayande can solve the problem confronting Owo people. How can Pa Alayande's Yoruba Council of Elders go to Ife and tell the Modakekes to accept the fact that the Ifes own the land on which they live when the same Pa Alayande couldn't tell Chief Ige whom Pa Alayande taught in the secondary school to drop his mad ambition for leadership of the Yorubas?
Madam, Chief Bola Ige's mad ambition to become a leader started long ago but he craftily hid it from his peers in the Afenifere and A.D. When he led the Yorubas out of the PDP it was mainly due to his inordinate ambition. When he led them out of the APP it was also for his inordinate ambition. He saw in those groups many formidable contenders to the position he had set his eyes on. At the level of the A.D. he was satisfied that he was the only person with the clout to assume the position of Awolowo among the Yorubas. No sooner than he failed, he has not failed to subvert the Awolowo political empire.

After maligning his peers in the Afenifere and A.D. he sauntered into the PDP, (a party with the largest concentration of "Abacha politicians" which he had earlier led the mainstream Yoruba politicians from) and ordered his friend Chief Aremu Okikiola Obasanjo to give him the Ministry of Mines and Power which he hoped to use to hoodwink the Yoruba nation into accepting his leadership. But our God who doesn't support traitors and proud hearted people perished his ambition once and for all time.

Dear Mrs. Awolowo, you can now see very clearly that the Council of Elders which you wish all Awolowo followers to join and support is an association to traitors and scoundrels. Throughout his life time the Sage, starting from his childhood days to his activities in the Nigerian Youth Movement and from thence till his translation, never played nor allied with traitors, scoundrels, renegades and political whores. Madam, this is a simple question that I respectfully invite you and all true Awoists to answer: If, either in the 1979 or 1983 presidential elections, there was a member of the now defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) who believed in his heart of hearts that he was a better candidate for the party's nomination and vied with the Sage and won; would the Sage, I mean, would Chief Obafemi Awolowo have done what Chief Bola Ige did as regards his election with Chief Falae?

If you cannot call both Chiefs Olu Falae and Bola Ige to make them behave like their mentor then order them to stop calling themselves followers and students of the Sage. If you cannot do any of the two, then don't drag the name and the reputation of Chief Obafemi Awolowo into the likely face-off between the Afenifere and the leprosic and bastardised Yoruba Council of Jesters; by using his name to urge teeming Yorubas to join or support the YCE.

Andrew Olaleye Adegunroye wrote in from Ijebu Waterside, Ogun State of Nigeria