Olusanmi C. Amujo

The Yoruba Nation posted an article praising the educational achievements of the Okun Yoruba people in the present Kogi State for producing more than 550 academic Professors. Below is the excerpt from the article published by the Yoruba Nation

“MEET OUR OKUN SUB-YORUBA NATION, THE MOST EDUCATED SUB-ETHNIC GROUP IN NIGERIA WITH OVER 550 PROFESSORS. WHILE THE TOWN OF OFFA IN KWARA STATE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS THE SINGLE TOWN WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF PROFESSORS IN NIGERIA AND EKITI STATE ACCLAIMED AS THE MOST EDUCATED STATE IN THE COUNTRY, THE OKUN PEOPLE OF KOGI STATE ARE ARGUABLY THE MOST EDUCATED SUB-ETHNIC GROUP IN NIGERIA. THEY ARE ESTIMATED TO HAVE A POPULATION OF ABOUT 800,000 PEOPLE”.

https://www.nairaland.com/5968656/most-educated-sub-ethnic-group-nigeria

The Yoruba Nation should be commended for showcasing the educational accomplishment of their kith and kin in Okunland. Also, is important to commend the wisdom of more than 90 percent of those who commented positively on the noble educable educational accomplishments of the Okun people by parading more than 550 academic Professors with a population less than 1,000,000. Indeed the names of some Professors from Okunland are still missing from the list.
It is disheartening to read that in the attempt of a few Yoruba people, maybe 10 percent of the people who commented on the post, to downsize the towering educational accomplishment of the Okun people, they asked what has the education of the Yoruba people done for South West and why are the Fulani people ruling them despite their high education? These questions are borne out of ignorance or a tactical means to take the wind out of the sails of the main thrust of the article because they have nothing to do with those academic scholars who had distinguished themselves in their chosen careers. Those accomplished scholars are not politicians; these questioned should be directed to the politicians involved in governance. While those people are pretending to downsize the importance of education, do they love to experience the endemic Almajeri culture in the North? Would they have preferred South West to be grossly uneducated like the larger segment of the population of North West/East today? Those people who made those comments demonstrated severe ingratitude for trivializing the laudable manpower development vision that Awolowo laboured tirelessly at his peril to ensure South West becomes a bastion of intellectualism.
It is important to educate a few of our people that tried to downgrade the educational accomplishments of the Okun Yoruba people that if the Okun people have obtained 30% of the massive opportunities that the Yoruba people in South West enjoyed in Nigeria from the 1960s to now, they would have produced more than 1,000 to 1,500 academic professors. To whom more is given much is required. Awolowo gave MORE to the Yoruba people in South West region than what Okun Yoruba people got from being in the North Central, therefore, MUCH is required of the Yoruba people in South West than their kith and kin in Okunland in the production of academic professors. It is imperative to state in an unmistakable term for history and posterity that Awolowo did not intentionally promote the welfare of the Yoruba people in South West region more than his people in Okunland; he fought ruthlessly politically in the 1950s to ensure he included them in the Western region. Unfortunately for him, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello frustrated his many strident calls and struggle to merge Yoruba in the entire North Central (Kogi and Kwara States) to the Western region. But, while Zik/NCNC joined forces with Ahmadu Bello/NPC to truncate the merger of the Yoruba region in the North Central with the Western region, the British colonial administrators cleverly slashed a huge chunk of the northern part of the Eastern region and merged it with the eastern side of Northcentral.
Let me explain to some Yoruba people in South West who are ignorant of the enervating conditions under which the Okun people in the Middle Belt operated before independence and up to the current dispensation in Nigeria below.
First, Awolowo gave the Western region Free Education in the 1950s. This revolutionary educational policy decision catapulted the human capital development of the region substantially to a phenomenal height never experienced in entire Africa. However, the children of the people of Okunland in the 1950s didn't enjoy Free Education under the Northern People's Congress in the Middle Belt as their kith and kin did under Action Group. They paid for the education of their children. Yet, in all the elections held during the First Republic, they massively voted for Obafemi Awolowo because they knew that Awo/Action Group loved them and struggled to incorporate them under a monolithic Western region. In the 1950s, the NPC subtly and tactically persecuted the Okun Yoruba people for supporting the Action Group by denying them development infrastructure. Thus, the Yoruba people in South West had a superlative giant head-start in term of educational advantage in the 1950s over the Okun people in the Middle Belt. Although a few of the Okun Yoruba people living in the Western region in the 1950s might have benefited marginally from Awolowo's Free Education Programme.
During the second wave of Awolowo's Unity Party of Nigeria's Free Education from 1979 to 1983 when the Yoruba people in South West enjoyed additional free educational opportunities, the Okun people in Kwara State paid for the education of their children under the NPN administration of Adamu Atta between 1979 and 1983. Also, the NPN government did not provide any noteworthy infrastructural development in the area. Undoubtedly, the Okun people massively supported the UPN in all elections held in the region during the Second Republic. They would have benefited from the Free Education Programme under the UPN government of Dr Cornelius Adebayo, but Buhari-Idiagbon struck in December 1983. Although the children of some Okun people living in South West during the epoch would have benefited marginally from the UPN's Free Education.
It is imperative to underscore the fact that the majority of the Okun people are Christians. Given this realisation, the North often marginalised them in terms of political appointments and socioeconomic development. Almost all the Ahmadu Bello University's Colleges of Agriculture or Colleges of Administration in the North established by the NPC or the subsequent governments led by the Northerners have attained full university statuses. Only the College of Agriculture in Kabba is yet to be transformed into a full university in the North today. The “SINS” of the Okun people which accounted for why the Northern leaders did not transform the College of Agriculture in Kabba to a full-fledged university are that they are majorly Christians and they are devoted supporters of the political vision of the Yoruba people in Nigeria. These were part of the underlying reasons why James Falake was technically precluded from inheriting the electoral fortunes of the APC after the death of Abubakar Audu in 2015.
Thus, the Okun people suffered marginalisation for supporting the political organization, agenda and vision of the Western region during the First Republic and the Second Republic. Secondly, they suffered and are still suffering marginalisation for being predominantly Christians. Even if the Yoruba people in South West are suffering marginalisation in Nigeria today, their marginalisation is still a third-degree marginalisation compared to the first-degree marginalisation of the Okun people in North Central.
Below is the list of higher institutions in Kogi State:
1. Salem University Lokoja.
2. Federal University Lokoja.
3. School of Mines Osara.
4. Kogi State University Ayingba.
5. Kogi State Polytechnic Lokoja.
6. Federal College of Education Okene.
7. Federal Polytechnic Idah.
8. Kogi State College or Education Ankpa
9. Kogi State College of Education (Technical) Kabba.
10. Kogi State University of Science and Technology has been proposed for Osara this week by Gov Yahaya Bello.
While South West is inundated with universities, polytechnics, colleges of education from the 1960s up to now, Okunland has a single college of education established in 2010. The nearness of educational institutions to the people is one of the critical criteria for accessing good education. In the 1960s, University of lbadan, Obafemi Awolowo University and University of Lagos were established in the Western region where the Yoruba people within the region would hardly travel more than 200 kilometres to access university education. However, the Okun people travelled more than 450 kilometres to the Western region or the Northern region or the Eastern region to access higher education in the 1960s. Even, they had to travel over 450 kilometres to the University College Ibadan from 1948 to 1959 to access university education, whereas their kith and kin in the Western region did not need to travel so far. If there were universities in Ilorin and Lokoja in the 1960s, the Okun people would have produced more than 1,500 Professors by now. Many of those who took careers in the education sector and other sectors in the area who wanted to acquire university degrees and postgraduate degrees could not abandon their jobs to pursue studies in far-flung cities.
Finally, if some people from South West who do not appreciate the dint of hardwork of their Okun Yoruba people in achieving this arduous academic accomplishment by producing more than 550 Professors despite all the daunting vicissitudes that buffeted them in the Middle Belt, they must be suffering from monumental ignorance about the unpleasant circumstances under which they laboured to produce those scholars with intimidating academic credentials. They should close their faces in shame because if the Okun people had got the opportunities that the 2 waves of Obafemi Awolowo's Free Education Programmes in the 1950s and between 1979 and 1983 afforded the people in South West, the Okun people would have produced more than 1,500 Professors in Nigeria. Awolowo gave his utmost best to the Yoruba people in South West, whereas the Okun people did not receive commensurate opportunities in North Central. Siblings must tell themselves some hard truths occasionally so that they can appreciate the value of themselves.

Olusanmi C. Amujo
Specialises in Business & Economic History, and
Corporate Marketing (Corporate Branding,
Corporate Identity and Corporate Reputation).

You people just open your mouths and throw around statistical lies and data.

Where is it documented that Okun people are the most educated minority group, have you counted the number of professors of law in Urhobo and Itshekiri?

LaboPolitics:
You people just open your mouths and throw around statistical lies and data.

Where is it documented that Okun people are the most educated minority group, have you counted the number of professors of law in Urhobo and Itshekiri?

You can backup your claim with their names and schools just like what Okun people did here

https://www.nairaland.com/5968656/most-educated-sub-ethnic-group-nigeria


https://www.legitfinder.com/article/see-the-most-educated-sub-ethnic-group-in-nigeria-with-over-550-professors/

Waiting patiently for them

Simongm:


You can backup your claim with their names and schools just like what Okun people did here

https://www.nairaland.com/5968656/most-educated-sub-ethnic-group-nigeria

You said you have 550 professors but mention less than 20 on your thread. Even the little-known koma tribe that live on rocks and in caves in Adamawa has more than that.

yoruba jibiti...

LaboPolitics:


You said you have 550 professors but mention less than 20 on your thread. Even the little-known koma tribe that live on rocks and in caves in Adamawa has more than that.

yoruba jibiti...

Stop displaying your ignorance on a public forum like this, go through that link because its still on nairaland in case you are browsing with freebasics. You can as well make use of calculator to confirming the numbers.
I guess you have problem with numbers.

Simongm:


Stop displaying your ignorance on a public forum like this, go through that link because its still on nairaland in case you are browsing with freebasics. You can as well make use of calculator to confirming the numbers.

Oga Ade, you mentioned 550 professor, give us the list and stop your fraudulent yoruba way of thinking. Jibiti people.

Na dem dey don start