The Yorubas need new money - 1

Amosun is building his State, or at least Abeokuta, from the scratch. So it seemed. Abeokuta is apparently ‘old money’. Actually, the money is now too old. Abeokuta would have been spectacular in 1930s Nigeria, urbane in 1940, swanky in 1950s, matured in 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, megacity in the 1980s, but since then… in decline.

Abeokuta looked like the epicenter of a phenomenon I’ve been broaching - THE RACE FOR CAPITAL - which I will hopefully still develop as time goes on. It is certainly a class society, with the superrich and superpoor. I’m not sure I could forgive the superrich of that town for leaving the rest in such a lurch. The gap is far too wide. But that is not the only issue. The other serious matter is that MOST of the monies of the superrich, did not make it back to that town. If it did, perhaps something could have rubbed off on a lot of the poor.

Abeokuta is home to three of Nigeria’s ex-presidents. Yes three, if you add MKO, once the richest man in Nigeria. It is also home to a number of the most successful people in Yorubaland. We from the ‘ilu-okes’ (farther north of Yorubaland), used to, and still, hold the Egbas in awe. Add the parade of intellectuals who either hail from or were born and raised in that town - the Kutis, Soyinkas, Adebayo Adedejis, many more - to the mix and you understand just how formidable the resume of the Rock-City is.

I must say though, that the rusticity of the town may have been taken too far, for way too long. There is something wrong. I found myself wondering what - if Amosun is having to basically create a new city from the ground - Gbenga Daniel did for 8 years. Or even Osoba before him.

If you back out the frantic developments that Amosun is doing - which most certainly will be from borrowed funds a la different ‘municipal’ bonds - you will probably arrive at a possibility that ABK was in ruins. For what was there to see but the new roads and expansions, the bridges, that were recently completed or even still being built. Else, the Rock-City would have been the way I saw it, 15 years ago when I last visited. In fact, maybe a little bit tired looking.

So let us agree that the place is in an upswing; that there may yet be hope for the people, especially if the ongoing projects are scalable and if economies from their completion are realized. Already though, one fears for the outcomes of these projects. In as much as one gets an idea that Amosun’s vision is more down-to-earth, pro-poor, and that he has found the needed sense of urgency to realize that his state must have been in a shameful state, complains have arisen already, that while Daniel built roads at N600million per kilometer, Amosun is expanding them (or building new ones), for N1billion per kilometer. Some, particularly his opposition, also complain about demolitions of some of these old rustic houses, to make way for bridges and new roads.

I pity Amosun. I pity Yoruba people. I pity myself.

What I saw on ground was an angry people. Angry for everything. Angry for nothing. They say the civil servants have teemed up with SegunOsoba, the former governor, who has now left the ruling APC, and are determined to flush out Amosun, just like the Ekitis did Fayemi before him. They say during the time of OGD, the man used to ensure they ‘enjoyed’, by sharing some largesse from time to time. Wait! Don’t judge this yet. When you visit this place you will realize the meaning of poverty. A woman complained about corruption everywhere. That in the market, women stick barren stems of vegetable in the middle of the bunch, and dress up the outside with leaves. The base of the pepper bowl in the market, are either stuffed with nonsense, or with bad pepper. You only get home to find you’ve been duped. In the hinterland, the people look emaciated, stressedout, uglified by hunger.

The streets - in spite of Amosun’s efforts - were a pandemonium. The two taxi drivers I used while there cursed and cursed. They drove roughly and we almost had accidents. They never admitted their errors but hurled local curses on all and sundry. They were cursed in return. It was probably just a way of life. Everyone was speaking at the top of their lungs. It was just a little short of a nasty experience. Are we Yorubas truly like this? Can we change? Will we take criticisms lightly? For a city that is a mere 60 kilometres from urban Lagos, I had to check 5 different hotels before finding one that was not overpriced and cheesy. And I’m not a choosy type. The driver said he drove some people who once came to see

Abeokuta is home to three of Nigeria’s expresidents. Yes

three, if you add MKO, once the richest man in Nigeria. It is also home to a number of the most successful people in Yorubaland

IyaboObj, and they had to check 7 different hotels. A visit to Sweet Sensation revealed a lack of service culture, as the young people who attended to customers behaved like they were doing you a favour; like they would rather be somewhere else but at work. At my hotel, it wasn’t much better. I had to lecture them some.

Yet we have three presidents from Abeokuta. What went wrong?

I know that my people, the Yorubas, are not an easy bunch to criticize. I saw that first-hand, when I attempted to critique what happened in Ekiti, and I expressed my reservation to the kicking out of Fayemi by ‘the people’. But if we call ourselves intellectuals, we must find the patience to self-examine. And we must accept some criticisms. Otherwise, we would be deceiving ourselves that we are achievers, while others overtake us. I will do us this favour by reiterating my thoughts about the RACE FOR CAPITAL and stating in no unclear terms, that the Igbos have trounced the Yorubas by far, for many reasons. The north has it’s own myriads of problems, but they are not the issue in this write-up. The incidence of poverty is much higher in the southwest (partly also because the SW has always been a place where everybody from everywhere migrated into). Enugu, where I visited two weeks ago, is by far neater, more organized, more pleasant, more urbane, than Abeokuta, the very fulcrum of Yoruba intellectualism and politics. Something needs be done, and urgently too.

I take liberty to compare Enugu with ABK, because Enugu is also a capital city. Enugu may not be able to boast of many intellectuals and nationalists like Anambra, but it is no pushover. But I will give more responsibility to Abeokuta because of it’s historical importance. Chief Awolowo, in his autobiography, spoke of Abeokuta like one would speak of ‘abroad’. He was very excited to have left Ikenne for the rock-city, which was the limit of civlisation at that time. The mistake we made, is to have left it almost the way it was. We need intellectuals who will help us navigate to the future. We need intellectuals who will help us and encourage us to swallow some of the bitter pills for the sake of our children. As I type this, I just read of a prominent Abeokuta son and his ‘love for Rolls Royces’, but I cant get the images of millions in that town, for whom N500 can be lifesavers as we speak. Too many of our people have been excluded from the circuit of cashflow, and that is now vividly reporting, in unlivable societies. Our intellectuals, for too long, have been comfortable in building a fortress around them, and crawling into their comfortable studies in the quiet of their GRA abodes. But there’s blood on the streets.