The irrational ignorance and political flaccidity of the Yewarists have put them on a democratic cross road of uncertainty. Yes, they may puff and huff, kiss and gnash their teeth at my sweeping observation, but the political interpretation of their preparedness cannot be more apt. In the Yewa/Awori axis there is a yawning leadership deficit. More baleful is the fact that the Yewa tribe is diminished by the savagery of disunity. The tribe and its leaders lack political cohesion. The power of tribal unity, which is a fortuitous asset in Nigerian politics, has no place in Yewarist land. Its so-called emerging stars are becoming sullenly hostile to other competing stars perceived to be a threat. There is abundance evidence of disconnection and factionalism that has given rise to the notion of pessimism. Of course, there had been accusation of pessimism and that Yewarists’ leaders are distant, insular and timorous figures with empty visions for the Ogun 2011 guber race.
However, the bigger reason why political fortune had perpetually shifted from the Yewarists is their low involvement in politics, which, over the years, had conspired to render them powerless and voiceless. Another poignant argument why the Yewarists have been so ambivalently apolitical lies in their innate workerist mentality that they were born to be traditional landowners of Ogun state. Perhaps, we can crystallise some of their political regression; some of their failings; some of their institutionalised antipolitics to their outsider gene. This dead-end role has frequently blurred their political vision and with such opaqueness comes an indefinite maroon in the political wilderness.
Since the Yewarists had shirked or cleverly evaded the costly burden of political education, it is then natural for the clan to invent a whetstone on which to grind a very tribal axe, benignly tagged Yewa Agenda. This agenda has morphed into the overdramatised and weepy compassion to be given a chance to do a catch up. Sorry mates, there is no free lunch in politics. In politics, you have to pay for every piece of meat caught by your fork. Nobody can deny, however, that the political contortions of the Yewarists in the last 34 years had been gobsmacking in its horrible maginalisation. Yep, sane souls will feel emotionally, intellectually constipated that the Yewarists have played the political ‘mugu’ to the unrepentant Egbas and Ijebus for such eternity.
On this point, I dare say that the paucity of knowledge on Ogun politics is disturbing. In Ogun, the Yewa/Awori are the static, unarticulating, clueless and dozy victims locked down in permanent domination. Over the arc of time, the Egbas and Ijebus evolved and became the natural, political antagonists of the Yewa/Awori that is still at play till this minute. All the Yewarists’ friends I spoke to seem genetically programmed to the Yewa’s turn syndrome. Theirs is a political wound to be healed by the dominant Egbas and the Ijebus. Such deadpan certainty retard momentum toward political compromise which is writ large across the state, especially the governorship race, come 2011. In the Yewa stream-of-consciousness winning mood, losing the governorship throne has already being consigned to camp cliché even before the race. Will the Yewarists bully their way to Oke Mosan?
Who, then, are the leaders behind the euphoric resurgence of political correctness for the embattled Yewa? Who are the visionary and pragmatic leaders who will turn the Yewarists collective power struggle to victory in the Ogun 2011 guber race? There is a disquieting darkness about some of the Yewa emerging brilliant stars, elevated as leaders for tribal, political exigency. The pool of electable, gubernatorial-positive individuals being bandied about has proven that our democracy is still capable of exposing our extravagantly embroidered lie about private and public figures.
The fathers of Yewa/Awori future politics include Gboyega Isiaka, Abiodun Akinlade, Tope Kuyebi, Kola Bajomo, Kayode Soyinka, Kola Lawal, Tunji Olurin, Kayode Amusan and unknown others. Looking at the names, they all seem adequately equipped, though in varying degrees, for the governorship race. Incidentally, all of them provoke emotional reaction: genius, powerful, adulation, pragmatic, ordinary, flamboyant, ageing and weak. Some of the leaders clothe themselves in veneer of comedian finery which will soon be derobed. Few are serious, bankable and able.
The story of travail and stunted political prospect which underpin Yewarist political history are more than daunting homework for any of Yewa’s leaders. Opportunity for triumph in Ogun 2011 guber race lies in the delicate political sophistication of its selected future candidate. The candidate has to know that Ogun state does not accommodate overarching lies, half truth and hypocrisy in its democratic culture. As self-protecting pragmatists, the Egbas and Ijebus will not fold their arms and blindly self destruct into Yewarist’s booby trap of weepy emotion of ‘our turn’ and ‘political maginalisation’. Nwodo has dropped a clanger with the cancellation of zoning from our political universe.
The Egba and Ijebu clans will reel out a lifetime of reasons why they had to rule Ogun state till infinity. They may jab at the Yewa as unfit to govern. The Egbas and Ijebus are still stunningly insensitive and could not care less to the foaming clamour, pain, bluff, bluster and other haranguing expressions of the Yewarists. That is the Kissingerian realpolitik vitally missing in the camp of the Yewarists. Yet, its mere suggestion, for the Yewarists can roil their collective emotion and stymied their guber hope. A lifetime of political bondage awaits the Yewarists if they fail to unravel this Kissingerian’s puzzle. This is the crux of the matter, the place where rubber meets the road, as the saying goes.
