Being the opening address delivered by Alayeluwa, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, Ooni of Ife, at the summit of the Yoruba people held at Oduduwa Hall, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife on November 28, 2014.
I take this opportunity on behalf of our traditional rulers and our good people of the Yoruba nation to welcome our dear President, His Excellency, Chief Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, to this special conference of the Yoruba people. I have to thank the organisers of this summit for successfully bringing Mr President who is not even a Yoruba man into our midst, the very first time in history that such opportunity would come our way and it is no doubting the fact that it is one important gathering that would avail every Yoruba man, woman and child the opportunity to x-ray and analyse the status of the Yoruba nation and also know why we have not been able to achieve much under the present administration.
Perhaps, it is just a coincidence that the jewel of inestimable value has stayed behind for another 22 years after the passing on of her beloved husband, immortal leader of leaders, the sage: Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
That name continues to remind us of those glorious days of the Yoruba race when our lives were positively moulded and the Yorubas knew what was generally regarded as prosperity and life more abundant.
It is the unparalleled leadership and governance provided by Chief Obafemi Awolowo & his lieutenants among of whom are the likes of the late Chief S.L. Akintola; Baba Adekunle Ajasin of blessed memory; the late Chief Dawa Adegbenro; the legendary Chief Reuben Fasoranti; the late Baba Abraham Adesanya; Chief Lateef Kayode Jakande; the late Chief Remi Fani-Kayode; Chief Ayo Fasanmi; Chief Ayo Adebanjo; the late Chief M.A. Omisade; the late Chief S.O. Lanlehin; Sen. Biyi Durojaye and of course our own Cicero, Chief Bola Ige of blessed memory just to mention a few, that made the Yoruba score firsts several times over in almost every facet that made it mandatory for the Yoruba to be relevant. These leaders, Awo & co. did so much in Yoruba land before we began to suffer a very terrible twist in our fortune. But wait, how did we come to this pass? The Yorubas were in the forefront. We must remind ourselves that some of these woes of ours are self-inflicted and we have never even believed that we could always talk to ourselves on these lapses and how rectification could be achieved in a situation where our sons and daughters would see themselves as coming from one big family and conquer the spirit of greed.
Like it was clearly stated in one of the Yoruba agenda documents at one of the past constitutional conferences, the Yorubas are a part of the more than 200 nationalities; they are the people of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, and Oyo States. We constitute 50% of Kogi State in the middle belt zone of Nigeria and 40% of our people in Niger State. There are also Yorubas in Delta and Edo States and over a hundred million in the diaspora. The Yoruba nation is indeed very huge and should not be handled with levity by our own people!
We were only a region of Nigeria when we were peering with some countries of the world like Indonesia and Singapore. What happened to us? The paper pointed out, for example, that the island of Singapore had neither appreciable natural resources nor domestic market when it became independent and separated from Malaysia in 1965 with a pay capital income of less than $1000. Not anything tangible accrues to the Yoruba again as one of the three major nationalities comparable to what prevailed in the very first republic when by all description we were blessed with self government of the Yoruba people.
As I have mentioned in my earlier speech when Your Excellency last visited this area that if the consultants who are currently working on the extension of the railway projects in Nigeria are approached, they can extend their work to cover a line from Ibadan, Ikire, Gbongan, Ile-Ife, Ilesa, Akure to Benin, without any extra cost even though we have to thank Your Excellency very well as we have read in the newspapers a few days ago that the railway lines from Lagos through Shagamu, Ijebu-ode and straight through Benin to Calabar have been awarded and the execution would start very soon. We must remind Your Excellency that the dual carriage way project awarded by this present Federal Government administration from Ile-Ife to Osu town in Ijesaland has been abandoned just as there are several other projects in the South West that yearns for the attention of this present administration. Once again we have to thank Mr President immensely for the great work going on at the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
By way of digression, the majority of our traditional rulers in this country are not pleased with what we now read in the newspapers, affront on our socio-cultural values coming from our political leaders and we are already thinking of holding a meeting very shortly and to come up with an advice for the people of this nation because we cannot afford to be economical with the truth especially when speaking with our leaders at various levels of governance and of course to ourselves as we all own this country!
We must thank God Almighty for the life of Mr. President because within the last few years the challenges have been so much and he has continued to steer the ship of the state without any disintegration and we would all continue to pray for this great country to remain one. A big thank you to all our royal fathers, all our sons and daughters for facilitating this summit and we hope our children would see the need to save the Yoruba nation from sinking any further.
I say thank you all for coming to be part of this great summit.
Long live the Yoruba nation, long live Nigeria.
Oduduwa a gbe wa o!
source: tribune.com.ng
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