By Ayodele Oni
The Yoruba Self-determination Movement has again reechoed the desperation to pull out the entire south west region and other Yoruba speaking ethnics from Nigeria.
The fresh demand for independence from Nigeria is contained in a letter to President Bola Tinubu dated 17th April, 2024.
Yoruba Self determination Movement, under the leadership of Prof Banji Akintoye is leading the struggle for the Yoruba sovereign state separate from Nigeria.
Other signatories to the letter are Chief Sunday Adeyemo Igboho, Leader Yoruba National Defence and Otunba Ola Ademola, Vice-Chairman Yoruba Self-determination Movement.
Among reasons for their request, as earlier demanded are Nigeria’s collapsed economy, education and insecurity to the extent that other nationalities like the Fulanis are threatening the existence of Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s economy has collapsed. Nigerians, including our Yoruba people, are living a life of wrenching poverty and hunger. Important roads have dilapidated for years in our Yoruba homeland.
“Electricity supply has been increasingly fizzling out for years. For decades, businesses have been failing or fleeing from Nigeria – mostly from our Yoruba homeland, the home of most of Nigeria’s businesses before 1960.
“Almost all the businesses and industries that blessed our Yoruba homeland at independence in 1960 have shut down. Though Nigeria is one of the largest producers of petroleum in the world, Nigeria has depended on imported gasoline and has left its own refineries in disrepair, and the price of gasoline has been rising steadily in Nigeria for years. In the past nine months, the price of gasoline has jumped beyond the reach of most Nigerians.
“Mr. President, another crucial matter that we Yoruba must bring before Your Excellency is the horrific and seriously disturbing character of the attitude and the utterly disrespectful approach of one of the nations of Nigeria, namely the Fulani nation, to the Federal Government and the sanctity, integrity and dignity of the Nigeria state and the public order.
“Since 2015, the Fulani have been killing widely among the other peoples of Nigeria, including us Yoruba, destroying farms, villages and other assets, kidnapping men, women and children, extorting large amounts of money as ransom from friends and family of the kidnapped, and repeatedly asserting their intention to seize the homelands of all the indigenous peoples of Nigeria for the purpose of turning all into a Fulani homeland.
“In the Middle Belt, horrendous blood-letting is going on, very many families have been forced into Internally Displaced People Camps, and many of their villages have been seized by the Fulani and renamed as Fulani villages.
“In our Yoruba homeland, our people are resisting somewhat better, but the Fulani attacks and killings and kidnappings are unrelenting and are coming daily, leading to horrific instability, and forcing most of our farmers to abandon farming altogether – thereby dooming Yoruba people to years and years of famine.
“According to an unofficial estimate, the Fulani have killed as many as 29,000 Yoruba people in the years since 2015.
“We Yoruba must not underestimate the Fulani; we must not condemn our people to Fulani killings, destruction, raping, kidnapping and extortion of ransom for decades or centuries to come. Our Yoruba nation may not survive such prolonged battering.
“We as a people concede that it is the prerogative of the Nigerian Federal Government to deal with crimes as it chooses; but we as a people are clearly opposed to continuing to participate in a state entity in which the Government seems to lack the systemic strength, the political will, and the moral confidence to treat crimes as crimes and criminals as criminals.
“We believe that a situation like that portends a horrific deepening of the already deep anarchy and economic failure of Nigeria, and that it promises to galvanize Nigeria to an all encompassing violence and war which would consume millions of Nigerian lives and export disaster and human suffering to the rest of West Africa.
“We Yoruba cannot consent any longer to being a part of such an inevitable and imminent disaster.”
The Movement asked the federal government to do the followings :
“That the Nigerian Federal Government shall, within the next two months, but not later than June 15, 2024, inform us Yoruba Self-determination Movement that the Nigerian Federal Government have graciously agreed to our proposal for negotiation and that they have set up a negotiation team that will meet and dialogue with our Yoruba nation’s negotiation team.
“That as soon as we receive the communication from the Nigerian Federal Government in response to this request of ours for negotiation, we shall forward the list of our negotiation team to the Nigerian Federal Government.
“That the Nigerian Federal Government’s negotiation team and our negotiation team shall meet to appoint co-chair persons, to agree on a date for the first negotiation meeting, to the negotiation venue, and to the negotiation agenda and process.
“That the Nigerian Federal Government shall invite the United Nations, African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, to send observers to the negotiation meetings.”
