Professor Banji Akintoye, leader of the apex body for Yoruba Self-Determination and Self-Preservation Movement, Ilana Omo Oodua Worldwide, IOOW, has described the Sunday morning deadly attack unleashed against Christian worshipers at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo-State by gunmen, said to be Fulani herdsmen, as a declaration of war against Yoruba people.
Reacting through the Communications Secretary of IOOW, Mr. Maxwell Adeleye, Akintoye called on the state governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, to declare an emergency against the activities of Fulani herdsmen in the state with immediate effect.
The renowned scholar said the effrontery of the Fulani marauders needed to be frankly and courageously confronted so as to prove to their sponsors that the Yoruba people could never be intimidated or subjugated.
He said to permanently solve the Fulani herdsmen’s quagmire, the Yoruba people needed to negotiate their exit from the Union of Nigeria without further delay.
“We have stated it very expressly that the Yoruba people need to negotiate their exit from Nigeria as a matter of urgency but our Partisan Political Actors in Yoruba Land never took us serious. We warned them that there’s fire on the mountain but we were mocked because of their personal aggrandizement.
“Today, we have all been encircled, most especially, in Lagos. For Herdsmen to have the effrontery of bombarding a Church in Yoruba Land to kill about 85 people shows that we are now in a realistic danger.
“My urgent advise to Governor Akeredolu is to pick up the gauntlet and declare an emergency against the activities of all Fulani Herdsmen in the state with immediate effect.
“We have now been taken for granted. We need not pretend anymore. We must demand unanimously, an exit from Nigeria.
“We the Yoruba People cannot live in the same country with characters whose idea of common citizenship in Nigeria is to brutalize, subjugate and even exterminate us. It is time to leave these characters now. All Stakeholders – the Elites, Traditional Rulers, Our Women should act now.
“All the South West States, including the Yoruba Leaders in Kogi and Kwara States should equally declare an emergency against the activities of Fulani Herdsmen. We must now take our destinies into our hands.”
