PART 2
(vi) This is because sustaining the dominance will require further alliances which may be detrimental to good governance and development because there is no guarantee that other regions/zones will feel comfortable with the philosophical/ideological foundations and/or trajectory of the SW APC. Furthermore, the permanency of such alliances cannot be guaranteed. It is, therefore, necessary to prevent this possibility by ensuring that the foundation now being laid by the “Renewed Hope” is strengthened with Re-Federalization such that it will not be bankrupted or diverted because the political cost will be too high for the Yoruba. This is a political and economic emergency that must be addressed.
(vii) This is more so when Nigeria’s proposed economic trajectory is placed in perspective. Over 60 years after political Independence in Africa, the colonial architecture of the State has not engendered any form of development for her citizens. This is the reason for the nostalgia about the “Golden Era” of autonomous regions in Nigeria. In contrast, the continent becomes merely a playground for International economic forces with the capability to reproduce its own internal forces for the continuation of its economic hegemony while her hapless citizens continue to wallow in deep material poverty as well as consciousness.
(viii) Sustaining this economic playground requires a political façade, often procured through a periodic cycle of elections, where victors in all African countries seem to have only one prescription for Africa’s development, which is always a foreign investment, foreign investment, and foreign investment supposedly aimed at creating jobs for the youths coupled with finely woven words on economic development. Yet, none of these African countries have been able to translate any of these into reality.
(ix) This is so because the inter-Nationality conflicts and contest for power are embedded in the colonial architecture of the State. In retrospect, this form of state was Europe’s response, derived from its experience with the Haitian Revolution which overthrew the then slave state but whose prospects were aborted and ruthlessly suppressed by the combined actions of the US and France. This was at the onset of formal colonial rule, and it probably played a major role in Europe’s conception of its architecture of the colonial State; the slave revolution having occurred in 1804 and Africa’s formal partition in 1884 by virtually the same forces that suppressed the Haitian Revolution and from which it has not recovered till date.
(x) The revolution succeeded because the slave experience provided the necessary homogeneity among the African population in Haiti. The Haitian experience also enabled Europe to ensure that such homogeneity played no part in the anti-colonial quests of other Caribbean countries such that most of the Caribbean/West Indian anti-colonial activists ended up in the United States, fully immersed in the Civil rights movement, further founding their ways to Africa to participate in the anti-colonial efforts.
(xi) “Homogeneity” is therefore central to Africa’s political and economic development. This could have been easily achieved through the Multi-National Federal State, where the various Nations are able to pursue their aspirations in harmony with each other, without discounting any conflicts that may arise. For the colonial state however, deliberate imposition of one Ethno-Nationality over the others created conditions for continuous crises and conflicts where one colonially favored Nationality will seek to impose its status on the rest, thereby sustaining the cycle of violence while the post-colonial state continues its economic parasitism unmolested, preventing not only a “harmonious” anti-colonial opposition but also the prospects of a homogenous response in the mold of another “Haitian Revolution” in Africa, and which will jeopardize colonial aims at global dominance.
(xii) Therefore, averting the consequences of the contradictions of a National APC dependent on or dominated by a regional basis demands Re-Federalization through the Legitimization of the regional paradigm. Hence, the social movements owe the Yoruba People a duty to pursue this necessity by providing a credible pathway towards addressing homogeneity which will also enable them to close the gap between them and the dominant political party. Since none can confidently state categorically their preference supersedes the others among the Yoruba, it behooves them to arrive at a Lowest Common Denominator.
(xiii) The lack of the common denominator enables and simultaneously weakens the dominant political party in Yorubaland because the party’s methodology will have to be expressed without the direct input of the social movements; hence the party will be restricted to resolving its methodology within the context of the pan Nigeria balance of forces and power, thereby making it susceptible to expediencies which may not be advantageous to the Yoruba.
(xiv) This denominator is what the Yoruba Referendum Committee has defined as the “Nationality Referendums” and which, for the Yoruba, translates into the Yoruba Referendum which will ensure the channeling of the various demands along an acceptable and legitimate route.
(xv) Because it will be conducted by the State Houses of Assembly, any result would be Legitimate, valid, and legal representation. It must be noted that this is not an advocacy for Constitutional amendment but its reverse. It is the political and economic emergency that must be pursued, to close the gap between the dominant political party and the social movements and provide the sociological context for these groups and organizations as social movements.
(xvi) The Yoruba Referendum Committee believes that the Swiss Federal Model is relevant to a Multi-National, Multi-Cultural, and Multi-Lingual society like Nigeria, and which can also serve as a model for the rest of Africa. This is one reason a new Federal Structure with a Central Executive is defined as “a Federal Presidential Council whose members will be selected or elected from each of the Regions/ Nationalities as Federating Units and from whom a Head of State will be selected or elected as the primus-inter-pares with an agreed term.”
(xvii) It is our hope that the various groups and organizations we referred to collectively as social movements will recognize the necessity to join the crusade for the Yoruba Referendum in Yorubaland as the pathway/methodology to Re-Federalize Nigeria.
Editorial Board,
Yoruba Referendum Committee