WHEN IJEBU CALLS, WILL YOU ANSWER? At this defining hour, every son and daughter of Ijebu Land must rise, or history will remember us as the generation that stood by and watched our inheritance slip away

By Otunba (Dr) Abdulfalil Abayomi ODUNOWO

There comes, in the life of every people, a point when silence stops being neutral. It becomes betrayal. For the children of Ijebu Land, that point is here.

For more than six decades, from the closing days of colonial rule to the birth of modern Nigeria, generations of our fathers and mothers carried one firm, unbroken aspiration: greater political recognition, fairness, and a voice worthy of a people whose history is etched in soil, trade, and resilience. Some invested their influence in it. Others gave up careers, fortunes, and peace. Many who carried that dream have now gone to their ancestors. They placed the baton in our hands.

And now history asks, in a voice that won’t be silenced: When Ijebu called, did you answer?
This is not just another election. It isn’t the ambition of one man, one party, or one faction. It’s about whether a people who built one of West Africa’s earliest organised kingdoms, who for centuries controlled the vital trade routes between the Lagos Lagoon and the Yoruba interior, who raised Sungbo’s Eredo, those vast earthen fortifications counted among the largest man-made structures on the African continent, are ready to organise, peacefully and democratically, to claim their rightful place.

The British conquest of 1892 ended our commercial monopoly, but it didn’t erase who we are. Ijebu Province stood among the colonial provinces of the 1920s. Of those roughly twenty to twenty-four old provinces, Ijebu remains the only one still denied statehood. That’s not opinion. That’s the historical record. Equity demands that this chapter be brought to a close.

THIS MUST BE BIGGER THAN PARTY
We will belong to different parties. We will support different candidates. We will debate policy. That’s democracy. Still, there are seasons when the soil that formed us must matter more than the labels that separate us. Ijebu must become the common ground, the non-negotiable centre.
We seek no injustice against any other community. We do not ask that another people be reduced so we may rise. Our claim is simpler, and frankly stronger: equity must matter.
Fairness must matter. History must matter. And Ijebu, whose sons and daughters have given Nigeria governors, senators, industrialists, educators, and the longest-reigning first-class monarch of the modern era, must matter.

YOUR TEN PEOPLE CAN CHANGE HISTORY
Political power isn’t manufactured in air-conditioned conference rooms. It’s built in living rooms, on verandas, in markets, in WhatsApp groups, and at polling units. So the call is plain and urgent:

Activate your circle.
Identify at least ten people, family, schoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, church or mosque members, people in your ward and polling unit. Speak with them. Tell them the story of a kingdom that once regulated trade across the region, that produced early secondary institutions such as Ijebu Ode Grammar School in 1913, that has contributed disproportionately to commerce, education, and public service. Tell them that of all the old provinces, only ours is still waiting. Encourage peaceful participation.

Then ask each of those ten to reach another ten.
One becomes ten.
Ten become one hundred.
One hundred become one thousand.
Thousands become tens of thousands.
And just like that, a private conversation becomes the unmistakable voice of a people.

This is how democratic power is built, not with hatred, not with violence, not with intimidation, but through organisation, persuasion, and the ballot.

BEING IJEBU MUST MEAN SOMETHING
Our heritage cannot stay boxed up in names, festivals, aso-oke, and Ojude Oba. Sometimes heritage demands responsibility. This is one of those moments.

To our elders: lend this cause the weight of your wisdom.
To our traditional and community leaders: call for unity and peaceful civic engagement.
To our professionals and business people: put your networks and organisational strength in service of equity.
To our women: stir the communities that have always drawn courage from your resolve.
To our youth: turn your energy and digital reach toward constructive participation.
To our sons and daughters in the diaspora: distance does not erase duty. Activate your families and friends at home.
And to every ordinary Ijebu man and woman: never think you’re too small to matter. Your circle matters. Your voice matters. Your vote matters. Your polling unit matters.

HISTORY WILL RECORD WHAT WE DO
A generation from now, our children will ask what happened when Ijebu stood at this crossroads.

They will ask: Where were you? Did you speak? Did you organise? Did you participate? Or did you simply watch?

May our answer be clear and proud:
“When Ijebu called, I answered.
When my generation was asked to stand,
I stood.
I activated my circle.
I mobilised my ten.
I defended equity without bitterness.
I participated.
I was counted.”

Our fathers began the journey. Our mothers kept the dream alive through decades of struggle. Others carried the torch through colonial rule, independence, and the long seasons of military and civilian government. We must not be the generation that lets that flame go out.

From our towns to our villages, from our streets to our wards, from our communities to every polling unit, let a new consciousness rise, not against any other people, but for Ijebu; not with hatred, but with conviction; not through violence, but through democratic participation; not as scattered individuals, but as one people with one voice and a shared determination to secure a fair place in our collective political future.

IJEBU, THE TIME IS NOW.
ACTIVATE YOUR CIRCLE.
MOBILISE YOUR TEN.
STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.
ONE PEOPLE. ONE VOICE. SHARED PROGRESS.

Otunba (Dr.) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo
Convener
Ijebu Lokan fun Itesiwaju Ijebu Movement