The Leaders of the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, Prof Banji Akintoye and Chief Sunday Adeyemo, commonly known as Sunday Igboho, along with Ola Ademola, have written an open letter to Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, requesting the formal initiation of negotiations for the Yoruba region’s peaceful secession from Nigeria.
The letter, dated April 17, 2024, and reported by a newspaper, urged the president to set up a negotiation team within two months.
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The letter is coming barely a week after armed Yoruba nation agitators attacked the Oyo State Government House and attempted to raise their flag in the National Assembly Premises. Security Operatives quickly engaged the agitators and subdued 29 of them.
They have since been arraigned in court and remanded in Prison Custody. The letter read in part;
“We send this letter as a follow-up to our earlier letter, dated August 06, 2022, which we delivered to your predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his exalted position then as President of Nigeria.”
“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 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.”
“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.”