WHY I CELEBRATE THE YORUBA

Daniel C. Uwaezuoke pays a heartfelt tribute to the Yoruba

As a policeman’s son, who experienced life in the barracks with the members of other ethnic groups, I had an early acquaintance with the Yoruba. I first recall my parents mentioning the name of one sergeant-major of Yoruba ethnic stock, whose name was Adegbite. With my father’s death in 1944 – a year after his retirement – the wish had awakened in me to join the police force.

This was how I started a six-month training course at the Southern Police Training School, where I met a Yoruba man, called Johnson Olaniyan. Through this versatile, cheerful young man, I was able to learn all I needed to know about the keeping and updating of the recruit book.

Two years later found me in Lagos on August 22, 1947, after I was transferred from Forcados, an outpost in the old Warri/Benin Police Province to CID Lagos, the only CID in the country then. In Lagos, I lived, worked and interacted with many people of the Yoruba ethnic stock.

Over the years of my close interaction, I came to hear about and admire such prominent Yoruba personalities as Olusegun Obasanjo, Professor Wole Soyinka, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Lt. Col Adekunle Fajuyi, Adeniran Ogunsanya (whom Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe nicknamed “Pocket Battleship”); Tai Solarin, Adeleke Adedoyin, Mrs Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Kolawole Balogun.

A few words about Obasanjo. The allusion, in an Igbo aphorism, to a head according to whose measurement a cap was sown, fits him. Pencilled down by Fate for leadership, he has twice been privileged to rule this country. I would wish to list among his landmark achievements the abolition of all colonial allowances that drained the economy; the pardon and the payment of gratuity as well as pension arrears of all dismissed military, police and prisons personnel, who served on the secessionist side during the Nigeria Civil War; and the revolutionising the telecommunications industry through the introduction of mobile phones, among others.

Then, there is Wole Soyinka, the first and only Nobel laureate from Nigeria, whose appeal for a cease-fire during the Civil War led to his arrest and imprisonment for 22 months by the then Federal Military Government. He will also be remembered as the founding Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps.

Of course, I won’t forget Lt. Col Fajuyi, who as the first military governor of the defunct Western Region, had refused to surrender his guest General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the then head of state and the supreme commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the revenge-seeking counter-coup plotters. This led to his assassination alongside General Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was in Ibadan to address a conference of natural leaders of Western Nigeria.

As for Chief Awolowo, his introduction of free education at all levels while he was the premier of the Western Region remains one of his most enduring legacies to date. This is besides his many infrastructural legacies like the Cocoa House in Ibadan, which was once the tallest building in Nigeria, Africa’s first television station WNTV and the Liberty Stadium, among others.

Other Yoruba leading lights like Adeniran Ogunsanya, Adeleke Adedoyin, Tai Solarin and Mrs Ransome-Kuti earned their places as shining examples in the nation’s collective consciousness.

But, beyond these personalities, the Yoruba people have remained the model for religious tolerance in Nigeria. For it is not uncommon to see Christians and Muslims not only co-existing peacefully but also marrying each other. Throughout my two decades of sojourn in Lagos, during which I enjoyed the people’s hospitality, I witnessed adherents of both religions exchange gifts and visits during their religious festivals.

Also, the Igbo who owned landed properties in Yoruba land got them back soon after the Civil War. There were even reports of Yoruba neighbours, who collected rent on behalf of the absentee Igbo landlords and gave them back after their return.

Could this be why Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe had, upon his return from the former Gold Coast (now Ghana), chosen to live among the Yoruba people? It made sense therefore that some of his most dependable allies were from among these most educated and most cultured people in Nigeria.

As a 96-year-old Igbo man, who has seen both the pre-and post-independence Nigeria, I still deem the Yoruba a people worthy of emulation. Of course, my people were also blessed with such leaders as Dr Azikiwe, Dr Akanu Ibiam, Dr Michael Iheonukara Okpara, Sir Philip Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Alvan Ikoku, Professor Kenneth Dike, Mbonu Ojike, Professor Chinua Achebe, Pius Okigbo, Professor Chike Obi and Professor Eni Njoku, among others. But they would do well to build on their legacy by emulating the tolerance of the Yoruba.

· Sir Daniel C. Uwaezuoke wrote from Enugu