Yoruba will continue to protect Nigeria’s democracy —Ajimobi

OYO State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has reiterated the fact that the Southwest investment in education has put it at an advantageous position for championing the progress of Nigeria by continually protecting the country’s democracy.

Senator Ajimobi made this statement on Friday at a biennial colloquium organised for Mr Dipo Famakinwa, the late Director General of Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission in conjunction with the Yoruba Academy and Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), at the House of Chiefs, state secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, on Friday.

The occasion was attended by Famakinwa’s wife, Ibironke, Chief Ayo Afolabi, Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN), Baale Makoko, Barrister Adekunle Olaiya, President Yoruba Council of Youth, Barrister Dotun Hassan, Mrs Adeyinka Bello, Mrs Yemi Alabi and Mrs Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, among others.

At the colloquium with theme, “Restructuring: Ending the Talk and Starting the Walk,” Ajimobi said: “Most Yoruba people want a Nigeria that operates as a properly managed modern country- a land of order, law, freedom, justice, progress, science, technology, opportunity, competitiveness, productivity and prosperity, the kind of country that all Yoruba people desire and want.

“We have a tradition and record of protecting democracy and striving for progress and having invested in Western education much earlier and deeply than any other Nigerian nationality, the Yoruba people have expended considerable resources and capabilities to help orderly progress and prosperity in Nigeria. The Yoruba nation, with a coherent vision and cohesive voice agitate, push and ensure the actualisation of its development aspirations.”

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Ajimobi then eulogised the virtues of the late DG, stating that Famakinwa contributed “to the strategic and tactical rethink of Western Nigeria had been instructive and pivotal,” saying, “to pay tribute to and sustain the memory and good work of an individual of such repute is fundamentally apt.”

Earlier, the Director General, DAWN Commission, Seye Olaleye said, “Dipo was a man pf many parts. He ate, slept and dreamt the development of the Southwestern region of Nigeria.”

He added that the commission organised the colloqoium in order to sustain the seed Famakinwa had sown.

Other speakers posited that Restructuring should start by reclaiming our dying languages and bastardized culture, adding that restructuring will only begin when our political leaders, particularly the legislators and governors, start calling for it. If we cannot vote the right people who believe in restructuring into position, we cannot escape this doom bedeviling Nigeria.