An opinion piece reflecting on the perceived decline in Yoruba cultural confidence, critiquing the community’s growing insecurities and fear, especially towards the Igbo people, and lamenting the loss of past pride and self-assurance.
No woman likes a clingy, insecure man. But that is what we, Yorubas, are becoming: a frightened, insecure, and second-rate nation.
So fearful that we can’t even accept one of our own because his mother is Igbo, despite the fact that the Yoruba race is Patrilineal.
There was a time when the word “swagger” was synonymous with the Yoruba, reflecting the race’s self-assurance and confidence.
We exuded self-belief. The Igbos secretly admired us. They adopted our clothes and music. They flocked to our churches—the big pentecostal non-orthodox churches, which Yoruba pastors mostly founded… Redeemed, Living Faith, Mountain of Fire & Miracles, Aladura, Apostolic Church, Cherubim and Seraphim, Four Square Gospel Church, etc., all founded and headed by Yorubas!
We accommodated strangers because we were so sure of ourselves, our standing in the world, our stature, our swagger, that we knew our guests were not a threat. Now, all that has drained away.
We are now like the insecure man who marries a pretty woman and is secretly consumed by self-doubt, fearing he is not good enough for her. Therefore, he tracks her every movement, obsessively going through her phone. He hates her male colleagues because he is petrified she will leave him for someone better.
Is this how low we have fallen that we now fear those we once used to regard as culturally inferior to us? We once said the Igbos could not dance, could not dress, lacked poise and polish, and were not as read as us. Now, we work ourselves into a frenzy about them taking over a Yoruba city (Lagos), hundreds of miles from the nearest hamlet in the South East.
“Igbos bought our property in Yoruba land, then having wasted our inheritance, we blame them for taking over the land that we freely sold to them.”
One of the greatest ever Yoruba leaders, Adekunle Fajuyi, allegedly once gave his life rather than live with the dishonor of handing over his Igbo guest (Ironsi) to those who wanted to murder him.
We now compete with each other to denounce our Igbo guests whose only crime is trading and living in our midst, ideologically handing them bound and foot to the Caliphate who hate and distrust us as much as they hate and distrust them.
We look for the wild statements of a few Igbos to justify our fear of all of them. In doing so, we demonstrate not our courage but our fear, our insecurity, and our deep-rooted inferiority complex towards a tribe that has outmatched us and outpaced us in almost all spheres of life – business acumen, education, tenacity, a can-do attitude, and many more.
A tribe who rose from the ruins of a war in which they lost 10% of their population but refused to break, to be broken, to beg, to wallow in self-pity, or to feel sorry for themselves. They did not fear, but went forth through commerce to conquered the lands of those who besieged their land with bombs.
They bought our property in Yoruba land while we squandered the proceeds on women and easy living. Then, having wasted our inheritance, we blame those with more remarkable foresight and discipline for taking over land that we freely sold to them.
“We fear a Yoruba man because he has an Igbo mother. Are Yoruba now matrilineal? That’s how supine and fearful we have become.”
They care for their relatives, training them in the family trade while we turn ours into house helpers and drivers.
They pool their resources together while ours is used to tear our families apart.
They build businesses while we chase every lowly special adviser job, looking for government jobs and contracts.
They have learned to thrive when marginalized; that is, even when deliberately excluded from government largesse, they still have a lower level of poverty than we and their killers of the 1960s.
It Shows In Sports
In the 1980s, the national football team was split between Igbos and Yorubas, with only a few Northerners. The Yorubas dominated the more glamorous and creative roles.
For every Okala, there was an Odegbami, every Chukwu, a Muda Lawal, and every Stanley Okonkwo, a Felix Owolabi. But since the 1990s and 2000s, the Igbos have claimed the role of honor in our national games. Who has the Yorubas produced to match the profiles and performances of Jay Jay Okocha, Emmanuel Amuneke, Kanu Nwankwo, Mikel Obi, and Vincent Onyeama?
Abia State Alex Otti Anambra State Atiku Abubakar Aviation Bola Tinubu Central Bank of Nigeria Chukwuma Soludo Dangote Refinery Donald Trump Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Edo State English Premier League Enugu State Federal Government of Nigeria Indigenous Peoples of Biafra Israel Israel-Palestine Conflict Kamala Harris Kano State Kogi State Labour Party Lagos State Manchester City Muhammadu Buhari National Assembly Nigeria Labour Congress Nigerian Army Nigerian National Petroleum Company Nnamdi Kanu Nyesom Wike Peoples Democratic Party Peter Mbah Peter Obi Rivers State Russia-Ukraine War Russian Federation Siminalayi Fubara South Africa Super Eagles UEFA Champions League United Kingdom United States of America US 2024 Election Weekly Economic Intelligence Report
When ability, grit, resilience, drive, and determination are needed, we see the Igbos.
But when patronage, easy living, and dissolute lifestyles are on display, enter the Yorubas and other groups in Nigeria.
We can’t even plan coups properly. The most incompetent coup ever planned in Nigerian military history was the one plotted by Yoruba officers against Abacha in beer parlors, over pepper soup and big Stout, leading to its most senior officer groveling (late General Oladipo Diya) before the dictator, pleading for his miserable life.
The coup before that, planned by Igbo and Delta officers—the Gideon Orkar (a Tiv Officer) putsch in 1990—saw the prime movers defiant to the bitter end, facing death with honor.
How Did We End Up Here?
Twenty-five (25 ) years of flirting with power at the center, of living off and chasing unearned income, of prostrating before the Caliphate has turned us into feudal retainers.
Men who have lost their manhood.
We are cowed into silence when state-sponsored gangs rampage across our lands, raping our women, burning our farms, and slaughtering our youths.
“The Igbos have not held power for 60 years and thrived. We just won it for the third time in the same period, and still, like the Fulani, we fear them.”
We disown the few who find the courage to fight back; we call them ruffians (Sunday Igboho).
When our youths protest against injustice as they did during the EndSARS, we attribute it fittingly to an Igbo plot. At the same time, we failed to see the qualities needed to organize and execute a protest so well that it captured the international airwaves and imagination of the world for days because it required courage, initiative, and drive.
We are now so enfeebled, so morally vacuous, and lacking that we happily agree that courage and sagacity belong to the Igbos, not us.
A Fish Rots From The Head
Giants like Fajuyi and Awolowo built our legacy and, to a lesser extent, Abiola. Men who gave their freedom and their lives rather than surrender their principles. But what have we now? Bola Tinubu, with his dubious background, would never have been employed by any of us if he had come to us for employment with such a history and background and who keeps quiet when millions of Igbos are put at risk in his city by vicious tribal bigotry and ethnic baiting because he lusts for power.
Bola Tinubu buried his head when his people were being gunned down in churches in their land at Owo by gunmen under the protection of his Fulani bosses. In the halcyon days of the founder of the modern Yoruba race, the closest Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have got to power would have been organizing security at UPN party conferences. Today, he is the acknowledged leader of the Yoruba race.
How low we have fallen? Yet we are proud and openly accept Bola Tinubu, with his background, as our leader. Would Tinubu have laced AWO’s shoes?
Have these last few weeks of eternal shame revealed our weakness, our insecurity, the spiritual barrenness that now lies like a void at the center of our world?
We fear a Yoruba man because he has an Igbo mother. Are Yorubas now matrilineal? That’s how supine and fearful we have become.
We forget the Yorubas killed in their hundreds last year by state-protected Fulani gunmen because we are desperate to be awarded office by those who defile our women and pillage our land.
“We have won an election but lost our soul; we are in office but not in power.”
Principle counts for nothing. We are up for sale and only for a little. This is how far we have fallen. We have won an election but lost our soul; we are in office but not in power. We are now Pound Land (that is, Cheap Land), the Okrika Wake version of the Fulani elite, who, despite their monopoly of power at the center, feared the commercial acumen and success of the Igbo for five decades so much they turned on them whenever they felt threatened by their own inadequacies as we have done the last few weeks.
We are now a pale imitation of the Fulani; a frightened, insecure, tremulous, and second-rate nation clinging like leeches to power we seek at any cost because we have nothing else to offer.
The Igbos have not held power for 60 years and thrived. We just won it for the third time in the same period, and still, like the Fulani, we fear them.
This is how low a once great people have fallen.
The opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author, and does not necessarily align with the views of JolibaLive News! or any of its staff members. The author is in no way associated with this online news blog.
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