Strategic direction for the Yoruba in 2022 and beyond
1. Nigeria is a failed state
There is no effective government in northern Nigeria because of bandits and terrorists. They control several local government areas where they have established their own governance structures and collect taxes. They kidnap school children for ransom. They destroy churches and murder priests and worshippers. There is widespread insecurity in southern Nigeria too because of the activities of Fulani herdsmen killers. These savages open graze their cows to destroy farmlands, use their AK47 rifles to kill anyone who protests, and they make relatives watch as they rape women and girls. The situation is further exacerbated by the ineptitude, and the connivance, of the Nigeria armed forces and police as well as by widespread corruption.
Nigeria’s economy is in crisis. The economy shrank by 1.8%, the steepest since 1983. At the end of 2021, the GDP will only approach the level of 2010, fully reversing 10 years of economic growth. High inflation and high youth unemployment exacerbate the crisis. The global demand for crude oil will progressively decline. Many of the constraints imposed in the wake of the COVD-19 pandemic will be permanent. Terrorist activities by state sponsored Fulani herdsmen killers and by the Nigerian armed forces have shrunk economic activities in southern Nigeria that will take a decade or more to recover, if ever.
Nigeria currently has no constitution. Between 1999 and 2001, the legislatures of the 12 Arewa States made new laws to extend the provisions of the Sharia; firstly, to include criminal law and secondly, to establish a dedicated Hisbah militia to police that law. What they did was self-determination. The Arewa people determined for themselves how they were going to be governed. They rejected the supremacy of the 1999 constitution; sections 252 and 272 of which restricted the Sharia to civil law. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution has not been amended to accommodate the Arewa laws. By their laws, the Arewa people rejected the universal sovereignty of Nigeria.
Not one agency of the state is responsible to the citizenry. Nigeria is ruled with impunity. One constitution after another has been designed to institutionalise and regularise this impunity. Nigeria was constructed and structured to limit the rights of citizens, and stifle the individual’s capacity to develop, grow and prosper. All elections since 1959 have been rigged.
2. Status quo is not an option
Almost all Nigerians agree that there has to be change; there must be change. Nigeria’s career politicians pin their hopes on the 2023 elections. New broom and all that. But, there is no guarantee that that election will take place or if it did, that it would be peaceful. Indeed, many groups have called for the election to be boycotted. Whilst a new government might ameliorate or reduce excesses of the Buhari regime, inequity is likely to remain and foment problems for Nigeria down the line.
The policy of some northern Nigerian elites, like Sheikh Gumi, is to appease the bandits and terrorists; to offer them money and blanket amnesty. These initiatives have made the matters in northern Nigeria progressively worse not better. Other northern Nigerian elites, like Miyetti Allah, seek to relieve the terrorist pressure in the north by championing the herders’ and Fulani youths’ invasion of southern Nigeria. The southern governors have responded by passing anti-open grazing laws and setting up neighbourhood policing units like Amotekun. The Fulani invasion is a powder keg that could blow up any minute particularly in the early days of a new government in 2023. A third group of northern elites threaten the south with Armageddon, if the south seeks any change, even in the ethnic origin of the president.
Some southern Nigerian elites, like the Afenifere group, float the idea of restructuring and a return, they say, to the golden age of federalism guaranteed by the independence constitution of 1960. This is a misinterpretation of the facts. There were two phases of federalism in Nigeria. Phase 1, 1952 - 1959, was the successful period. It was successful because the British acted as referee. Phase 2, 1960 - 1966, was a disaster. Federalism began to unravel within days of independence. Indeed, on 10 October 1960, just 10 days after the independence celebrations, Ahmadu Bello made clear his intention for his Fulani group to overrun Nigeria.
Other southern Nigerian elites, like the NINAS group, put their faith in a referendum. In 2020, they declared a constitutional force majeure or constitutional dispute with Nigeria. The 1999 constitution was a fraud and illegitimate, they say. Southerners should be given the choice in a referendum on how they wished to be governed. The problem with this proposition is that there are no willing takers to conduct the referendum. Nigeria is not interested. The UN will only conduct a referendum if invited. And who would issue such an invitation? There is no guarantee that Nigeria would honour the results in any case.
A third group of southern Nigeria elites, led by Professor Akintoye’s Ilana Omo Oodua, seeks self-determination for the Yoruba people by peaceful means. The right to self-determination, they point out, is enshrined in the UN Charter and in the African Union Charter. A recent ruling at the Ibadan High Court in the case of Igboho v NFG and AG, confirmed that campaign for self-determination was legal under Nigeria’s domestic law. Sunday Igboho had been the spearhead for mass rallies with the slogan ‘Yoruba Nation. No going back’. The Nigerian government’s assassination attempt on Igboho’s life caused him to flee to Benin Republic. This has curtailed Ilana’s attempt to force the issue through mass rallies.
3. Nigeria has been bad for the Yoruba
Between 1952 and 1959, the Yoruba (western) region of Nigeria was the most developed and the most successful region on the whole of the continent of Africa. If that trend had continued, Yorubaland would today be comparable to South Korea and to Singapore. Indeed, although much of Nigeria’s wealth comes from Yorubaland, the region remains impoverished. Under the guise of its ‘federal character’ policy, Nigeria’s government takes resources from Yorubaland to give to the north, put unqualified northerners in charge of everything and limit opportunities for the Yoruba. Nigeria’s government kills off Yoruba industries, make them redundant or cause them to be abandoned. Nigeria has all but destroyed the education system, the pride of the Yoruba. Yoruba youths flee Nigeria in droves for greener pastures abroad where they thrive and prosper.
Nigeria imprisons (eg Chief Awolowo in 1962) or murders (eg Chief Abiola 1993) the Yoruba who aspire to the highest political office in the land. Nigeria assassinates (eg Dele Giwa) or attempts to assassinate (eg Mrs Ransome-Kuti) the Yoruba who campaigns for better life for their people. Nigeria condones and encourages despicable human rights abuses in Yorubaland including ethnic cleansing, genocide, pillaging, raping of women and girls, and terrorising. To prosper economically, morally, politically, and socialy, Yorubaland must be rescued from Nigeria, and become an independent nation of its own. Since Nigeria does not do political dialogue, Yorubaland must find the means of extricating itself.
4. Strategies for extricating Yorubaland from Nigeria
A strategy of Ilana Omo Oodua, the premier Yoruba self-determination organisation, is to challenge in the courts, the legality and legitimacy of the Nigerian state. It is arguable, for example, that the incorporation of Yorubaland into Nigeria in the Amalgamation of 1914 was illegal. In 1888, Queen Victoria for Great Britain signed a treaty of friendship with the Alaafin of Oyo for Yorubaland, which recognised Yorubaland as a sovereign state. The 1888 treaty is recorded in British and Foreign State Papers Vol 80 - Page 402. Unlike the Sokoto caliphate, the Yoruba never surrendered their sovereignty to Britain. Indeed, Lord Lugard when proclaiming the Amalgamation acknowledged that Britain did not have jurisdiction over all of Yorubaland. It is equally arguable that Nigeria currently has no constitution at all. The African Charter on democracy, and the imposition of Sharia criminal law in the 12 Arewa states, technically rendered the 1999 Constitution obsolete. Success with any or all these court cases means that the Nigeria state loses legitimacy. Ilana Omo Oodua believes that realisation of this illegitimacy would perturb the fragile internal cohesion of Nigeria and cause the country to simply collapse. Similar realisation of illegitimacy by their different ethnic peoples caused the Soviet Union to collapse in 1991.
Please sign, share and encourage others to sign the Yoruba self-determination petition http://chng.it/QJp8yJ6hPs