We’re ready for Yoruba nation autonomy — Group

The Yoruba Self-Determination Movement

(YSDM), under the leadership of Emeritus Professor, Banji Akintoye, is issuing a public statement on the deadly distraction that the new Regionalism campaign poses to the Yoruba race's continued existence. Given recent developments in the political theater in Nigeria and their intended impact on the Yoruba nation, it is urgently necessary for our Yoruba people to receive from the Yoruba Self-determination Movement an official policy statement that is unambiguous

First, the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria must understand that it is suicidal to toy with a heavily funded, intensively armed, and fiercely terroristic people like the Fulani who are resolved to use violence to seize our ancestral homeland from us and turn it into theirs. In the history of the world, the Fulani are the only nation that has never had a homeland of their own, and they have decided now that Nigeria is their last hope of establishing a Fulani homeland for change

One Yoruba adage says that when a child falls, the child stares ahead, but when an adult falls, he looks back at what caused him to fall to avoid falls in the future. In other words, experience is the best educator. However, persons who are incapable of learning from the mistakes of others should not be considered credible intelligentsia that can provide moral and political leadership to their people. Yes, they may be university-educated persons, but their cognitive content is deficient in its application to real-life situations.

It is a well-known lesson of human history that a civilized nation that comes under attack by a less civilized people and that blissfully goes on with its usual life, paying no significant response to the attack, almost always falls and perishes. The story of how the nomadic Fulani came to dominate the religious and political life of the large, civilized, and formidable Hausa Nation of Northern Nigeria is a well-known story today – the story of how the Fulani indoctrinated Hausa youths to eliminate the Hausa traditional leadership and hand Hausa land over to the Fulani, while the Hausa adult population paid no attention to their youths. The story is also well known today of how the strongest peoples of Nigeria did nothing while the British manipulated everything at Nigeria’s independence to make the Fulani the dominant group in the political life of Nigeria, and how the peoples of Nigeria have squabbled among them as the British have been tenaciously helping to sustain the Fulani dominance over Nigeria since independence. Now, for the past twenty years, the Fulani, intoxicated by their

enormous success in controlling Nigerian affairs has come up with an ultimate plan to conquer and subjugate all the Indigenous peoples of Nigeria and turn their ancestral homelands into one large Fulani homeland. According to all available evidence, the British and their allies are strongly supporting the Fulani in this new effort.

Fortunately for the Yoruba nation, one Yoruba professor, Prof. Banji Akintoye, though living abroad far from home, became strongly motivated to pay serious intellectual attention to what was happening to his Yoruba people in Nigeria. A true and thorough intellectual, Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye was quick to sound the alarm to awaken patriotic Yorubas to the dangerous moves of the Fulani, moves that pose a serious threat to the existence of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria. Long before Prof. Akintoye returned to Nigeria in 2015, he had created a Yoruba organization abroad to work with him in studying the dangerous new trend of armed Fulani aggression in Nigeria. After he returned home to Nigeria, he started vigorously to make the results of his research available to the Yoruba people through a series of public lectures. From his lectures, many Yoruba people concluded that we Yoruba have only one option for defeating this threat by the Fulani and their international mentors and allies. That one option to the Fulani poison is a sovereign Yoruba Nation separate from Nigeria, strongly defending its homeland and people, developing its homeland into a prosperous country in the service of all its citizens, and living at peace with all its neighbors. This self-determination program grew quickly and widely at home and among the Yoruba Diaspora worldwide. Some youths had spoken before about the need to work for a separate sovereign Yoruba nation, but with Prof. Akintoye now leading the struggle, hopes grew rapidly for the new Yoruba country.  

In any country, in even a small country, the struggle of a part to separate from the whole is a tough struggle. The Yoruba self-determination struggle has been inevitably very tough. But the Yoruba struggle has been very fortunate to have Prof. Akintoye as its chief guide. Prof. Akintoye has proved phenomenally knowledgeable about the facts of the danger and about the tough difficulties on the way of the struggle, and he has proved phenomenally ready to stand firm and keep the struggle going. He has seen hell – he has experienced betrayals, vilifications, vicious lies, insults, and even threats on his life. But his love for his Yoruba people, and his confidence that God will ultimately see the Yoruba nation through, are just too strong to succumb to any obstacles or disruptions.  

So now, we are confronted by a new antic by some former disciples of the Yoruba Nation’s self-determination struggle. These people have now put on their political hats to promote this distraction called Regionalism or Restructuring. Probably, the FGN’s carrots of fourteen new states to be created in Nigeria is getting some of our politicians salivating. It does not matter to these politicians that Regionalism negates the Yoruba sovereign Nation, the sovereign nation that they were promoting until only yesterday. The campaign of regionalism is now, suddenly, their tool of choice to deceive and fool our innocent people. It is unpatriotic and thoughtless for greedy politicians, who until yesterday were given important roles in the Yoruba Nation struggle, who until yesterday were singing songs of the Yoruba self-determination struggle, to now face our people and ask to be accepted as captains of a sudden new venture of saving Nigeria intact.

In response to their unpatriotic acts, the Yoruba Self Determination Movement (YSDM) is hereby taking steps to reassure our Yoruba people that our Yoruba self-determination struggle is on course and moving surely towards its victorious goal. We reiterate that we are absolutely, resolutely, and strictly for a sovereign Yoruba Nation separate from Nigeria. A sovereign Yoruba Nation is the only solution to secure our borders and our homeland, protect our people and our heritage, and to build the prosperous nation of our dreams.

I therefore call on our Yoruba people to make conscious efforts not to be fooled yet again, no matter what color the chameleon may wear. Let us be wise and be unified against the enemies within. Let us be wise and unified in the quest for the ultimate good, success and prosperity of our Yoruba nation. 

I would like to conclude by saying that the leadership of the YSDM is actively engaged in some diplomatic moves with some well-meaning stakeholders of our struggle. The reasonable suggestion for each ethnic nationality to retain their rights to self-determination as discussed by the apostles of regionalism may be an interesting idea. I would therefore urge you all to await further clarifying statement from the office of the YSDM National Leader tomorrow on this.