Language as development: The Lagos example

It is compulsory for all primary and secondary schools – private or public – to make the teaching of Yoruba Language a core subject at all levels. The purpose, according to the government, is “to provide for the preservation and promotion of the use of Yoruba Language.” No state in Nigeria, prior to this, had enacted such law which seeks to preserve and promote its indigenous language. Perhaps even bolder as an initiative was Lagos’ resolve to translate into Yoruba all its laws and “de-criminalize” the use of Yoruba as a communication tool between individuals. The myriad problems of this age may not be unconnected with lost values of language and culture.

Unbeknown to many, there is a potent connect between language and development. African historians say that for the colonial expenditure to succeed, the colonizers first took the sail off the wind of Africans’ language, culture, value system and history. The realization of this was probably why, at the beginning of the quest by the Awolowo political group to rebuild the Yoruba nation in the First Republic, in 1942, long before even the establishment of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa in 1947, it coalesced all existing associations like the Egba Society, founded in 1918; the 1923 Union of Ijebu Youngmen; the 1924 Yoruba Union; the Egbado Union and the Ekiti National Union, into the Yoruba Language Society.

D.O. Fagunwa and Awolowo’s Minister of Lands, J.F. Odunjo, began a crusade of authoring Yoruba novels and plays which promoted the mythologies, proverbs and songs of Yoruba people. In 1956, Awolowo himself instituted the Yoruba Historical Research Scheme headed by Prof Saburi Biobaku who in turn brought into the team scholars of diverse disciplines and local cultural and language experts like I. O. Delano and Chief J. A. Ayorinde. What this did was to grow a crop of passionate, cultured, morally astute Yoruba nationals who were extremely useful for the Awo group in its quest to develop the West as the hub of the Nigerian nation.

Odunjo and Fagunwa’s books were revolutionary in this regard. They promoted the undiluted essence of Yoruba language and culture. Using fables, anecdotes and historical examples of great warriors, they positively moulded the mind of a Yoruba into accepting that hard work, honesty, associational life pay and discouraged vices like murder, greed and larceny. For instance, not until a few decades ago did this writer come to know that Mr. and Mrs. Tortoise (Ijapa and Yannibo, and their child, Irere) were fictitious but fecund imaginations of Odunjo and Fagunwa. They used this animal, Tortoise to teach a number of values. In Otooto Ana Ijapa (Even Tortoise’s In-law!) they told the story of how, peeved by an infraction of his in-law, Tortoise had him tied to the intersection that leads to the market. Farmers and traders leaving for the market, upon hearing the heinous act of the in-law, upbraided him for having done such evil to Tortoise but seeing the in-law still tied to the same spot in the evening on their return, they excoriated Tortoise, asking what he would have done if the culprit was not his in-law. It is an underscore of Yoruba cultural trait of sympathy for the persecuted and abhorrence of treachery.

Adapting the Ifa corpus called Obara Odu Ifa, Odunjo wrote a story he entitled Itansan Oorun yio fi o han. It is the story of a monarch who clobbered to death a lady who refused his love advancement, in the presence of her little daughter, without anyone else knowing. As she lay dying, the woman shouted, “The ray of the sun will reveal your atrocity!” Years after, the monarch unknowingly married this lady’s child and one day, a powerful ray of the sun indeed shone from his imperial bedroom and he began to confess. The king was taken to the Ogun shrine where he was beheaded.

The totality of all these taught Yoruba that calamity awaits the evil doer; that no matter how long it demurs, the wheels of justice grinds slowly but arrives its destination. They backed it up with contemporary stories of tyrants and human ritualists whose offspring bear the brunt of their parents’ atrocities, akin to the biblical saying of the fathers eating sour grapes and their offspring feeling the tooth ache.   

Musicians of the period also helped to promote this ideological mindset. Hubert Ogunde and his Yoruba Ronu, Ligali Mukaiba, (who in his late 1950s vinyl, Mi o wa r’ohun t’obimrin o le finni se long posited the destructive implication of an untamed libido) Kasumu Adio, Kelani Yesufu, Haruna Ishola, Yusuff Olatunji and many others established Yoruba epistemology and concept of justice, equity and fairness. Epo Akara, the Ibadan-born Awurebe exponent, ended every of his tracks with an anecdote that teaches morals. The musicians sometimes also showcased the imperfectness of the Yoruba concept of justice, like Ayinla Omowura who sang that if one does not have a representation in the decision-making council, one’s innocence may become guilt (b’eyan o leni ni’gbimo, b’o ro ejo are, ebi lo mi a je).

This writer sees in the Ambode Yoruba language policy the ability to bring back to Yorubaland the profundity of the above regenerative path spearheaded by Awolowo. If implemented with the zeal and vigour that are beginning to be the byword of the Ambode government in Lagos, it will have a remarkable effect on the lives of the people.

Come to think of it, the Yoruba can actually look towards Lagos for the redemption of the land, if rightly coordinated. No matter his personal foibles, Bola Tinubu should be credited with churning out of his mills a crop of leaders who have transformed Lagos. In 2015 when Ambode was presented as replacement for Babatunde Fashola, the ambidextrous former governor’s shoes appeared too big to size Ambode. Not many believed he could make passable improvement in a chaotic Lagos. But Ambode has since proved cynics wrong. This writer dreaded Lagos like an un-barbed zoo and only visited when necessary. The other day however, necessity drove me to Lagos and what did I see? A lit-up Lagos which will surely aid a 24-hour economy, with the potential of greatly reducing crime. Bridges are springing up like ferns in a plantation with three at Abule Egba, Ajah, and Alimosho. Road construction is all over the place. I learnt that 141 roads were constructed last year and another 181 are ongoing across the state, including the ongoing 10-lane Airport Road and the construction of lay-bys across the state to ease Lagos’ atrocious traffic jam. If you add all these to the unbelievable regeneration of Oshodi and the Lake Rice phenomenon where Lagos is partnering Kebbi State in the production of rice, as well as the establishment of DNA lab – first of its kind in West Africa and the construction of 120 public health centres by the Ambode government, you will realize that Yorubaland could put an icing on the restructuring debate by demanding a confederal region with Lagos at the head. With Lagos’ large internal revenue, dealing with critical issues in the South West like defense against Fulani herdsmen, unified internal trade, common rail/road transportation and common educational system would make Yorubaland one of the most desirable economies in Africa.

The South African affair

South Africa opened up its gates for the Third World to pick up inspirational examples during the week. Its erstwhile President and one of the surviving vestiges of anti-Apartheid struggles, Jacob Zuma, had been forced to resign by his African National Congress (ANC) party. Subsumed in a volcano of corrupt charges, Zuma had become a dis-advertisement for ANC and the great forefathers of the longsuffering country. Not long ago, he fought battles to liberate himself from the leech of complaints against his alleged spending of public funds to upgrade his Nkandla rural estate valued in 2014 at 216 million rand (then $24 million.) Overlooking countryside squalor and lack, Zuma’s estate work included a swimming pool with a fire-fighting facility, a chicken run, a cattle enclosure, an amphitheatre and a visitors’ centre.

This was just a miniature of how Zuma made the bones of Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli, Ruth First, Ahmed Kathrada and many more who fought for the liberation of the country turn in their graves. Rated as one of the most uneducated African leaders as he had no formal education, Zuma glorified primitive accumulation and exhibited a naivety which made the modern world snigger at the black man. But those were not South Africa’s advertisement. It was the supremacy of its party politics. Immediately Zuma’s name became irredeemably headed for the sewage, ANC hopped up the scene. At that time, it was no longer necessary what Zuma’s ethnicity was, his religion or color. If it were Nigeria, those primordial sentiments would have gained ascendancy.

Some have argued that it was the parliamentary system of government which allowed such victory for party politics in South Africa. First Republic’s parliamentary system also allowed for such leeway. NCNC’s Hon Fani Kayode (Fanny Power) in the Western House of Assembly could effectively play opposition role and the party was bigger than the individual. Today in Nigeria, all those are gone. Presidents, governors pay the piper of their political parties and thus call the tune. If Nigeria is desirous of the kind of victory South Africa got from the hands of its rapacious elected leader, shouldn’t we look towards parliamentary system where parliamentarians and appointed leaders are best among equals in parliament?

Tinubu’s over-ripe cherries

The assignment handed over to All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu by President Muhammadu Buhari has engaged discussions in the polity in the last one week or thereabout. If there is one man whose job description is certainly not to be envied, it is surely Tinubu. Apart from reconciling the fractious APC members, Tinubu is expected to deliver a very large chunk of the 14, 626, 800 South West votes to Buhari as he did in 2015.

Apart from the fact that Tinubu himself ranks high among those slighted in the APC, the former Lagos governor would soon find out that the South West is no longer the homogenous cherry picks he made in 2015. Apart from Lagos, the rest of the West isn’t an easy cherry to pick for him any longer. Can he lay claim to picking Ibikunle Amosun’s Ogun, Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti or Rotimi Akeredolu’s Ondo as easily as in 2015? In many of the states, APC has become indistinguishable from the rot earlier PDP governments inflicted on the people. More importantly is that, because of their cultural disdain for injustice which they also witness on their land, the South West is growingly becoming disenchanted with Buhari’s covert spatial provision for his kiths, Fulani herdsmen, who are terrorizing Benue and even Yoruba land. If you add these to the insult from the SGF, Boss Muhammed, who on Thursday said that there is no alternative to Buhari, it becomes obvious that, in 2019 the cherries awaiting Tinubu are over-ripe and difficult to pick.

For Aunty Tokunbo

Youngest child of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosumu, would be 70 years old tomorrow. For many of us who are not privileged to meet the former Western Region Premier, Dr. Awolowo-Dosumu is a huge poster of what the sage looked like, I am told in physique and from what we read, in character. For close to an hour inside the country home of Chief Awolowo in Ikenne, Ogun State last year, this writer and Awolowo-Dosumu engaged each other on how the South West could recreate Awolowo. Passionate, down-to-earth and a perfectionist, she is effectively holding her father’s torch aloft. She has the famed self-respect and dignity of Awolowo and daily bends over backwards in keeping tar from staining the white apparel of the family. For instance, for the decades of my interface with Nigerian Government Houses, mention is seldom made of Awolowo-Dosumu ever walking down these cash-laden homes to scavenge for crumbs as is the norm among children of leaders who have exited.

This writer has studied Awolowo the father over the years, culminating in a 440-page work on the rift between him and Chief S.L. Akintola which I am lazily trying to publish as a book, especially the way the tiff is reported in the newspaper press. I can say without equivocation that I see Awolowo’s resolve, polish and dignity in Dosumu-Awolowo.

 Here is wishing Aunty Tokunbo many more years in the service of the Yoruba nation and Nigeria as a whole, in good health.