By Moses Oludele Idowu
“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell (1903-1950)
In the course of my life I have had to address all Yoruba only once in an essay. That was during the heady days of Buhari when Yoruba Nation agitations tried to break Nigeria to establish a Yoruba nation. I then wrote an essay, Against Secession: Memo to Yoruba Leaders and Promoters of Oduduwa Republic( Sahara reporters.com) My basic argument then was that Yoruba brought Buhari to power and must therefore endure whatever he inflicted on Nigeria. You cannot be responsible for an action and then run away from the consequences of the same actions. They cannot go anywhere.
Today, I am compelled to address another letter to all Yoruba both at home and in the diaspora because a greater danger now awaits us. We are already in it. In 2023 just before the election I warned in an essay that all the three candidates before Nigerians are dangerous. ( See, The Triple Danger and a Nation in Denial) Nigerians “elected” one of the three dangers which also happens to be of Yoruba extraction. I leave you today to judge if you have not lost your powers of discernment and judgement and see where we are, the future that is becoming daily dreary and uncertain as a result of the terrible misgovernance, corruption, shoddiness and utter incompetence and impotence of a leadership that has brought woes on all realms.
I read Commodore Olawuni’s interview in the Tribune and I was impressed. I salute you dear comrade and commend your insight. We think the same way and see what others can’t yet see but which they will see much later when they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I have also read the very thoughtful article of Olu Fasan showing the Yoruba are leaving their well- known values because of the ambition of one man.
In a day of deceit speaking the truth becomes a revolutionary act. Some of us will still speak it, anyway. – anyhow.
Today I address all Yoruba, open your hearts and lend me your ears and hear me.
History tells us that national deliverance and salvation begin with the birth of a child. For example from the moment or the day Moses was born Israel’s days in bondage was numbered. Every child comes to this world with a soul destiny and particular assignment to Humanity either to free or enslave her. Whether the society recognizes it and allows him to execute that destiny is a different thing altogether. Even the Jews pushed Moses away from them when he was first revealed to them until forty years later when sufferings and hardships had pummeled and tempered them.
Samuel Ajayi Crowther ‘s destiny was the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of the black race. It is not accidental that the very year of his birth in 1807 was the year Britain passed the law abolishing slavery in all British isles thus marking the beginning of large- scale onslaught against slavery and the inhuman traffic.
His very life, work and mission laid the groundwork and foundation for the birth of ethiopianism, nationalist forces and even independent Christianity and development contrary to the trash some of your “scholars” are writing. That was his destiny.
Joseph Ayo Babalola’s destiny was to reveal the God of Christianity to Africa in the African way; to show the same Jesus Christ to the natives of Africa in their own culture, costume and customs. An old teacher explained this to me and the significance during my field work in Efon- Alaaye. “We were Anglicans and have heard and known about Jesus , but the Jesus we knew was not real. It was Babalola who made Jesus real to us as Yoruba.” Today there is hardly any nation you won’t find a Nigerian of Yoruba extraction who is holding the banner of Christ.
That was his destiny.
Then I cite one more example – Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo. His destiny was to give the light and lit the torch of advancement to the Yoruba through education and learning. I remember at the Presidential election campaign in 1979 at Ilorin Stadium he said – “I will give you light in your soul, light in your spirit and light in your body.”
He wasn’t boasting; that was his destiny. (And you can achieve your destiny without ever becoming the President of a nation; that is where some of your historians and scholars miss it who see him as “heroic failure” because he did not fulfill that singular ambition.) Today there is no where in the world, no university on Earth or hospital where you will not find a Yoruba man either as a specialist or teacher. That was largely due to Awo’s legacy through education and other Yoruba – Crowther, Babalola etc – who prepared the way before him.
Today we have another Yoruba man on the stage – Bola Ahmed Tinubu and I ask you a question: what does this man’s life and work teach and what destiny does it entail or connote for the Yoruba? Is it freedom or bondage, slavery or liberation?
My dear Yoruba people, open your ears and hear me. I am not a politician and I am not a card-carrying member of any party. I am a messenger and combatant for the Truth, raised by God at this time to warn you and warn your country men of hazard.
Yoruba are respected all over the world and even in Nigeria because they have always stood by the truth and are agents of progress and development. That legacy is now being eroded by a series of fundamentally-singular acts, omissions, allusions and breaches. That commitment to truth and honesty, the very essence of omoluabi ethos is now being mortgaged because we departed from the teachings and ways of our ancestors.
Again I ask the question, “What does the life of Bola Ahmed Tinubu teach us, what legacy does he bequeath to generations unborn and what is his destiny?”
We know the destiny of Crowther, Babalola, of Awo….Even Obasanjo fought to unite this nation and receive instruments of surrender from the secessionists and years later he would fight and struggle again to free Nigeria from debts. That was his destiny. Yes, there might be even Yoruba officers better than him but it was him destiny chose.
What do you see when you examine the life of this man from the beginning till now? I don’t know what you see but I see duplicity, selfishness, greed, treachery, falsehood, inconsistencies, absence of any culture of honour, deceit etc. It is significant to know that even the very name of our president is being challenged and questioned as not being his real name. Everything, and all things about him – parentage, family lineage, ancestry, education, qualifications, occupation, experience, etc – are being questioned and being reviewed as further information come to light. It used to be said that he worked with Deloitte until the company came out to say they do not have any record by that name. Then the vitae was reviewed and that claim removed.
How about education? It used to be claimed that he attended Government College Ibadan until the alumni said we don’t have anyone by this name in that year of graduation. Who were your classmates? Then that claim too dropped out from the CV.
What about primary school, everyone begins somewhere. Aroloya School that our man claimed to have attended did not exist at the time of his supposed education there. And people raised queries. Then this too dropped out of the CV. And in an act of bravado that verges only on Shina Rambo escapade, Festus Keyamo one of the top “dogs” of this administration said on television that Tinubu did not attend any primary or secondary school and he took GCE at home because he was a genius. Boy, this man was so good and great genius that he was better than Awojobi and Soyinka combined because these two had to go to primary and secondary schools before proceeding to university. The trouble with the politics of APC is that it would have been funny if it were not so pathetic.
That is what the white man called duplicity, duplicitous behaviour. And to think that this is associated with a Yoruba man? Where is truth? Where is the candour and boldness to stand for the Truth that omoluabi taught us?
To be fair to Tinubu looking at his life I also see courage, focus, single- minded determination, personal ambition, etc.
I also asked everyone, how has this journey been in the last three and a half years? Is the future becoming bright and brighter or bleak and dreary by the day?
The lives of Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman teach us that the man who will lead well must first live among the people, the common people and hear their groanings and pains. Nigerians are groaning and have been groaning in pain for a long time but never in my lifetime has the pain of the people reached this crescendo as it is today. In a lifetime of over three score years I haven’t seen this level of collective sufferings and acute pain occasioned by mindless policies of the rulers.
We are daily being told that “difficult decisions” must be taken while the people who take “difficult decisions” live in opulence and luxury completely insulated from the realities of their actions. You tell the people to cut their coat according to their sizes and endure pain due to subsidy removal yet you yourself go about in a convoy of 100 cars and your wife and son go about in convoys. Are your own vehicles running on steam? It is a contradiction. You are not a king, you are a servant. Democracy has no kings, it was established to abolish kingship.
Today Nigeria is behind on all development indices. Human suffering index is higher today than at anytime. Poverty is deepening. The middle class has been abolished. Nigeria now has only two classes of people – the poor who are awake because they are hungry, and the rich who cannot sleep because the poor are awake. This is Nigeria, world capital of poverty and banditry, courtesy of APC.
Our fathers used to pray in Yoruba – ‘ Kama pade Agbako’. That we shall not meet the daemon called Agbako one of the top demons in Satan’s service. D.O. Fagunwa in his classic Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole , described in detail the experience of a hunter, Akara Oogun the protagonist of his novel in the hands of Agbako . Nigerians have jammed Agbako in APC. I do not know a better way to say it other than that.
Subsidies gone, they told us, with the same irresponsibility and woodenheadedness and lack of proper study and attention to details with which they have governed everywhere people have been unfortunate to put them in power.
What about the savings from subsidies, the harvest from our collective toil and exactions? What about the revenue from oil, taxes, customs etc? They are frittered away in no-bid contract to a Chagoury from Lebanon, pipeline surveillance to a Tompolo from Delta….
Even Abacha gave the savings from subsidies removal back to Nigerian companies and people through projects executed by Nigerians and Nigerian consultants through PTF.
Today ministries and MDAs have no capital votes to execute projects because there is no allocation set aside. 2025 budgets have still not been implemented because there is no capital votes.
Meanwhile debts keep ballooning by the day. And with that poverty deepens. Over what, I do not know. Debts are being procured by the day and future oil revenue is being mortgaged to procure debts for future generations..
The World Bank alerted us the other day that about 20 trillion naira spending is not backed by receipt from our Treasury. That money has been spent and being spent in a parallel budget that the Assembly did not pass and did not go through appropriation. For what and over what?
The oil has been mortgaged,the minerals are the next.
Our minerals now have been mortgaged to America for just $700b. How about that?
If a nation as small as Rwanda has leadership that is sincere and patriotic enough and could be so honest to ask for periodic review of prices for her nickel think of the disaster we have today in the name of leadership in Nigeria that is selling the future today. Just because Americans have records about you and must not be made public and therefore had to be bribed. But why bribe people at my expense, why not with your own assets?
Nigeria is being enslaved. The road to enslavement is being laid and paved gradually and I am sad that a Yoruba man is leading the charge.
Today all important segments of this government are occupied by Yoruba and Nigeria has never been worse.than it is today. Corruption has never walked on two legs. Do you wish to deny that?
It is against this backdrop we need to consider the message of our brother Commodore Olawuni. I can see what he is saying and I have seen the same concern and danger but unfortunately most Yoruba can’t see it yet. The way and actions of this government and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s policies today will debar another Yoruba man from ruling this country for many years to come except by the sovereign mercies of God. Should that be the result of leadership?
Yoruba, think. I urge you to think. Should a man eat your tomorrow today; should a man live like a king today so you and your generations can be paupers and slaves tomorrow? Can’t you see the danger? Can’t you see that you have a tragedy on your hands – a tragedy clothed as leadership?
I have heard some saying that any Yoruba who does not support Tinubu is a bastard ( omo ale Yoruba). For all those of you who mouth this nonsense I sympathize with you. Because you really deserves sympathy and your fathers deserve it even more because they evidently wasted their money educating fools. The beauty of democracy and the rule of democracy is the right to make deliberate and informed choices based on individual preferences and personal interests. If all politics is local it is also individual. It cannot be local if it is not individual and the right for individual prerogative.
M.D. Yusuf was the Inspector General of Police and they tried to use him against Fela Kuti but the northerner would not be used because as a trained police officer he saw nothing wrong with what Fela was doing as far as the law was concerned. So the military had to be used against him in the process killing his mother – a military that was headed by an Abeokuta son, the same town from which Fela hailed from.
What a northerner would not do to Fela a government headed by his own kinsman approved and did. So we have made too much about this ethnic card.
Democracy is about choices including the choice to replace the incumbent or retain him. There is no need for an election if the possibility of revalidation or referendum does not exist. All these rubbish that I am hearing that a Yoruba man must also use 8 years is balderdash. If a Yoruba man rules well the people will elect him and he will spend 8 years and if otherwise they will “unelect” him.
An Ijaw man was once “unelected” after only 4 years and removed democratically and the heaven did not fall and even many Yoruba jubilated. Now it is your turn to be subjected to the test and rigour you have subjected others and democracy will have its rules not your whims. Nigerians will decide who will rule them and it is fair and they have a right to choose. This election must be free and fair and nothing must be tampered with. Other tribes and ethnic groups in Yoruba land must be free to exercise their choices. Igbos, Ijaws, Hausa, Fulani, Igalas, etc must be free to vote in all Yoruba land without any threat to whoever they wish to vote for. This is not 2023.
It must be free and fair and the world must see that it is so.
Any attempt to doctor or manipulate the system will not be palatable. If it is rigged then we the people may think of the unthinkable because a democracy where people have no choices is worse than a military government. Or which is worse we may attempt a revolution. We have tried the military and it failed and.we have tried politicians and they are also failing if they have not already failed. There is yet one more option before Nigerians: people – based Revolution or peaceful dissolution.
2027 will determine where and or what course of action will be the next stage.
That is why Yoruba you have to wake up and tell yourself the truth. There is a lot of insincerity among you at the moment. And plenty of deceit. “You dwell in the midst of deceit” as God said to Jeremiah.
All the ethnic militias being raised is it really for security or for elections and manipulation?
Yoruba, think.
You are about to lose the honesty and commitment to truth for which you were noted worldwide and for which you were respected because of one man.
Think.
The great respect Nigerians have for you is because of your transparent honesty. Your respect for the Truth and fairness to all. Even when Olusegun Obasanjo was president you were the Opposition to him because of the way he came and his attitude to Yoruba in the past. The worst critics of Obasanjo were Yoruba and the Lagos – Ibadan axial press. Nigerians honour you for this.
Today where is that same commitment to truth and honesty? Where is the same press now? Muted.
Everywhere, it is the same cry and thing I hear, “Whoever is not supporting Tinubu is a bastard.” You are the bastards because you went to school and you didn’t learn anything. Tinubu himself once truncated the right of a Yoruba woman to become the Speaker of House of Representatives preferring Tambuwwal. So let every Yoruba man too decide based on how this government has served them according to their personal and individual preferences as the people of Osun State has decided. No insults. It is part of the rules of Democracy. Don’t bring any ethnic card into it now.
If a Yoruba man has shot you fatal economic bullets that wounded you and an Igbo or Ijaw doctor came to cure you and heal you of them, is there a crime in that? Who, has Yoruba government helped? I live among the people and hear their cries everyday. A bag of cement now costs almost N15,000 ; it was N12,000 just few weeks ago and N9000 in January. That is how the economy runs under a government headed by a Yoruba man. And this is what I must support because I am a Yoruba man!
Kamari o.
So the question will definitely arise: are you suggesting the other candidates like Peter Obi or Abubakar Atiku?
I do not see any viable alternatives or options in these Opposition candidates whether in Peter Obi or Abubakar Atiku. My opinion of the three leading candidates has not changed from what they were in 2023. They are all dangerous and terrible candidates, although not to the same degrees. Go and read the article and see my analysis of each one.
1That is why I said Nigeria is now between the devil and the deep blue sea. Change is risky and continuity is disaster. I don’t see any difference between Tinubu and Atiku and Obi may not be as corrupt but he is not fully purged, in my opinion, of tribal and ethnic tendencies and Igbo irredentism. Just like others.
The fish has caught the fisherman.
More than 80 years ago Joseph Babalola urged his pastors to pray for Nigeria that politics will not lead to war.” That was in 1947. And twenty years later politics led to war in 1967. Now it is another 2027 – 60 years ago – and the words of that Apostle continue to ring in my ears – “that politics will not lead to war..”
Finally I want to end with a story you all know.
When Gani Fawehinmi was in prison in Gashua the military government decided to break the ranks of the radical group in Nigeria by appointing one of its arrowheads as leader of Peoples Bank. When Gani was eventually released the news so much disturbed him that rather than going home to rest he went straight to Ikenne to meet Dr. Tai Solarin first to confirm whether it was true or not. Fawehinmi then said what has turned out to be prophetic: ” Sir, don’t be part of the atrocities of this government ( IBB’s) don’t do anything that will ridicule the Radical Group in this nation. They will steal money in People’s Bank and they will stain your character. Please think about it.”
Ebenezer Babatope was there. Olu Onagoruwa was there. It was time for Solarin to respond and all he said was, ” You have spoken courageously. I will think about it.”
He accepted the office thinking they were doing him a favor for the common man. And the rest is history.
Everything Gani Fawehinmi warned against happened at People’s Bank and a reputation built through thick and thin with many years of honesty tampered with. Uncle Tai rejected good advice from a comrade from the trench and we know the outcome.
My fellow Yoruba, please think.Good morning
Your compatriot
Moses Oludele Idowu
7/11/2026
© Moses Oludele Idowu
November 7, 2026
All Rights Reserved
