The O’odua Nationalist Coalition (ONAC) has called on Yoruba people to prepare for their own sovereign nation.
ONAC said its call was in reaction to the threat by northern groups as well as “pain and misery on the Yoruba people due to distort of the development plan of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo for the South West”.
ONAC consists of 18 groups including Oodua Peoples Congress, (OPC), Oodua Liberation Movement, (OLM), Oodua Republic Coalition, (ORC), Yoruba Revolutionary Congress, (YORC), Oodua Muslim-Christian Dialogue Group, (OMDG), Yoruba Students Nationalist Front, (YOSNF), Oodua Hunters Union, (OHUN) among others.
A statement on behalf of the coalition signed by Micheal Popoola, Oluwole Suleiman and Mrs Aduke Fadahunsi, and made available to DAILY POST on Sunday called on Yoruba people in the territories of the Hausa-Fulani North to be guided by a strong sense of history and the fact that they will not be spared by those who claim to be their hosts.
“We advise them to begin to make alternative plans for the inevitable upheaval being promoted by the Fulani oligarchy.
‘North has always been the aggressor because of the region’s loss of power and the unhidden desire to make Nigeria the irreversible extension of the Fulani emirate.
“What we see is violent conflict of civilisations which can only be resolved when each region go her own way.
“In the bid to keep Nigeria as one country, millions of people have been killed and the lives of children wasted, the future pauperized and the potentials of Yoruba young men and women bottled or chained with fetters of iron.
“Today, we make the historic declaration that Yoruba people are ready for our own Oduduwa Republic. We have watched events these past days. The cloud is getting thicker.
“The poisonous rain appear ready to fall. It is time for the Yoruba people to be ready to defend our homeland from being seized by local imperial elements and their collaborators.
“We assert Yoruba self-determination and sovereignty. We shall work for it. We will actualize it,” ONAC said in the statement.
The group stated further called “on Yoruba people all over the world to prepare for a sovereign nation for the people of the South West. We are over 50 million and far more than the population of 140 countries in the world.”
“Yoruba will be the third biggest nation in Africa and about the 28th biggest nation in the world. We are big and knowledgeable enough to be a sovereign nation. We assert the Yoruba self-determination without any further delay.”
ONAC said with the position of Northern youths asking Igbo to quit the North, the outright demand for Arewa sovereignty by the Northern Elders Forum, (NEF), and the legitimate demand for Biafra by Igbo, the call for a Niger-Delta Republic “It is time for the Yoruba people to stand for Oodua Republic without any further delay.”
“Yoruba people this time will not support any attack on Self determination.We shall mobilise the masses and prevent Yoruba people from being used for any attack on the long suffering indigenous peoples of the South East and the South- South”
ONAC said the quit notice was not against the Igbo alone but also against the Yoruba since “Igbo is not written on the forehead of residents in the North.” (Daily Post)
Nigeria has become a country which no one wants to belong to. Many years ago there were nationalists and patriotic individuals who sweated to ensure that the geographical expression called Nigeria, a word derived from the River Niger, could translate to a definable nation of a black country. We witnessed the Emergency Declaration on Western Nigeria; the imprisonment of the Yoruba leader Chief Awolowo; the 15th January 1966 coup that killed mostly Northern military and civilian leaders and the Declaration of Biafra following severe massacres of Easterners in the North and incessant coups ever since. The center can np longer hold but it will most dangerous to pathways without sitting together and rsolve the way to share our assets amicably so we can return to the Aburi Accord of 1967.Better is to go the way of the Six political divisions, eg South South, South East, South West, North East,North West and North Central. It will be left for any two or three or four to join and stay as one country.But the erstwhile country should adopt the ECOWAS AND JOIN THE WEST African ORG. and allow free movement of citizens across the old country. We should adopt a model Commonwealth aimed at reducing bitterness between component groups. This is sad after 93 years living as one country, But it is safe to live apart as friends than to die together as one country in which no component unit is happy. Asuzu Agwunobi