The Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, led by Prof Banji
Akintoye and Chief Sunday Adeyemo, alias Sunday Igboho, has written an open
letter to President Bola Tinubu, seeking a peaceful breakaway of Yoruba people
from Nigeria.
The open letter, dated April 17, 2024, was signed by both
Akintoye, Igboho and one Ola Ademola.
They called on the President to within the next two months
set up a negotiation team to negotiate the exit of the Yoruba people from
Nigeria.
The letter by the Yoruba Nation arrowheads came about a week
after some armed agitators invaded the Oyo State Government House, attempting
to hoist their flag on the premises of the state House of Assembly.
The agitators were subdued and 29 of them were last week
taken before a magistrates’ court in Ibadan, which ordered that they should be
remanded in the prison custody.
Both Akintoye and Igboho dissociated themselves from the
violent action.
However, in their open letter made available to our
correspondent in Ibadan on Sunday, the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement,
said, “We have the honour to send to Your Excellency this important letter on
behalf of the many millions of Yoruba people at home in Yorubaland in Nigeria
and in the Yoruba Diaspora in almost all countries across the world.
“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.”
The group said in the Middle Belt, horrendous blood-letting
was going on with many families forced into Internally Displaced People Camps
while many of their villages were 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.”
It further alleged that an unofficial estimate showed that
Fulani had killed as many as 29,000 Yoruba people since 2015 till date, adding
that aforementioned reasons were enough for them to seek breakaway from Nigeria
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