The Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, led by Prof. Banji Akintoye and Chief Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, penned an open letter to Chief Bola Tinubu, expressing their desire for a peaceful separation of the Yoruba people from Nigeria.
Dated April 17, 2024, and co-signed by Akintoye, Igboho, and Ola Ademola, the letter urges the President to establish a negotiation team within the next two months to facilitate the Yoruba people’s exit from Nigeria.
This appeal follows a recent incident where armed agitators attempted to raise their flag at the Oyo State Government House. Although 29 of them were remanded in prison custody following their arrest, Akintoye and Igboho disavowed any association with the violence.
In their letter, shared with our correspondent in Ibadan on Sunday, the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement conveyed, “We respectfully present this crucial correspondence on behalf of the vast Yoruba populace residing in Yorubaland, Nigeria, and the Yoruba Diaspora spanning numerous countries worldwide.”
The Middle Belt region is witnessing horrific bloodshed, as families are being compelled into Internally Displaced People Camps, while their villages are being seized by the Fulani and rebranded as Fulani settlements, according to the group’s statement.
“In our Yoruba homeland, our people are resisting somewhat better, but the Fulani attacks, 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.”
It was additionally claimed that an informal assessment indicated Fulani forces had been responsible for the deaths of up to 29,000 Yoruba individuals from 2015 up to the present. These cited reasons were deemed significant enough to justify their pursuit of independence from Nigeria.
“All these actions by the Fulani are, to us Yoruba, a sufficient reason for our seeking to separate our Yoruba Nation from Nigeria. Most of us, Yoruba have no confidence in the ‘restructuring’ that some of our most respected Yoruba leaders (such as our fathers in our highly exalted Afenifere) are advocating.
“And our reason is that we know that restructuring cannot keep the Fulani marauders away from our homeland. Since, after restructuring, the Fulani would still be Nigerians like us, and would still have full citizens’ rights to come in large numbers, and with weapons and intent to kill and destroy and seize land, to our homeland.
“The Fulani elite seem to be saying in effect that they intend to make Nigeria ungovernable for President Tinubu, and that they would never accept any official action of his.
“We are acting for and on behalf of our 60 million Yoruba people of the Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo State, respectively, plus the Yoruba Local Government Areas of Kogi and Kwara State, and plus the Itshekiri homeland of Delta State, all together constituting the Yorubaland in Nigeria, hereby most humbly place our crowning request before Your Excellency as follows:
“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 has graciously agreed to our proposal for negotiation and that they have set up a negotiation team that will meet and have a dialogue with our Yoruba Nation’s negotiation team.
“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.”
Hence, upon receiving a response to its negotiation request, it pledged to promptly transmit its negotiation team’s roster to the government.
