Prof. Banji Akintoye, Chairman, Yoruba Self-Determined Movement, has expressed the resolve of the Yoruba nation to break away from Nigeria to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Akintoye, a professor of History, indicated in a letter addressed to the president that an overwhelming number of Yorubas want to be out of the country because of their worsening plight.
According to the don, in the 1950s, Yoruba leaders requested for the inclusion of a secession clause in the Nigerian Constitution but was overruled by the then colonial master.
The letter read, “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 right of self-determination is an inalienable and unquestionable right of every indigenous nation in the world.
“Upon asserting this right of self-determination, we 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.
“Over 5 million members of Yoruba adult population have, within a short time, signed the petition to affirm without equivocation their support for creating an independent Yoruba Nation-state.
“Consequently, Mr President, this letter, on behalf of all our Yoruba people, formally gives you notice of the decision of the overwhelming majority of our Yoruba nation and people to exercise our right to self-determination to have our independent and sovereign country separate from the country of Nigeria.
“Mr President, you might be aware, given your military service history, that in a memo in early February 1969, only nine years after Nigeria’s independence, the IC (Intelligence Community advising the US Government on the Biafran war) asserted that ‘further disintegration of Nigeria was likely’ and that the Western World might have to live with a ‘loose confederation’ or ‘formation of several completely independent countries.
“What we Yoruba have now chosen is the formation of our own independent Yoruba country separate from Nigeria. Mr President, it is essential to remind you as the president of Nigeria that during the discussions leading to the independence of Nigeria from Britain in the late 1950s, Yoruba leaders at the time strongly advocated for the inclusion of a secession clause in the constitution, but they were overruled by the colonial administration.
“Thus, right from the onset, the doubt about the different nationalities co-existing in one country was very clearly expressed. Present-day Nigeria amounts essentially to something like forcing the nations of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium together as a country and expecting such a country to function optimally.”
