Mixed reactions are trailing a letter written to President Muhammadu Buhari by a Yoruba leader, Professor Banji Akintoye, asking for the support of the President for the South-West people to secede from Nigeria.
Akintoye, who wrote on behalf of the Yoruba Self-Determined Movement, YSDM, told Buhari that the South-West wanted a “peaceful break away” of the Yoruba nation from Nigeria.
He said in the letter that an overwhelming number of the Yoruba want out of the country because of their “worsening and painful plight.”
The letter read in part: “Mr President, the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement now serves you notice of the decision of the Yoruba people to assert their right to self-determination which is an inalienable and unquestionable right of every indigenous nation in the world.
Upon asserting this right of self-determination, we the Yoruba nation shall be free to determine our political status, pursue our economic, social and cultural development according to policies chosen independently by us, and to live under the government independently chosen and ordered by us”.
The letter has divided the leaders and stakeholders of Yorubaland. Expectedly, the disagreement is between those who are in support of the Akintoye group’s move and those against.
Akintoye is right’
The Secretary-General, Yoruba Council of Elders, YCE, Dr Kunle Olajide, is one of those on the side of the YSDM leader. One of his reasons he gave for his decision is that people could no longer go to their farms due to insecurity.
Olajide said: “Prof. Akintoye is right and the YCE is in support of what he has said. You and I know that we have not sat down anywhere to properly plan, discuss and have a majority agree that it must happen on a particular day.
Nobody is happy – Ogunsakin
On his part, the Chairman of Ekiti Traditional Chieftaincy Title Holders, Chief Olu Ogunsakin, stressed that Akintoye spoke the minds of the Yoruba people.
“I read the letter and I don’t think there is nothing wrong in that. At least, he expressed the minds of the Yoruba people in that letter and I don’t think I have any objection to that write-up”, Ogunsakin said.
Self-serving’
Also, the Ondo State Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Stephen Adewale, said, “The fact that almost all of the leaders who have promoted such agitation have resorted to running away when the going gets tough is one of the contributing elements to the failure.
“When the circumstance occurs, all activists give up on the cause.
“This further demonstrates the self-serving motive of these ethnic leaders, especially those who are currently leading the Yoruba agitation.
History has demonstrated that there is no guarantee that the citizens of Yoruba or any other ethnic nationalities in the country will be better off under a separate nation.
“The same leadership crisis that bedevils Nigeria will definitely assail the so-called new nation.
“The solution to the country’s problem, therefore, is to ensure that we all do the right thing in 2023 by voting for the right candidates that have what it takes to take the country out of the woods.”