The Yoruba and bandwagon politics

Since the 1960s, the Yoruba, a people of high education and cultural sophistication, have played the politics of ‘sheep and shepherd’. They have always required a chaperone to take them to the watering hole, not minding if the water there is impure.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, Obafemi Awolowo was the Yoruba political chaperone. He chaperoned the ethnic group throughout the political life of the era. Samuel Akintola, his contemporary, was despised. To Awolowo, the Yoruba surrendered their lot.

Bola Tinubu took over from Awolowo. From 1999 to date, he has chaperoned the Yoruba in politics. Tinubu has become so powerful that his interest is often mistaken to be that of the ethnic group. In fact, it has even become difficult to read the blurred lines.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing wrong if a group puts its faith in a lodestar, but there is something wrong when a people cease to exercise their intellection on crucial matters, and even surrender their destiny to an individual.

The fact is, the interest of an individual may not necessarily be the interest of a group. Personal interest rules in politics. A situation where a people give up the right to interrogate the decisions and actions of their leader fecundates the tyranny of interest.

Political bandwagonism is not a testament of political maturity. A people must have the head to bear their own mystery and the will to chart their own path.

Also, political homogeneity is not evidence of unity or strength, but of weakness and tepidity, which gives room for the enthronement of tyranny.

That the entire south-west has come under the suzerainty of the APC does not speak well of the political sophistication of the Yoruba. Politics is more eventful when there is competition, divergence and heterogeneity.

It is discomfiting that the will of one man has prevailed on a people with an advanced culture, intellect, and enviable achievements.

I know the Yoruba will wake up someday, maybe not today.

Fredrick Nwabufo, Abuja