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"The Yoruba people know their leader." Chief Adewale Thompson, Chief Abraham Adesanya, two leading Yoruba personalities, made this statement on two separate contexts late last week. As innocuous as the statement appears, however, it eloquently expresses the raging debacle that has engulfed the Yoruba nation since the exit of the late Chief Michael Ajasin. Although one appears to be echoing the other, they do not mean the same thing and by that statement, each is in fact, laying a claim to the leadership of the house of Oduduwa.

The former Oyo State governor, Chief Omololu Olunloyo described the brewing crisis as a haunting evocation of the Awolowo-Akintola conflict in the 60's, which eventualy led to the implosion of the South West. He may be overstating the case though. The long battle for June 12 and the eventual Obasanjo Presidency that had emerged as a war booty for the Yorubas have nurtured a hitherto non-existent common emotion around which their different struggles revolve. Ironically, it is in the pull and push of this experience that the present tussle has emerged.

The "Quislings" factor
Clearly, not everyone South-West of the Niger celebrated the coronation in Ibadan of Chief Abraham Adesanya as the leader of the Yoruba race in 1997, after the death of Chief Michael Ajasin. However, no one, at least, openly protested the appointment. It was a war period, and the Yoruba needed a war leader in Chief Adesanya who was then a leader of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), waging, almost fatal battles against the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha and for the revalidation of late Moshood Abiola's presidential mandate, which the Yorubas had appropriated. Everyone qeued up behind him and like a true leader and general, he was in the trenches doing battles and calling the shots. He dictated the pace and nature of war and determined the direction of events.

In one heady moment in April 1998, Chief Adesanya mounted the podium and addressed the Yoruba nation, warning them to be mindful of the activities of those he called "Quislings of the Yoruba nation." Although no names were mentioned, the old man left no one in doubt whom he had in mind. These are people, he said, who " went to the infamous Constitutional Conference of 1994 against the wishes of the people and who went to serve in the Abacha government." The "Quislings" he also said, " can be found in the five leprous political fingers, eagerly soliciting the endorsement of Aso Rock." He also singled out the traditional rulers and principal collaborators in the bid " to give Yorubaland on a platter of gold to the descendants of (Uthman) Dan Fodio." " Rather than become guardians of our heritage, culture and national pride, they have become as they were in the days of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, agents of our new domestic imperialists for the enslavements of their peoples." He then went ahead to prescribe that a "social principle of non-fraternisation should be adopted henceforth. We urge you to ostracise them socially, to boycott their social parties and keep them out of yours," he said, declaring that when the battle is eventually won, " the Quislings of Yorubaland will surely be called to give account."

As it were, the people of Yoruba land hardly needed any prompting to vent their fury on the people so identified by Adesanya and whom they knew too well. But soon after this declaration, which was nothing short of a political "fatwa", the "Quislings" knew their death warrants had been signed as the people would not merely stop at "non-fraternisation." Thus, many had to run for dear live, scampering into exiles and scurrying into dark holes. Still, many lost properties and on many occasions only narrowly escaped death.

The Making of AD
Soon after General Abdulsalami Abubakar announced the transition programme, the Yoruba leadership, made up largely of the Afeniferes, which may also read NADECO, met at fora, but mainly in Ijebu-Igbo, the home town of Adesanya, to deliberate on how the Yoruba nation should engage the new government and its transition programme. Expectedly, opinions differed. While some advocated, what could be called constructive engagement, many felt the boycott should continue, affirming the inviolability of the June 12 mandate. In the end, however, the first group won and it was agreed that it was in the better interest of the Yoruba nation to be a part of the transition programme. As someone argued then, a good General knows he must rest his army in moments of respite to allow them recuperate and garner energy for the next battle. There was a strong proviso though. Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group would only be willing to do business with those identified as "progressive minded." This, they said, was the "irreducible minimum." They would not be found in the same party with the "Abacha politicians." The policy of non-fraternisation continued. Their political chastity had to be maintained. First, they took their People's Consultative Forum and teamed up with the crowd that formed the People's Democratic Party. In fact, one of them, Chief Bola Ige, later claimed to have written the manifesto of the party. But they soon realised that the marriage wasn't going to work. Of course, they would have nothing to do with the All People's Party, which was seen as the haven of the so-called Abacha politicians. So, they decided to carve out their own space and formed the Alliance for Democracy, AD. The Abubakar government bent the rules to get the party registered after it failed to meet the mandatory minimum requirement. Yet it soon dawned on the purists that there was only one way to go. Minimise themselves to their Yoruba nation or sterilise their conscience a little bit and reach out to a bigger party of the two, even if with a hundred meter pole and gun for the Presidency. Surprising many watchers, they settled for the latter and jumped into bed with the APP in an alliance that agreed that the AD supplied the presidential candidate. And this, as they say, was the moment of the loss of innocence.

Ige and Falae emerged as the two leading contenders for the Presidential ticket of the APP/AD alliance. The primaries, however, was an exclusively AD affair. In the end, Chief Olu Falae emerged as the candidate. However, the manner of that election could hardly be passed off as even approximately democratic. The exercise was in fact, almost clandestine. In the end it was clear that the man that emerged was the one whom the gods, led by Adesanya and other wise old men in the party, Ayo Adebanjo, Ayo Opadokun, Solanke Onasanya and the rest had been positively disposed. Ige felt injured and the former governor who is also the deputy leader of Afenifere, the same post that Adesanya was holding in the time of Papa Ajasin, never really got over the injury. Ige of course, had his own followings who felt robbed by the outcome of the selection. This was the point the centre began to give.

AD lost the presidential election but won overwhelmingly in the six states of the south-west. But inspite of this resounding victory at the regional level, murmurings had started to graduate into loud grumblings about some old men who have constituted themselves into a mafia in the party and would not allow anything to happen except by their say so. In the various states, those who lost out were accusing the Afenifere elders for their political woes. From Funso Williams in Lagos to Mobolaji Osomo in Ondo and the various Houses of Assemblies, everyone was crying about the "Ijebu Mafia", made up of Chief Adesanya, Chief Olanihun Ajayi, Adebanjo and Onasanya.

Bola Ige's Pound of Flesh
Not long after he lost the presidential ticket of the APP/AD alliance, Ige got a sumptuous consolation prize in his appointment, first as the Minister of Power and Steel and later that of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. But sources close to the minister said that even with this appointment, the eloquent lawyer refused to be persuaded. Rather, he saw his appointment as a strategic position to dismantle the strangehold of the Adesanya team in the South West to create in roads for future elections. Soon, Ige began to run on the opposing lane with his AD and Afenifere counterparts who did not like the manner in which the former governor was appointed. They felt if Obasanjo was going to involve the AD in his government, invitation to serve in such government should have been routed through the party and not individual members. Ige thought differently. Soon, he began to speak like government officials in PDP jersey and not party representative in a government. They were, to say the least, scandalised, when Ige declared, in a sudden volte face, that the Sovereign National Conference, a cardinal principle of his party was no longer necessary. "That is going back on what the party believes. It is not the views of the Alliance for Democracy, it is not the view of Afenifere," declared Adebanjo, who also is a member of the Presidential Technical Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.

Few days after, the Afenifere leaders met in Ijebu Igbo to examine the political idolatory of Ige. They thought if party discipline was to be maintained, then no one should be too big to be disciplined. A suspension from the party was proposed. But the old men knew that suspension is a double edge sword, casualties could be listed either ways. The political cost was thus counted and the idea was dropped afterwards. Although the Afenifere leadership denied ever contemplating suspending Ige, the OPC leader, Frederick Fasheun disclosed that his support was solicited for the project. He said the leaders wanted him to make his army available for the job, becasue they believed Ige was already recruiting thugs to disrupt the meeting. Fasheun said he had declined and instead warned the two sides of the implications of their actions. But the damage had already been done.

The battle raged quietly, or so it seemed until late in 1999 when the problem degenerated to a battle for influence at the party level. Ige was one of the strong backers of the Adamu Song faction and was said to have particularly encouraged the suspension of Ambassador Yussuf Mamman as the protem national chairman of the party. Leading party men from Oyo and Osun, where Ige calls the shot were strongly in support of his and teamed up behind the Governor Niyi Adebayo led National Convention Committee against the Afenifere-backed Mamman Yussuf. This festering crisis made it impossible for the party to hold its convention throughout 1999, even in the face of threats from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). And when the convention finally held November last year, the collapse of the party was brought into full display. Two separate conventions were held in two venues in Abuja. One session, organised by the Afenifere leadership of Adesanya was to return Yusuf Mamman as the substantive Chairman of the party. The other camp led by Ige with the active backing of the AD governors swung Ahmed Abdulkadri into office. In the end, it was the Ige group that was recognised by the INEC.

Since that convention, Adesanya and his group, have been licking their wounds and threatening to take the matter before the courts. But what happened at the convention was only a manifestation of a protracted battle to make the old men see the line between the Afenifere and the AD. They see no difference in the two. For as Adebanjo said, they are only two sides of the same coin and there was no way Afenifere would let AD be, for this would amount to a parent watching his son go wayward without complaining in the name of freedom. Many did not agree with this position, particularly the non-Yoruba members of the party and the governors who were tired of being treated like mere head boys by the Afenifere elders and wanted a break. "AD had a fairly Nigerian-wide outlook. It was a platform on which we started working. But gradually you couldn't differentiate between AD and Afenifere. Afenifere is a socio-cultural, non-political organisation of Yorubas. On the other hand, AD is a Nigerian wide party. Gradually, the leadership, particularly Adesanya, Ajayi, Onasanya and Adebanjo just became the only personalities that decide what happens at both the Afenifere and AD." This was how Dr. Tunji Otegbeye, a party stalwart summed it up in a discussion with THISDAY last year. Others have similar complaints. The state governors have complaint of incessant meetings. Sometimes, they would be invited for meetings in Ijebu Igbo four times in a month. They eventually stopped attending. This group has a strong father in Ige. Together, they swung the Abuja convention coup hoping it would liberate the party from the Ijebu Igbo conclave of elders and "give it a truly national outlook as envisioned by the founding fathers, four years ago," Ige had told newsmen.

In a telephone chat with THISDAY Friday night, the Ekiti State governor, Niyi Adebayo emphasised the need to separate the AD from Afenifere. Asked whether this will not affect the fortune of the party in the South West, he retorted, "who knows Afenifere in Ado-Ekiti? They cannot try anything here. They attempted to cause factions here but they failed...AD won in Ekiti because I was the flag bearer. Political power is not about noise in the papers, it's you people (the press) that promote these people," he declared.

Enter the YCE
Towards the end of last year, a new organisation emerged that called itself Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) or Igbimo Agba Yoruba. Although it is led by the septugenarian, Pa Emmanuel Alayande, the prime mover behind this organisation is a retired Chief Justice and Attorney General of the old Oyo state in the second republic, Chief Adewale Thompson declared that the major objectives of the organisation is to fashion effective ways to achieve Yoruba unity and secure greater participation of the Yoruba in future national affairs. "Igbimo Agba Yoruba came into being to arrest the downward trend of civic awareness in Yoruba land before it is too late. In African culture primary importance is placed on the role of elders as guardians of tradition, which is a matrix of our social order," he told President Obasanjo when the Council paid him a visit few days after its formation in Ibadan, Oyo State.

This group also has in its fold, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, a former minister of works and housing under Abacha, Chief Richard Akinjide, Dr. Tunji Otegbeye, Otunba Mohammed Jobi-Fele, Dr. Olu Agunloye, Alhaji Yekini Adeojo and a host of others.

Although the objective of the coucil as stated above appears innocuous enough, it was soon to be clear, what the real intentions behind the organisation were. Few days after the convening of the highly successful 5th Pan-Yoruba Congress in Ibadan by the Afenifere which was attended by an estimated 20,000 delegates cutting across all section of Yoruba lands and party affiliation, the YCE announced that it was organising its own congress. Going by the level and spread of attendance at the Pan-Yoruba Congress, any other congress would have been readily superfulous. But it was not. Because the objectives were different. According to YCE, Afenifere cannot claim to be all-embracing or an umbrella group for the Yoruba. In a statement issued by Justice Thompson to justify the duplicate Congress, it was declared that "Afenifere's restrictive style i.e politics of exclusion the group has adopted in its operation where a small clique of people have arrogated themselves the monopoly of wisdom and the authority of the Alpha and the Omega in the running of the affairs of the entire race has not helped matters," it said and went on to lament that the declaration by the Afenifere that it is an affiliate of the AD, "(this)automatically destroyed the legitimacy of the group to speak for the teeming millions of Yoruba who are neither in politics at all nor in AD." It then went on to describe Adesanya as "self-conceited and unamenable to corrections." Thompson also claimed that his organisation was prompted by "bitter protests" from traditional rulers.

In the build up to the 5th Pan-Yoruba Congress, a PDP member, Dr. Olukayode Oshin-Ariyo had called on Adesanya to resign his leadership of Afenifere and membership of the AD if he truly intends to remain the leader of the Yorubas. He said otherwise, PDP members in Oyo state would be compelled to boycott the Congress. This argument is not any different from the one that informed the YCE. And the Afenifere fired back immediately, declaring that neither Chief Awolowo nor Chief Ajasin needed to resign their membership of political parties before they led the Yoruba nation. This comparison is yet another crux of the matter.

Many had pointed out that neither Awolowo nor Ajasin needed to be elected. "Their immense contributions to the Yoruba rare was recognised and they were simply accepted," said an APP chieftain. The implication of this statement is this. The fact that Adesanya was elected removes from the order of spontaneous and natural succession. And this leads to yet another point of conflict. Age is an important factor of hierarchy in Yoruba land. And going by this criteria, Pa Alayande at 90, would certainly have emerged as the natural successor to Ajasin in 1997. Like Thompson agrily retorted to reporters recently, "We are saying we are Yoruba elders, you are talking about Adesanya, who is Adesanya?"

Yes, but Adesanya was the NADECO leader that held Abacha to a constant battle for almost four year. He was the "Apamaku" that miraculously survived the assassins bullets. He was the uncompromsing warrior. THISDAY asked Chief Thompson in his Ibadan home on Thursday last week if there is any other Yoruba man that had done as much for the Yoruba in terms of struggle as Chief Adesanya, age aside. He said while he acknowledges the contribution of Adesanya, so many others also did a lot if not more, "but because we don't make noise in the newspapers does not mean that we didn't do anything," he said.(See box for full interview).

What rings out from all these is that yet again, the Yoruba nation is caught in another vile personality contest, that may yet select its own casualties well outside the rank of the old men currently locked in the battle.

Yet again, who is the Awoist?
One of the most important dignitaries at the YCE's version of the Pan-Yoruba Congress was the matriach of the Awo dynasty, Chief H.I.D Awolowo. Her son, Oluwole Awolowo has also openly identified with the Igbimo. The Awolowos are said not to be happy with the self-proclaimed Awo disciples who have largely ignored the family but are rather assiduously invoking the late sage's name to feather their own political nest. She is also said not to be happy with the way Adesanya and co. have turned the attention of the Yoruba race from Ikenne to Ijebu Igbo.

Another intresting dimension to this conflict is the struggle to out-Awo one another. Ige once claim that he has more Awo in him than even some blood children of the man. From Adesanya to Ebenezer Babatope, from Adebanjo to Jakande, from Adewale Thompson to Pa Alayande and so many others. All struggle to be identified with the Awo mystique and see the Awo identity as a sure fire talisman for any political project. But perhaps, only Awo would know who his true disciples are.

The Obasanjo connection
Regardless of the outstanding victory Obasanjo has attained at the national election, that he could not even win a single local government among his own Yoruba people would remain a major blot to that victory. And he knew how it happened. Therefore, in the 2003 election machine being so noisily warmed up, it would surely be in the President's interest to find ways of creating in road into Yoruba land, especially now that the northern support is not as certain.

Many analysts see the appointment of the disgruntled Ige into the government as the master stroke that he needed to break the rank of the Afenifere and the AD. And the strategy sure has worked.

It would be recalled that Ige as the governor of Oyo state was the one who made Chief Thompson the Attorney-General of the state. They also have a close bond in the Tribune newspapers where Ige writes Uncle Bola's column and Thompson writes Megaforce. They also constitute the core of the largely ignored Ibadan Mafia even though, Ige hailed from Esa Oke in Osun State and Thompson hailed from Ilesha.

What more, the sentiments in Yoruba land for setting up a parallel structure to Afenifere were right. All the esrtwhile "renegage" or "Quisling" politicians are now being offered rehabilitation with the 'Igbimo' that had proclaimed its intention to forgive and forget. But the inability to forgive and forget may yet be another fuel for YCE. And this is for the traditional rulers, whom Thompson claimed were angrily demanding alternative to Afenifere. Could this be because Adesanya grouped them with the traitors in 1998?

Even as the battle raged in many fronts, Adesanya felt it is not an irreconciliable problem. Speaking with THISDAY on phone Friday night, Chief Adesanya waxing philosophical, declared the best of human emotion is love and he believed this will see the Yoruba nation through as none would be able to enslave a whole nation to his individual ambition. Is he speaking for the YCE too?

It was reported last week that the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade is trying to arrange a truce between the two groups. It was the second time such meeting would be taking place. However, only the YCE was present at the meetings. However, when THISDAY spoke with Thompson, he denied that the meeting with Ooni is on the feud with Afenifere, even while claiming that every Afenifere member that is up 60 is a member of Igbimo. Chief Adesanya later explained Afenifere's absence at the Ooni meeting, saying that they were not invited. Therefore, he could not say what the meeting was about.

Another effort to call peace is that of Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, whom through his Solidarity Council has been attempting to get the two groups to sheathe their swords. In the last week of December 2000, he called a meeting of the warring groups along with Bishop Ayo Ladigbolu of the Ilesha Methodist Archdiocese, but the farthest they could go was to get the two parties to agree that they would no longer do battles on the pages of newspapers. But, have they kept even that?