…We’re Here To Reiterate Our Call For Peaceful Dissolution Of Nigeria
By Wale Balogun
We of the Yoruba Revolutionary Movement (YOREM) neither call this press conference to merely catalogue the tale of woes of the Nigerian people nor the ugly experiences of the Yoruba within the failed Nigerian state from day one our people were forcefully merged with other hitherto peacefully coexisting ethnic nationalities for the sole economic benefits of the British colonialist and her Western imperialist allies.
We are here to reiterate our call for the peaceful dissolution of Nigeria, a strident call which started after the criminal annulment of the world acknowledged freest, fairest, most peaceful and most credible presidential election in the history of Nigeria, won by Chief MKO Abiola, a Yoruba.
The annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election by Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida’s military dictatorship, the struggle to end military rule and to actualize the people’s mandate given to MKO Abiola had led to a protracted struggle by the pro-democracy forces and the inevitable birth of Yoruba self-determination groups.
Oodua Youth Movement pioneered the historic efforts with the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) being the most mass-based Yoruba self-determination organisation before the internal contradictions within the group led to the birth of Yoruba Revolutionary Movement (YOREM) on Sunday, November 21st, 1999.
As the revolutionary splinter group of OPC we have maintained the call for a *YORUBA CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY*, an assembly of the Yoruba working people, artisans, peasants, students, professionals, faith-based organisations, the physically challenged, market men and women, the Yoruba Oba’s and chiefs, academics, political elites, organised labour, the informal sector workers and other social forces within the Yoruba country including representatives of her kith’s and kins outside the Western region of Nigeria and others in the diaspora.
The Yoruba CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY will be an opportunity for the Yoruba to aggregate our collective interests, speak with one voice on how and why we cannot continue to live with other ethnic nationality groups with whom we do not share the same norms, traditions, values and vision.
The conference will also allow us to articulate the socio-political order to govern the sovereign Yoruba Nation because our struggle for self-determination is also for the social emancipation of our people.
We are tired of calling for the restructuring of Nigeria to reflect a genuine federal union, a call which has fallen on deaf ears in the last two decades. Our struggle and commitment to YOREM as an organisation is for the EXIT OF THE YORUBA NATION from the failed British contraption – Nigeria.
Dear members of the fourth realm, you are all aware without being told that the Yoruba Nation and her people are facing existential threats from the marauding Fulani aristocracy who have unleashed their terror gangs against our people in our land. We leave those who are acting like the ostrich to their compromised fate and false consciousness.
The Northern oligarchy agenda to Islamise Nigeria and to bury the Qu’ran in the Atlantic Ocean is being executed with precision. The sinister plot to take over our land is evident in the occupation of our forests and the systemic killings of Yoruba Oba one after the other.
The unprovoked killings of our people in their farms, the rape of our women both young and the elderly, the kidnapping for ransom to buy more weapons to prosecute their genocidal agenda, the killings of our traditional rulers will not stop unless we take our destiny into our own hands to STOP YORUBALAND AS A KILLING FIELD.
Also, let it be known that the same ruinous ruling class is seriously on the gamut with the national ruling class and their imperialist lords whose interests are to turn Nigeria into a dumping ground as well as a pit where they will be digging out our raw materials and take same away without recourse to the need for Nigeria to produce and be the pride of Africa as great producers.
This sinister plot is being executed all over, from Ekiti to Ogun states, as our people’s resources are being plundered and taken abroad while the masses suffer untold hardship. This neo-liberal agenda is meant to destroy the future of Yoruba youths and people such that we will have nothing in resources to depend on in the future.
YOREM stands against the wickedness in neo-liberalism and believes that Yoruba resources should be used for Yoruba people. How long shall our people suffer when we have great resources?!
We call on all Yoruba people at home and in the diaspora to rise to the challenge to protect and defend our land and people against internal Fulani colonisers.
Our political rulers in Nigeria’s southwest – Yorubaland, from our Councillors at the Wards level, Chairpersons at local government areas, the state governors and their commissioners, house of assembly members, the self-serving Senators and House of Representatives members at the National Assembly, and the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu led APC presidency have failed us.
They have failed woefully in their constitutional responsibilities to protect our lives and property. They have shown time and time again that their interest differs from ours, they have shown that their only interest and commitment is to loot and defend their ill-gotten wealth in Nigeria, they have shown their gross incompetence in the management of our human and material resources for our collective good, they have shown and continue to show that the security of our lives and property is not even tertiary to them.
They do not care and they are not going to change their nonchalant attitudes overnight. That is why we must all rise as a people to defend ourselves and protect our land against all manifestations of government social, political and economic attacks that are worsening our social existence as a people.
It should be crystal clear by now that the supporters of Tinubu’s age-long agenda to rule Nigeria, resort to blackmailing those who refused to key into the Emilokan agenda, calling them bastards as if a Tinubu individual ambition to rule Nigeria at all costs the collective aspiration of the Yoruba.
The sycophants who distorted and misused Hubert Ogunde’s Yoruba Ronu has now been exposed as the real, given the socioeconomic hardship faced by our people today under the ọmọ ẹni kiise idi bẹbẹre irresponsive and irresponsible rule.
The Bola Ahmed Tinubu political dynasty and their supporters are pseudo-progressives who deceitfully wear the garb of Awoism. The Awoist philosophy, policies and programmes are pro-people.
Their welfare programme and agenda under a mixed economic order are very clear: Gainful Employment and job opportunities; Free Education, Free Healthcare Services, rural integration and development, and food security with the reinvigoration of the agricultural sector among others the programmes that endeared Awoist to the people while the AG / UPN was fully committed to the implementation of the laudable programmes and policies in all the states they controlled.
Unlike the unclear vision of Emilokan who wickedly implements anti-poor, neoliberal economic policies dictated by the WTO, IMF and the World Bank.
Tinubu’s renewed hope mantra, a lip service to MKO’s Hope 93 *Farewell to poverty* has become a dashed hope, renewed hardship, hunger, poverty and mass suffering within 8 months in office.
Unfortunately for the Yoruba self-determination movement, the leadership of the Yoruba nation suddenly lost their voice immediately after Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu became the president.
The compromised section is now speaking with both sides of the mouth in whispers. They have capitulated in their support of a so-called Yoruba presidency that has failed Nigerians particularly the Yoruba in all ramifications. Had they recognised the mass disaffection for the Emilokan presidency they wouldn’t have dared to fritter away the gains recorded in the Yoruba nation’s self-determination struggle in the last 5 years.
More annoying is the spent force request made by the Aare Ọna Kakanfo, Otunba Gani Adams who was credited to have asked for the southwest governor’s patronage for OPC to secure Yorubaland from Fulani herdsmen terror, banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities.
If we may ask the Generalissimo, what is the goal of OPC? Did he and his group ever seek the consent of the southwest governors before meddling in the land disputes and communal crises in several parts of Yorubaland? Or is it, the I have arrived mentality of the ruinous political elite in Yorubaland having become the Aare ọna Kakanfo?
To us in YOREM, the Yoruba must be ready, prepared, mobilized and organised to end the bad dream Nigeria represents and stands for as presently constituted. A Tinubu’s presidency cannot and will not save Yorubaland from the impending implosion in Nigeria. We have no other option than to organise a Yoruba CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY from below Now!, which is the most credible platform to aggregate our collective interests and aspirations for YOREXIT NOW!
This is the text of a Press conference addressed by Comrade Wale Balogun, the National Coordinator of Yoruba Revolutionary Movement (YOREM) in Lagos on Thursday 8th of February, 2023.
