By Akinwale Kasali
Prominent Yoruba leaders have warned International Lenders to stop giving loans to Nigeria because the country has become a disputed project. The leaders, under a Pan Yoruba Group also asked for the immediate suspension of the 2023 General Elections, as well as the 1999 Constitution.
The demands were made at a World Press Conference in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
The spokesman of the group under the auspices of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination, (NINAS), Professor Banji Akintoye, said that the calls were necessary because Nigeria cannot progress under the current political structure.
Akintoye noted that the 1999 constitution was the cause of major problems the country was currently facing.
He said that the group was giving the federal government another 30 day ultimatum after the expiration of the 90-Day Notice of Grave Constitutional Grievances issued by NINAS to the Federal Government of Nigeria on December 16, 2020.
Akintoye, who addressed journalists on behalf of the group, insisted that the 1999 constitution was no doubt a collateral damage to the people of Nigeria, hence, the need for its suspension and suspension of future elections.
He also warned international money lenders not to lend Nigeria any money because Nigeria was now a disputed project.
Akintoye said, “A formal announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria acknowledging the Constitutional Grievances and Sovereignty Dispute now declared by the peoples of South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria.
“A Formal Commitment by Federal Government of Nigeria to the wholesale Decommissioning and Jettisoning of the 1999 Constitution as the Basis of the Federation of Nigeria as was done by the Government of Apartheid-Era South Africa in 1990, to commence the process by which the Apartheid Constitution of the then South Africa was eased out.
“A Formal Announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria suspending further General Elections under the Disputed 1999 Constitution since winners of such Elections will Swear to, and Govern by that Constitution.
“A Formal Invitation to the Peoples of the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria to work out and emplace a Transitional Authority, which shall specify the Modalities for the Transitioning Process including the Composition and Mandate of the Transitional Authority as well as the Time-frame for the Transitioning and other Ancillary Matters.
“A Formal Initiation of a Time-Bound Transitioning Process to midwife the emergence of Fresh Constitutional Protocols by a Two-Stage Process in which the Constituent Regional Blocs will at the first stage, Distill and Ratify their various Constitutions by Referendums and Plebiscites and in the second stage, Negotiate the Terms of Federating afresh as may be dictated by the outcomes of Referendum and Plebiscites.
“Let it be known to all, including International Money Lenders, that Nigeria is now a Disputed Project and that while the Constituent Components commit to honouring existing International Debt Obligations.
“We caution that whatever Obligations that may arise from any Foreign Loans contracted by the Federal Government of Nigeria from the date of this Proclamation may come into controversy. Similarly, all Loans contracted by the Federal Government of Nigeria, containing any Clause that may Cede the Sovereignty of Nigeria or any part thereof in the event of Repayment Default shall be disputed as illicit, and in breach of the Sovereignty of the Federating Units.”
Following, the Comminique issued at the meeting
Communiqué Issued At the End of The Pan-Yorùbá Meeting,
Held Today, the 17th of March, 2021, at Mapo Hall, Ìbàdàn, Oyo State
We, the Yorùbá Leaders of Thought, comprising Ọbas, Chiefs, policy shapers, politicians, technocrats, intelligentsia, security-related groups, and socio-cultural groups, have met and decided for the Greater and Common Good of the Yorùbá, as follows:
1) The Yorùbá are resolute in their determination not to stand idle and watch our space and land desecrated. Only an arsonist allows a fire to burn and destroy. We will not permit strangers to abuse our hospitality and desecrate our hallowed land and our sacred spaces. Indeed, we invoke the ancient maledictions reserved for such malefactors. Our forests need no permission to swallow them.
2) The Yorùbá, are confronted by the realization that we are living in a time of bad metaphors. A time when dogs do not hearken unto the whistle of the hunter and the rivers which have forgotten their sources, still continue to flow. The world is turned inside out and the socio-political fabric of Nigeria is ripped into shreds. Today in Buhari’s Nigeria, the ship of state has veered dangerously off course, and heads almost irreversibly towards jagged rocks of destruction. Insecurity has reached such an abyss that hundreds of people are kidnapped in broad daylight with impunity.
3) The Yorùbá are convinced that Nigeria is on the verge of a catastrophic calamity, of potentially greater magnitude than either the internecine conflict of 1967 to 1970 or the brazen disenfranchisement of 1993! Nigeria as we know it, has embarked on uncharted seas, with nihilists as crewmen. We are a country divided along distrusting ethnic lines, exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own future, authoritarian by reflex and controlled as a personality cult by a section of the country. The relentless pursuit of power by a group of self servers, the ruthless cabal that respects neither Equity nor Equality, with an entrenched sense of entitlement, has taken away any sense of belonging to this union, by the Yorùbá. When injustice becomes law, resistance will be a duty!
4) The Yorùbá announce their exhaustion with this Government’s obsession with Lies and Denials of truths and facts. Farmers-Herders clashes are denied despite photographic evidence of massacres and eye-witness reports of mayhem. Terrorists roam the land in the garb of herdsmen, killing, raping, kidnapping and maiming, with little or no reaction from constituted authority. A high ranking Government official declares that bandits are not criminals.
5) The Yorùbá are perplexed by the fact that the Nigerian state is bombing the Eastern Security Network (ESN). Yet, the same Government is embracing and romancing terrorists. It is now safe to say this is a Government that panders to terrorists, protects terrorists, pays ransoms to terrorists, and prevaricates Terrorism, with absolutely no sanction by the Northern dominated security apparatus of Nigeria. How exactly can such a Government continue to seek the support of the Yorùbá going forward!?!
6) The Yorùbá hereby make known their opposition to Sheikh Gumi’s interaction with these dreaded terrorists. A video circulating on social media that shows the Sheikh trying to divide the Nigerian Army along religious lines is an abominable wake-up call. The Sheikh is guilty of incitement, when he claims that it is Christian soldiers who attack bandits to sow religious tension. To encourage bandits to be selective in their reprisal attacks and avoid women and children is tantamount to aiding and abetting Terrorism and sabotage. The Sheikh has forgotten that thousands of Christian soldiers have lost their lives battling Boko Haram and other Terrorists. The Nigerian Military is one of the few institutions that have resisted division along religious lines. By condoning Sheikh Gumi’s felonious pronouncements, the Government is allowing him to fan the embers of crisis, while hiding under the cloak of mediation.
7) The Yorùbá are convinced that the North is already at war with itself. Rather than face that situation squarely, the Northern-controlled Federal Government keeps trying to divert attention by teasing out conflicts in some areas and exporting crisis to other locations. The Yorùbá call it, “da bi mo se da”. It will not work. The Yorùbá will not swallow the bait and allow our hard-won inheritance to be consumed in the consequent conflagration.
Cognizant of the foregoing, It has become imperative that the territory that was known as Western Region under the 1963 Constitution, along with other peoples having affinities with the Yoruba Nation in Edo, Delta, Kogi and Kwara be organised in pursuit of our political identity and socio-economic welfare of all. Notwithstanding any politically correct labels, our quest is to think through and fashion out the pathway for the progress of our peoples at the homeland and across the world.
The Yorùbá hereby resolve as follows:
- i) The Yorùbá have decided to embark on a venture of massive resistance to the issue of insecurity. Àmòtékún and other support systems, fully incorporating both Traditional and Modern security measures and systems have been integrated to form the South West Security and Stakeholders Group (SWSSG) which is presented to the Yorùbá and the world today. The role of SWSSG is the protection of our patrimony, our physical and human assets, our forests and our intangible legacies which have been inviolate and inviolable for over a millennium.
- ii) The forests of the Yorùbá are sacred, untouchable, and out-of-bounds to terrorists. May the curses of all our forefathers hold to account all who attempt to cede even one inch of our forests to any ranch or settlement for the use of foreigners, despoilers, ruiners, ravagers and desecraters of our forests. Our forests house our spirituality, our Essence. Our Egungun, our Oro, our spirit, our food security, our culture, our Being!
iii) The Yorùbá distance themselves from the oft-repeated untruth that “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable”. This is nothing but a falsehood. Be it known, now and ever — “The unity of Nigeria is highly negotiable!” If we cannot be happy together, then let us find peace and joy, apart. Nigeria can only remain Nigeria if all parties agree to deal equitably with each other.
- iv) The Yorùbá are resolute in their fierce determination to pursue vigorously our own chosen destiny to be FREE men and women, and never to be 2nd class citizens in our own land and space.
