Afenifere commends the six Governors of Western Nigeria for their historic meeting in Abeokuta recently where they took far reaching decisions to promote commonality for the region.
We are thrilled by their decisions spelt out in their communique read by Governor Ibikunle Amosun which spelt out the following :
• “A joint task force and joint actions will be pursued and sustained on security threats to guarantee the safety of lives, property and prosperity of the people of the region.
• “The competitive advantage of constituent states would be harnessed for sustainable regional development.
• “In order to improve the food security of the region, DAWN should convene a regional agric summit to be held in Ibadan.
• “Approval is given for the establishment of a Western Nigeria Export Development Initiative (WENEDI) to drive the export potentials of the region.”
• “A committee be set up for codification of our values and ethos as an instrument of Yoruba uniqueness to strengthen our identity and unity of purpose.”
It is equally salutary that the governors agreed that the artificial boundaries of states, religions, political affiliations, among others, would not be a barrier to regional development and urged all the states to be encouraged to significantly improve bilateral and multilateral co-operation to foster regional development.
We are happy that they have affirmed commitment to the development of our people to override petty party differences .It is not an accident that the Yoruba call party “Pati”(set aside).We must set aside things that divide as we search for verb for our noun in the syntax of national experience
We urge them to match these words with action in order to ensure that the Yoruba nation is restored to the right path of giant developmental strides which the years of unitary rule have derailed us from .It time to resume our march of history.
We must also commend the Governor of Lagos state Mr Akinwumi Ambode under whose watch Lagos State has keyed into Oodua Investment for good to cement the oneness of the Yoruba nation.
It is gratifying to note the sense of history of the Governor in remembering the role the Western Regional Government under Awolowo played in the development of the entire West when Cocoa was our mainstay by committing to use the economic strength of Lagos to rob positively on other states in Yorubaland.
Ambode has on behalf of Lagos State, pledged to invest billions of naira to acquire vast acres of land in the hinterland states of Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Ogun for modern, technologically driven farming. Both raw and processed products from such farms would be brought back to Lagos for effective sales, given its remarkable and huge market potential of the state.
This is quite commendable and realizable within effective partnership with his brother governors so our states can benefit from one another by creating jobs and providing food security .
We urge Yoruba people to key into these strategic goals of the Governors by breaking all mental and artificial barriers that have hitherto been created among a people United by history,culture and and the quest for development.
These are the imperatives of our quest for autonomy within Nigeria via restructuring of the country to have a proper federation as obtained in the federal constitution negotiated by our founding fathers at Independence.
