Secession: Yoruba are going nowhere, S/South, S/East react to declaration of Oodua Republic

Yoruba activist and promoter of self determination for Yoruba ethnic group, Mr. Sunday Adeyemo, better known as Sunday Igboho declared last week Wednesday that Yoruba were no longer part of Nigeria and announced the birth of a new nation, Oodua Republic.

He cited grave injustice done to the South West region by the central government and wondered if Yoruba have now become slaves in Nigeria.

He dared Yoruba politicians to campaign publicly for any elective post under the present arrangement. The new leader of Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo had stated in an interview that the elders in the region were finding it difficult to restrain their youths from expressing their frustrations in the way they were being governed while restating his stand on restructuring of the country.

Other stakeholders in the Nigerian project from the South South and the South East regions however welcomed the birth of Oodua Republic with mixed reactions. While some described it as a joke carried too far, others argued that it should serve as a wakeup call for the political leaders at the Centre to do the needful and restructure the country.

It’s sponsored smokescreen to negotiate 2023 Presidency –NDRA Darlington Nwauju, Spokesman, Niger Delta Rights Advocates said, “Igboho’s declaration crystallizes the greed of the Yoruba political elite who are creating a smokescreen situation in order to negotiate the 2023 Presidency. This was nearly same method applied pre-1999, although it came via different circumstances that drew national and international sympathy. For me, Igboho is serving the interest of some Yoruba elites who are simply engaging in a power game. How come this Igboho suddenly became a Yoruba champion after the End-SARS protests and has gained so much media prominence? Whose interest is he actually serving? The Yoruba are going nowhere. Igboho is a creation by the Yoruba elite to negotiate for power.”

In his own reaction, the National President of Ignoring National Council, INC, Chilos Godsent, described the declaration of Oodua Republic by Sunday Igboho, as a plot by the Yoruba to negotiate themselves into power.

The INC president said that there was nothing to show the seriousness in the declaration as it was not possible to declare a nation without forming a government. According to Godsent, “The position of Sunday Igboho in the declaration of Oodua Republic, from our own perspective, looking at the historic antecedents of the Yoruba, we see it as a political bargain for 2023 presidency. One, there are formalities for the declaration of a sovereign nation, but those formalities have not been followed. You don’t declare a nation just by coming to the news media to announce it. He has declared a new nation but still using the currency of the old nation and living in that same nation, he is still obeying the laws of that nation. Why has he not constituted his own government. No president, no cabinet members. This is just a child’s play, these are some of the antics some of these self determination groups deploy to negotiate themselves into the mainstream politics.”

Joseph Ambakederemo, Convener, South South Reawakening Group, said: “We should ignore all these people whom I will refer to as self seekers. This has become a recurring decimal in our body polity because they rear their ugly head whenever we approach a critical election year..

“We should remind these anti democratic forces for what they are. Sunday Adeyemo is another scam just like Nnamdi Kanu and Asari Dokubo who are out to scam the gullible amongst us. We shouldn’t dignify them with any response. Sunday Igboho is not the one to speak for the Yoruba nation as we know it neither is the like of Kanu or Dokubo to speak for their respective ethnic races.

“We, in the South South region have passed through this path before and what did we achieve even when our own son in the person of Goodluck Jonathan became President? What did he do differently to benefit the region? We can recall that Goodluck said then that he would not be the one to balkanize Nigeria in the heat of the same agitation that has reared its ugly head again. Nigerians should not be hoodwinked by the actions of these alarmists.”