By Taju Tijani
“You can jail a revolutionary buy you can’t jail a revolution,” – Fred Hampton.
In the winter of 1969, a heavily armed, FBI-backed team of police officers stormed an apartment on the West Side of Chicago and killed one of the sleeping inhabitants. The man killed in that wintry night was the 21 years old Fred Hampton, the prodigious revolutionary and a potent force of the Black Panther Party. Like Igboho Oosha, Hampton was fearless. Like Igboho Oosha, Hampton’s galvanizing leadership was to champion the struggle of the black community in the face of virulent racism, poor housing, black poverty, police brutality, political suppression and racial injustice in all areas of life.
Like Igboho Oosha, Hampton was a very relatable person who had talismanic and superhuman power. Like Igboho Oosha, Hampton was protective and showed zeal and commitment towards black people who had suffered discrimination, domination and injustice all through their history. As Hampton was organizing, empowering and sensitizing his people, a secretive counter force was taking stock. Alarmed by the power, followership and messianic messages of Hampton and the Black Panthers, the FBI began a race to tear apart and bring Hampton down. The levers of power then concluded that Hampton was a radical threat and if allowed to grow could feasibly overthrow the current order.
The FBI then had Fred Hampton in its sight. A Judas, traitor or saboteur must be sought within the black community to bring down Fred Hampton, clip his wings and possibly kill him. FBI, through painstaking patience, found a traitor in the murky and convoluted heart of William O’Neal – the man who would betrayed him. O’Neal was courted, funded and groomed by FBI. He rose through Black Panther Party and became Hampton’s bodyguard. Every minute, he plotted and schemed on ways to destroy Hampton. Through his unrivalled access, O’Neal knew every move of Hampton.
Before the midnight raid and assassination of Hampton on 4th December, 1969, O’Neal had drawn a detailed plan of Hampton’s apartment for the FBI including his bedroom. On the day of the FBI’s clandestine mission, William O’Neal (the odale ore) secretly spiked Fred Hampton’s drink with barbiturate in order to sedate him and make him a sitting target for the FBI assassin.
At 4.00am, the FBI assassination squad stormed Hampton’s apartment and shot him twice. He died through the collaborative forces of evil, saboteur, subversive, traitor, betrayer, informer, apostate and a turncoat. Years later, William O’Neal committed suicide. The echo of Matthew 10:36 could be heard in my head: “A man’s enemies will be those of his household.” Igboho Oosha be careful!
In Biblical time, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, came from heaven to offer salvation, freedom from oppression and tyranny of the religious Jews and the Pharisees. He was seen as a radical, a revolutionary and a disrupter of the religious status quo who had placed the people in perpetual ignorance and exploitation. The race to destroy Jesus Christ ignited a mad competition for his life. Herod had wanted to destroy baby Jesus but for the divine intervention of the Almighty. The plan was aborted before execution. Before long, an inside traitor had to be cultivated to betray the young, unknown, radical preacher called Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews.
Caiphas the chief priest, the scribes and the elders of the people began a manhunt for a traitor inside Jesus circle. A bounty was set on his head. Thirty shekel of silver was the price for the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. A taker in the traitorous mould of Judas Iscariot had to emerge. With a mortal kiss from Judas Iscariot, Jesus was sold out to his enemies. Pontius Pilate the governor, the chief priests and elders of the people jubilated that they got their troubler. Jesus was crucified through the deft hand of Judas Iscariot. Like O’Neal, Iscariot also took his own life.
Please tell Igboho Oosha to note this very well. Bible recorded that once Jesus was caught in the fork of his enemies, “all disciples forsook him and fled.” As I write, debate on Igboho Oosha’s life is being plotted by our DSS just as the notorious COINTELPRO, the shady, counter-intelligence arm of the FBI brought about the downfall of Fred Hampton through William O’Neal who was the wolf in sheep clothing inside the Black Panther inner circle.
Social media talk heads, trend analysts and chattering classes are behaving like feral animals. They are digging deep into the trenches and demanding action against the despoliation of the Yoruba land. Like everything with the Yoruba, opinions are polarized on the way forward. However, what is faultless in all their ethnic effusions for the liberation of the Yoruba fatherland from Fulani capture and killings, is their collective agreement that Yoruba governors, Obas, Chiefs, elders, Yoruba apologists for Buhari, office seekers, contract hunters, cowards, Yoruba looters and ambitious Yoruba politicians are far more deadly enemies of the Yoruba than even the so called Fulani bandits.
That is, the jomi-jokes, jegudujeras, olote, the agbabodis, the seku-seye of Yoruba land are all calculating, scheming, plotting and working to undermine the gains and consciousness of the Yoruba people triggered by the rise of Igboho Oosha and his followers. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban and Asiwaju of Lagos has been conveniently silent. He has lost his balls. His action is a throwback to his eerie silence during the Lekki massacre. Ordinary people with their eloquent voices have been proclaiming the necessity of Yoruba nationhood and partition from a false federalism that had put Yoruba in perpetual disadvantage, slavery and political castration. Yet the Yoruba could not find support in their critical hour from Tinubu – a man who rode on the back of the Yoruba to his behemoth-like political stature!
First dice of cowardice. Governor Dapo Abiodun has made a fiery denunciation when it emerged that he invited Igboho Oosha to Ogun State to do the needful against the internal enemies called Fulani bandits. In his gallant and chivalrous manner, Igboho Oosha rode into Oja Odan. Fulani fled at the wailing and warring voice of Yoruba newest generalissimo who brooks no nonsense and fears no opponent. In a shameful capitulation, our fearful gink, Tinubu acolyte and Buhari apologist, Governor Dapo Abiodun, denied inviting Igboho Oosha.
Second dice of treachery. Many of the Yoruba Obas are not strident and clear in their support and loyalty to Igboho Oosha’s righteous cause. They speak with forked tongue because their heart is not on the collective resurgence of Yoruba dignity, pride and freedom but on selfish gains like dollars from the cipher at Aso Rock, new Japanese SUV, contracts and freedom from persecution. Mr. Seyi Makinde, the uncharismatic and turncoat governor of Oyo State is an unequivocal adversary of Yoruba freedom. His staccato voice on Igboho Oosha liberation war against the rampaging and cowardly Fulani has been one of betrayal. Makinde’s irony is huge. How could a man in PDP be behaving in a fawning manner towards Mohammadu Buhari to the point of subservience? Is this billionaire governor afraid of the midnight knock from EFCC? Is he on the verge of decamping over to Fulani party called APC?
Third dice of complicity. Fayemi, Oyetola and Sanwo-Olu the chief demagogue of them all, are all silent and could be accused of complicity in the decimation of Yoruba by the Fulani herdsmen and bandits.
Even the erratic jester and megaphone Femi Fani-Kayode who seized Igboho Oosha’s moment for personal advantage is now begging APC for a spot in the party. They are all selling their birthright for a plate of porridge from a Fulani die hard called Mohammadu Buhari who has never hidden his first allegiance to his people and his Islamic religion.
If blood loyalty and holding the fort for your people in their greatest hour of struggle is treasonable felony, pray, who has been more traitorous than a sitting Nigerian leader who squander Nigerian money to develop the Republic of Niger? Who has been more traitorous than the daylight action of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi who met over 700 bandits in Zamfara State? Who should be dealt with and made to face the full force of the law than Governor Bello Matawale of Zamfara State who allowed Gumi to consort and roll out a red carpet reception for fully-armed and combat ready leaders of bandits under our watch? Does the North care for our opinion in the South? Hell no!!!
This writer subscribes to the Biblical truth of Matthew 11:12. The kingdom of Yoruba has been suffering violence, rape, killings and despoliation and the violent must take it by force. With Igboho Oosha, I stand on this very reality!!! The Fulani have a bloody, evil and genocidal agenda against the Yoruba nation. A renegade and outlaw Fulani called Iskili Wakili once controlled Yoruba land of Gbangbangere, Kajola, Magbeje, Konko and Dagbere in the Ibarapa land of Oyo State. Now he is on the run! Is this not a sacrilege, abomination and direct insult to the Yoruba people? Makinde, the matador in Oyo State, has been rendered powerless. When would the Chief Security Officer of Oyo State lead the Fulani police to flush out the outlaws who control a sizeable area of Ibarapa?
The silence of all Yoruba office holders in the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has translated into putting millions of Yoruba people in the full grip of slavery and bondage. The roll call of dishonor include Prof. Yemi Osibajo, Yoruba governors, Femi Gbajabiamila, all Yoruba senators and house of rep members, Ministers and special advisers. The appellation of traitors is understatement. They have all helped in spreading the contagion of cowardice commonly associated with the Yoruba race.
Yoruba are in the throes of emotional ethnicism. Buhari’s regime has been championing this orthodoxy. Buhari sees cows and Fulani as a totem of adoration and awe. He is ready to commit genocide to save these two entities. Throughout the life of his presidency he has been making a gleeful exhibition of his Fulani tribalism. So it is nothing new.
The advantage Buhari has over the Yoruba is the near homogeneity of collective support from his Fulani constituency. They see themselves as blood brothers with rigid allegiance to solidarity no matter the injustices of their actions and inactions on others. Buhari has rendered one Nigeria impotent through his obsession for identity politics of Fulani domination and hegemony.
Collective solidarity is where the fight for the liberation of Yoruba land from foreign Fulani invaders and their internal enablers must be fought and won. Unity should be our strength if we will have a homeland for our future generation. Yoruba land must be shut down through mass mobilization rather than fall into the hand of Fulani herders and their Yoruba collaborators. Never!
Fourth dice of political blindness. Yoruba politicians who are nursing political ambition in 2023, and by extension a Tinubu presidency should go ahead and re-examine their brain. They should re-read the ominous handwriting of mayhem, confusion, anarchy and possibly civil war on the wall. Yoruba are angry. Their elected and appointed leaders are boy-boy to Fulani and slaves to their own ferocious and rapacious greed that had rendered Yoruba as third class citizens in a Fulanised entity called Nigeria.
Igboho Oosha who appeared as a magnet to whom we all should cling is facing Yoruba Afonjas, jomi-jokes, jegudujeras, olote, the agbabodis and the seku-seyes within a space of a month in the trenches. Igboho Oosha is about to be demarked, delegitimized, overawed and maneuvered by Yoruba political elites who are yet to grasp what is coming at them from Fulani.
The voices of Yoruba politicians are divided on Igboho Oosha and the recent ethnic revolt in Ibarapa. For a fact, Yoruba tribal spirit and generational curse is disunity. It manifests itself through the ancestral spirit of Afonja, embedded in the betrayal of his own people. Those emblematic traits of betrayal, treachery and deceit are yet to be exorcised from the humanity of Yoruba people. It is the social and spiritual cancer eating up their possibility of greatness, power and nationhood.
Lastly, any kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. Igboho Oosha must watch and pray lest he falls into the hand of a state sponsored Judas or Jezebel. Fred Hampton was betrayed by William O’Neal and Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot. Yoruba political traitors are about and they must fall down and die. Shandaraba!!!
Igboho Oosha has dared and has called for collective martyrdom in order to recapture Yoruba greatness, honour and dignity. Igboho needs our sacrifice of support and solidarity – now!!!
TT Soundings 