By Akinwale Kasali
Over 130 Pan Yoruba Groups under the auspices of Alliance For Yoruba Democratic Movements, AYDM, have called on President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly to restructure Nigeria before the 2027 Presidential Election.
The Group made the call in Lagos during its meeting which was attended by delegates from the old Western Region comprising Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Delta and Edo States.
Yoruba and Itsekiri groups from West African countries attended the historic event.
The Conference drew over 800 Delegates who attended with a working group dedicated on Security and livelihood in the region.
Observers at the event were ethnic and socio-cultural groups, South-South Congress, Middle-Belt Indigenous Peoples Congress, Hausa National Congress, HNC, and other groups from South East.
The guest Speaker, Adewale Adeoye, spoke on Democracy, Peoples Power and Livelihood in the South West.
He called on the people to rally round to defend democracy and mobilise for the restructuring of the country.
The group also said that the next President in 2027 should come from the South adding that anything short of power rotation is a recipe for the disintegration of the country.
“Since 1960, the North has ruled Nigeria for 46 years while the South has ruled for only 20 years. Any attempt by the North to produce the next President is unacceptably and will be resisted”, Adeoye stated.
In the communique issued after the event and signed by AYDM General Secretary, Popoola Ajayi, Rasaq Arogundade, Taofik Adeyemi and Alice Asoropa, AYDM, said the most important challenge facing the country is restructuring to avoid a slip into anarchy.
It said the crisis in the Middle East occasioned by the feud between Iran and Israel-United States is being exploited by radical extremists in Nigeria to carry out their pre-conceived agenda of terror aimed at setting the country on fire.
It added that the recent introduction of Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, which killed a man and another Mother and Child in Kwara State shows that terrorists in Nigeria have entered a new phase in their evil plot to toppled democracy and turn Nigeria into a field of blood and arson.
It alleged that the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, once an arm of the All Progressive Congress, APC, which ruled Nigeria for eight years from 2015 to 2023 turned Nigeria into a sanctuary of terrorism and mayhem in many instances providing official support for the crimes committed by the terrorists.
The groups said the remnants of the cabal are the chief suspects in the current campaign of terror being intensified across the country.
“The current Federal Government is dealing with economic, political and military wings of terrorism in Nigeria. The terrorists have economic and ideological funders masquerading as elected and unelected politicians and statesmen.
“It’s one single scourge with the single aim of gaining power to turn Nigeria into a theocratic fielfdom.
“The problem with terrorists mindset is that they take actions without thinking twice. They want to destroy the political, cultural and economic foundations of Nigeria. It is within this vortex that the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu is operating”, he stated.
The groups condemned the recent coup attempt warning that any attempt to topple democracy will spur unprecedented crisis.
“The country is witnessing a very tough economic experience characterised by hunger and misery compounded by terrorism. But the solution is not a military coup. The agenda of the plotters is to plunge Nigeria into a fascist past, to achieve a designed ethno-extremist religious plan.
“The plotters have the same agenda with the ravaging terrorists across the country”, the groups said.
In the communique, the groups said DISCOS, especially Ikeja Electric has become the No 1 enemy of the South West due to its gross incompetence, savage exploitation of the people and its determination to stunt industrial development of the South West.
The groups in the communique warned that any military intervention will automatically plunge Nigeria into nuclear groups of armed resistance including but not limited to the prospect of guerrilla warfare across the country with devastating consequences for West Africa.
“We call for the speedy trial of the alleged coup plotters, if found guilty, they must face the full weight of the law, including death to serve as deterrent to future coup adventurists. We submit that the coup was nothing but an ethnic agenda.
“To avoid future recurrence, the groups called on the President and the National Assembly to speed up the immediate creation of state police and the restructuring of Nigerian security architecture which should include the decentralization of the Nigerian Defense Academy, NDA, Nigerian Military School, Zaria and the Airforce training commands into four regions, two in the South and two in the North.
“Nigeria needs to transform from a garrison state to a truly democratic country reflecting the country’s diversity and plural civilisation. There is no time to waste. This is an historic step that should have been taken more than 50 years ago”, the group said
It noted in the communique with strongest term, condemning the ravaging terrorists that have taken over South West territories, killing and maiming their people, men, women, infants and even pregnant women being slaughtered by Fulani terrorists.
In the past five years, the group said, that four traditional rulers have been killed in the South West by terrorists of Fulani extraction.
The latest is the planting of Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, on highways to kill Yoruba people.
“This has been recorded in Woro, Kiama in Kwara State where it killed a man while a woman and her child were wounded”.
The groups said they condemn ‘what appears like the cold complicity of a section of the Fulani elite including the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III , Sheik Ahmad Gumi, Abubakar Malami, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai, Malami among many others who have refused to speak against the on-going genocide instead, employ rhetoric that tends to support the terrorists or provide ideological shield for them.’
It noted that the Yoruba and especially the Muslim masses in Western Nigeria are disappointed in the queer role of the Sultan of Sokoto who is the head of the Fulani in West Africa. Why he is quick to make calls for the release of former Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nassir El Rufai, he is conspiratorially silent on the gruesome murder of Yoruba people including numerous Muslims by the Fulani terrorists, including the murder of five Yoruba traditional rulers and his silence on other heinous crimes committed by his people
It said that no inch of Yoruba, Itsekiri land is available for Sharia.
“Every state in Nigeria where Sharia has been introduced are afflicted by terrorism, corruption, impoverishment and elite repression of the poor”, the group noted.
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