Examining situations and making informed decisions are the two planks on which the aphorism ‘Yoruba ro’nú’ stands. The dictum, “the unexamined life is not worth living” given by Socrates aligns with Yoruba ro’nú (Yoruba think), and both should be a useful maxim for anyone. Yoruba ro’nú was a charge first made popular by the legendary Hubert Ogunde in one of his numerous insightful songs. Interestingly, I heard the song for the first time from my mother, Catherine Onukwufo Nwaoko. She sang the song to me while telling me her perception of and experiences in the events that preceded the Nigerian civil war. She said the song stuck in her memory not just because Ogunde’s music was unique and beautiful, but that the song was not too long from the time of the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war. To her, it was a prophetic message by Chief Ogunde and a dire call on the people of the Western Region to soul-search before something telling happened. She told me that the Yoruba ro’nú charge was meant for the people to embark on a thorough examination of the socio-political ills of the time. They were also required to go pensive on the course the Nigerian nation was navigating and decide if it was befitting of a people so educated and so sophisticated.
In another track in the 1966 album, Ogunde sang: Eyin Yoruba e duro sam sam! Bi e o tie le ja, e duro de ojo ibo. Ibo la o fi gba ese olote mo lau lau. Ibo la o fi so o, ibo la o fi han. A kii se alagbara ma m’ero baba ole, a kii se eni oro kò dùn lasan lasan. Ire o, Ilayi Oluwa, k’o je ki ti wa dùn n’igbehin o! Loosely translated, the song literally means: “Yoruba, stand firm. Even if you could fight, it’s better to wait for the Election Day. We shall use our votes to sweep clean the footprints of saboteurs. We will speak with our votes. We will show our strength with our votes. We are not the powerful man that lacks wisdom, who actually is the father of the weak…” etc. These words were weighted and direct. They words were focussed on some targeted end.
These words of Ogunde came back because of the raging electioneering campaigns for governorship seats. The presidential election is done with and other things about it have shifted to the courts, however, the Yoruba ro’nú (ronu) mantra has remained in the rancid governorship campaigns. This ro’nú charge almost always gains currency only during political seasons. It also didn’t fail to take its reserved place this time round. Yoruba ro’nú was – and rightly so – a huge part of the presidential campaigns because it’s proper to weigh your options and make solid decisions. It has also remained part of the governorship campaigns especially in Lagos State. There, it has, however, sadly become a divisive tool. Yoruba ro’nú has been mishandled to mean ethnic baiting in the governorship campaign in Lagos State. The commendable need to think through a candidate to vote for has transmuted to a source of division, crisis and ugly verbal violence in the state. The sad episode of stoking of tribal and divisive thoughts in Lagos State and indeed elsewhere in the country is not just sad, it detracts from whatever progress we thought we had made since the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999.
Who prescribed that the need to ro’nú – either as a group or as an individual – and the need to stir the man in you is supposed to be at electioneering campaign periods only? Why should this virtue also not be at the instance of politicians and political office holders? When we ro’nú only by the prompting or chicanery of politicians, and at election periods only, it means that either as Yoruba or Igbo or Urhobo or Ebira, we have missed the point. Any one of us, who will not ro’nú until a political juggernaut with vested interest, whose political power and fortunes are actually in our hands, prompts to do so, should not be a credible part of us. Such a person, regardless of his standing, is a leech or a virus disrobing the health of our collective national life.
There’s something beyond the ordinary that calls for a people to think only when elections are upon us. There should be deep thinking when some matters show up at our National Assembly, like the discarded ‘ruga’ and the controversial water bill which were presented and re-presented at the National Assembly in various forms. We should all also ro’nú when we recall how insecurity festered upon the nation and we all brooded. Insecurity that affected us all spared no ethnic nationality, and it triggered the idea of regional security outfits like the Amotekun and Ebube Agu. The need to be safe and the desire for the government to provide security support for the people was beyond tribe and tongue. We should also remember that regional security cover was resisted in some quarters in the country. That should lead to a reflection and soul-searching.
There are very many things that should cause Yoruba and all of us to look inwards when we think of how Nigeria is currently being run. We have causes to ro’nú beyond the seasonal politics of who to elect that period. It shouldn’t be about just elections, after which all the people outside the corridors of power go back to their stifling suffering.
It is left for imagination how Nigerian masses being used as political tools perceive the country. If they ever ponder over the current naira drought and the shenanigans surrounding the CBN cash policy, the political cannon fodders should be able to decipher who their true enemies are and where they reside. It also seems that everyone has recoiled like a snail from the troubles of the country’s intractable and inexplicable fuel supply crisis. We no longer remember that we have a petrol supply crisis and that where we see petrol, we don’t have the cash to buy it. These debilitating issues know no tribal bounds; they have no ethnic barriers. The real troubles cut across all strata of the society. The real troubles have killed enterprises, ruined businesses and crippled families’ finances. Yet, Nigerians would leave their tormentors to square up with themselves and highlight artificial barriers moulded by mischievous politicians. These issues are common denominators of our collective poverty, and they require that we all ro’nú, whether we are Tiv, Engeni, Kanuri, Yoruba, Efik, Hausa, Ngas, Kalabari, Igbo or Fulani. We should all ro’nú on how to make this country worth living for all of us, not the other way round. We can start by asking ourselves if we love the country as it is. Do we love how the country is being run? Isn’t there anything we can do about it? We can echo the question by Robert Nesta (Bob) Marley: “Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?”
When you are required as a necessity to roll up your sleeves, the Yoruba will come with the water-in-the-pot euphemism and tell you rather simply: Omi n be l’amu. Nigerians, there is work to be done, omi n be l’amu! For Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Omi n be l’amu o! By May 29 – that’s about two and a half months’ time – when this better-forgotten administration is expected to have passed, Nigeria should breathe! Then Nigerians would hold their breath in anticipation of what the new administration would come up with. There’s a lot of work to be done and the extent of which should not be lost on the in-coming administration.
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