ILANA Omo Oduduwa Worldwide, on Monday, came hard on Ondo State Governor and Chairman of Southwest Governors’ Forum, Rotimi Akeredolu, over his utterances on agitation for the Yoruba Nation, saying it is foolish for any governor to work against the agitation.
The group’s leader, Adewale Adeniran, made its position known in a statement made available to journalists.
It was widely reported in the media that Akeredolu had warned those agitating for Oodua Nation to perish the thought.
Adeniran, however, reminded the South West governors that twice between 2015 and 2017, on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in making a case for self-determination of the Rohingya people of Myanmar, described self-determination as an inalienable right of every nation in the world.
He questioned, “Were the ears of our pro-Nigeria Yoruba governors blocked when their one-Nigeria ‘oga’ was pontificating on Rohingya right of self-determination at the UN? How slavish can some people get just because they want to chop ‘nama’? Just as the Rohingya have suffered genocide, so have the Yoruba been suffering persecution, discrimination as well as genocide and destruction of farmlands and property in recent times.
“It is foolhardy or outrightly foolish for any governor, whether ‘arakunrin’ or ‘arabinrin’ to engage in the delusion of stopping or standing in the way of those of us agitating for the creation of a sovereign Yoruba Nation, a nation of about 60 million people with the highest literacy rate in Black Africa.
“Prevalent internal dynamics presage the imminent and inevitable break up of Nigeria and the birth of new countries therefrom. It is irreversible. We who are agitating for a sovereign Yoruba Nation separate from Nigeria know what it takes to birth our new country. We have embarked on it, and there is no looking back.
“The point must be made that, as repeatedly stated by Prof Banji Akintoye, the face and father of the Yoruba nation agitation; we shall go about it peacefully and in a law-abiding manner.”
Adeniran advised Akeredolu and other governors to familiarise themselves with the international legal instruments as they might be dragged before the International Criminal Court of Justice at The Hague.
