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Our Ref: YorExit/UK8
 
11 September 2022
 
Mr Brandon Lewis
Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor
Ministry of Justice
London
 
Dear Mr Lewis
 
We at IlanaUK congratulate you on your appointment as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor.
 
The British are passionate about their sovereignty. The British fought two world wars at great costs to defend their sovereignty. Brexit was all about asserting the British sovereignty.
 
The ethnic nations of Europe are passionate about their sovereignty. The British gave their unqualified support to the creation of ethnic-based states in Europe. The British supported the creation of ethnic-based states from the former Soviet Union. The British supported the creation of ethnic-based states from the former Yugoslavia even at the expense of a civil war. Today, the British are assisting the Ukrainians to defend their sovereignty.
 
We Yoruba too are passionate about our sovereignty; just like the British, and just like the ethnic nations of the Soviet and the Yugoslav. We Yoruba today seek to regain our sovereignty through the means of self-determination and an independent Yoruba Homeland. What we seek is provided for in international law.
 
The UN General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960 provides:
‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.’…‘Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.’
 
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 1981, Article 20: 1 provides:
‘All peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self- determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen’.
 
We Yoruba rightly hold the British responsible for the loss of our sovereignty. By the Proclamation of Amalgamation on 1 January 1914, the British forcibly took away the Yoruba sovereignty and subsumed the Yoruba state, that had been in existence since the beginning of time, into the country that you named Nigeria. The Yoruba as a people did not at any time cede their sovereignty to the British. To amalgamate Nigeria, the British government used the means of ‘Orders in Council’ to subvert the will of parliament.
 
On 26 June 1885, a parliamentary Select Committee recommended that the British withdrew from West Africa ‘…from all, except probably, Sierra Leone…with no exception, as regards new settlements’. The newly acquired territory of Lagos was recommended to be abandoned ‘…as soon as possible’. The government accepted that ‘this policy of non-extension admits of no exception‘, and for years acted in good faith and abided by the Select Committee recommendations. However, British officials on the ground in West Africa, on their own initiative, reversed this policy ‘of no exception’ as they scrambled for African territory with the French and Germans. The British government then later confirmed what was in effect fait accompli without further recourse to parliament.
 
Also, in pursuit of territory, the British government disregarded the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890, which had required that Parliament scrutinised ‘Orders in Council’, the legal mechanism by which the British government created the Nigeria Protectorates and then amalgamated them. Section 11 of the Act says:
‘Every Order in Council made in pursuance of this Act shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament forthwith after it is made, if Parliament be then in session, and if not, forthwith after commencement of the then next session of Parliament, and shall have effect as if it were enacted in this Act.’
 
The new British government, at the beginning of the new Charles era, owes the Yoruba the moral and legal obligation to declare that the 1914 Amalgamation of Nigeria was irrational or unreasonable, and therefore to reverse it.
1.     Amalgamation was expressedly done to deprive the Yoruba of their resources.
2.     Amalgamation was done to subordinate the Yoruba to others.
3.     Amalgamation was done without the consent of the Yoruba.
4.     Amalgamation subverted the expressed will of the British Parliament.
 
We respectfully request that in your capacity as the Justice Secretary, and as a matter of urgency, you referred the aforesaid claims for a Judicial Review or to a Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament for consideration.
 
We respectfully request also that you treat this letter as a ‘Letter before a Judicial Review Action’ for which the law enjoins you to reply.
 
Respectfully yours
 
 
 
 

Baasegun (Dr) Olusola Oni
Coordinator, IlanaUK
 
(IlanaUK is a welfare organisation dedicated to achieving self-determination for the Yoruba people of Nigeria through lawful and non-violent means.)