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Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II has called for total restructuring as the only way forward to uplift Nigeria from her economic state. This also comes in affirmative, once again to restates Afenifere’s firm belief and agitation that only restructuring can save and uplift Nigeria. Ooni stated this as a guest speaker at an Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) event recently.
The non-partisan Ooni of Ife stool has been a beacon of progressive freedom for not only Yorubas, but Nigeria and the black race, being the head of the Indigenous African civilizations.
The British Prime Minister during the pro-independence movement was said to have called Ooni of Ife Oba Aderemi, ‘a pain in the backside of the British Empire’ in his agitation for Nigeria’s independence, while Ooni of Ife Oba Sijuwade supported the crystalization of the restructuring movement.
Oonirisa Ogunwusi still in tandem with Afenifere, whose founder Obafemi Awolowo had Ooni Aderemi backing, and knows like every insightful progressive Yoruba that we need total restructuring – political, economic and cultural. As stated at the anti corruption event, there is a need for restructuring and devolution of power to curb corruption. This has nothing to do with partisan politics, religion or ethnicity but basic management accounting principles that the same functional level can’t collect and dispense monies.
Let the local government be directly in charge of resources, while States account and federal overlooks and regulates. In addition to the decentralization of accounting in order to reduce corruption, it is also efficient management, especially for security and crime fighting, since police with local knowledge are best suited to deploy resources to fight crime. The same logic applies to the identification and utilization of natural and human resources of a state, since Abuja civil servants can’t be better informed than those at the local and state governments. It is all simple common sense, but unfortunately colonists, neocolonists and internal colonizers prefer to centralize all the functions for corrupt exploitative control.
President Tinubu must listen to the voice of reason of Afenifere and especially Ooni of Ife, who is not only the Yoruba spiritual leader but also the leader of the indigenous African civilization of South and Middle Belt, sharing the chairmanship of the Nigerian Traditional Council with Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of the Afro-Arabic civilization. Oonirisa’s role as the head of the Original African civilization is globally recognized, being the head of the new African monarchs coalition, and even foremost Pan-Africanists like Madam Arikana of Zimbabwe and Prof Lumumba made him the leader of their global Black foundation – ADDI.
Restructuring as spelt out in the 2014 Confab Report and Adamasigba Declaration which Oonirisa Ogunwusi attended and affirmed, must be holistic. It is a fact that many states can’t be fiscally self-sustainable if political and economic restraints are not fully addressed. Some have advocated a form of a Marshallian Plan to help the states on their feet like was done for European economies after the Second World War, however rather than throwing cash at the states, we must restructure the colonial economics bequeathed to us by the British.
Before the British politically restructured our two civilizations (Indigenous African and Afro-Arabic) into Nigeria, they first undertook economic restructuring by diverting our West-East civilizational trade routes to North-South colonial trade routes to empty our land of resources and use it to dump their own manufactures on us to kill our local production. Therefore as a matter of urgency, we must build three West-East railways – Lagos-Calabar, Ilorin-Yola and Sokoto-Maiduguri to reinstate our civilizational economics, from which every state can build branch lines to nooks and corners of the state. It is a known fact that the 1827 to 1850 Railways construction boom in the USA was what actually propelled them into industrialization. If every Nigerian state is connected by railways, not only will they be able transport their produce to the markets, but the state railway companies will spur growth in iron and chemicals industries used to build and maintain the railroads and railcars. With this economic restructuring from colonial to civilizational economics, no state would suffer from restructuring away from the center.
Afenifere, understanding the difference in Indigenous African and Afro-Arabic civilizational aspirations in restructuring, united the South and Middle Belt in a restructuring coalition based on equity and fairness for all, which inspired their backing for the Southeast rotational presidency through Peter Obi. This is not a recent trajectory since Chief Obafemi Awolowo had first articulated the common civilization aspirations, leading him to reach out to the HRM Aku Uka of Wukari, the head of the main ancient indigenous African Middle Belt conglomeration called the Kwararafa Confederacy and in 1958 struck political alliances with the United Middle Belt Convention led by Joseph Tarka. Awolowo also made it clear that Igbos are our natural strategic allies while we can only get a subservient master slave relationship with the Northern Afroasiatic civilization. So Afenifere has stuck to these civilizational principles from Awolowo even up to Fasonranti/Falae that led the handshake across Niger and supported the South and Middle Belt alliance based on restructuring and rotational presidency, before coming out of retirement to derail the long held policy by switching to Tinubu.
Like Oonirisa Aderemi that recognized the global black youth movement for independence and civil rights and backed Awolowo for a more culturally conscious and decisive movement, Oonirisa Ogunwusi is aware of the new global Black youth agitation for political and cultural justice, which exploded into Black Lives Matter riots in the Diaspora and Endsars riots movement, and therefore sees the urgent need for more positive balanced action through cultural, political and economic restructuring. Oonirisa addressed the need for cultural restructuring through civilizational reawakening of conscious Black youth by creating the African Sociocultural Harmony and Enlightenment Foundation, made up of paramount leaders and scholars of the major ethnicities of South and Middle Belt indigenous African civilization, whose aim is to reverse the colonial epistemicide by teaching our common genetic and cultural origins and linkages, belief systems and glorious histories towards global Black Renaissance.
Academicians like Professor Falola refer to these global movements that follow decolonization as decoloniality of our knowledge and power sources, as well as our ecology (economy) and Self. As stated above, our colonial restructuring didn’t start with political restructuring but also economic and cultural. The cultural restructuring of our worldview from civilizational to Pan Tribalistic was first initiated with what is known as epistemicide, the translation of European belief systems into our local languages thereby demonizing our traditional knowledge and belief systems that tied the South and Middle Belt into a civilization based on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa-Efa knowledge banks and Binary Complementarity philosophies.
The next step of our colonial cultural restructuring was achieved by adding the Middle Belt, the northern frontier of the indigenous African civilization to the Northern Protectorate controlled by the Afro-Arabic civilization, instead of the indigenous African Southern Protectorate. Then, in 1939 the Southern Protectorate was broken into Western and Eastern regions to fuel divisive tribal perspectives within the indigenous African civilization and pro-independence movement, which has weakened the South and Middle Belt peoples ability to politically agitate for collective aspirations till today. While Afenifere united Original African civilizational aspirations, Oonirisa identified and unified the Original African civilization through common genetic and cultural origins.
It is upon President Tinubu to implement political and economic restructuring, regardless of partisan politics, religion or ethnicity in order to make Nigeria work efficiently for everyone. Failure to do so will lead to continued arrested economic and political development and cultural injustice at the very least, and total disintegration at the worse. In the absence of a direct whisper from the gods to do the right thing, Oonirisa the Igbakeji Orisa voice shouldn’t be ignored. The Voice of the people like Afenifere, and that of the non-partisan Oonirisa, is surely the voice of the gods calling for restructuring, which if ignored the youth will revolt against their continued arrested development and poverty.
Prince Faloye is the Deputy Publicity Secretary, Afenifere and President, ASHE Foundation
