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Our Ref: YoruExit/Nig1
23 February 2023
President Muhammadu Buhari
President of Nigeria
Aso Rock
Abuja
Nigeria
Dear President Buhari
Re: Pre-action Letter regarding An action to end the illegal and illegitimate occupation of Yorubaland by Nigeria.
I write to inform you that we Yoruba Descendants intend to bring before the African Court of Justice a claim of border dispute between Yorubaland and Nigeria. We seek to litigate because you have failed to respond to previous correspondences.
On 16 March 2021, Oluwaseyi Daniel Ogunyemi, on behalf of Omo Oodua Worldwide, a Yoruba socio-political organisation, wrote to formally inform your government, ‘that we would like to exercise our inalienable right as member of UNPO to demand self-determination as Yoruba Nation and break away from the Federal Republic of Nigeria’. Mr Ogunyemi further stated in the letter that ‘We strongly believe that we have what it takes to govern ourselves and develop a prosperous and forward-looking Country for ourselves and generation unborn’. Mr Ogunyemi reassured you of the intention to achieve Yoruba self-determination peacefully without recourse to war or fighting. You did not reply to this letter.
On 6 August 2022, Professor Akintoye, on behalf of the Yoruba Self-determination Movement worldwide, wrote to formally inform you ‘of the decision of the overwhelming majority of our Yoruba nation and people to exercise our right to self-determination to have our independent and sovereign country separate from the country of Nigeria’. Professor Akintoye also indicated in the letter that ‘We Yoruba people solemnly and unalterably reject any arrangement that would subject us to continued membership of Nigeria’. Professor Akintoye invited your government to a constructive dialogue, and negotiation with the Yoruba nation’s representatives by 30 September 2022. You did not reply to this letter.
As you know, Britain amalgamated Yorubaland into Nigeria on 1 January 1914. Since then, Nigeria has continued to assume that Yorubaland was part of its territory. However, according to International Law, the Yorubaland was established by treaty as a distinct territorial entity, and its territorial integrity is inalienable. Nigeria illegally and illegitimately occupies, and trespasses on the Yorubaland. International law entitled us to end this occupation and trespass.
In 2002, the International Court of Justice used a 1913 agreement between Britain and Germany to determine the dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi Peninsula. Other border disputes, such as, that between Libya and Chad and between Burkina Faso and Mali, have been similarly decided. According to these cases, territorial borders agreed by colonial treaties were inalienable and binding on their successor countries. Colonial and pre-colonial boundary treaties were a sort of conveyance of the limits of territory stipulated in the treaty. Hitherto, International Law in this connection has made lawful only the old treaties between the European colonialists amongst themselves. There is no legal or moral justification for that restriction.
When the Europeans first came to Africa, they met peoples living within demarcated self-governing, usually monoethnic, territories. They signed treaties with these ethnographic entities. These treaties are valid under the International Law. Britain, Nigeria’s creator, acknowledged the existence of a Yoruba country with its own borders. On 3 July 1888, Britain signed a treaty with that country, that it knew then as Yorubaland. On 8 July 1888, notice of the treaty was published in the London Gazette. On 23 July 1888, the fact of the treaty’s ratification by Britain was communicated to the Alaafin, as the Head of Yorubaland. The treaty was underpinned with a consideration. Both parties agreed to the additional obligations imposed by contract law. Alfred Moloney, the Governor of the Colony of Lagos, confirmed the existence of these contractual obligations when on 16 July 1890 he paid the Alaafin the stipend of £35.5s.
On 1 January 1914, Britain incorporated the Yorubaland into a new country that it called Nigeria. Lord Lugard in the Report on the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria, and Administration, 1912 - 1919 wrote at Paragraph 22: ‘…since the treaties in Yorubaland did not guarantee “independence” it was not considered necessary to substitute any Agreement.’ In other words, Britain on the Amalgamation of Nigeria did not seek a different agreement with Yorubaland, and Britain did not withdraw or modify the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland treaty. When the treaty was signed on 3 July 1888, neither party anticipated nor foresaw Amalgamation, a fundamental change of circumstances.
The wording of the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty made the intentions of the parties absolutely clear and unambiguous. As provided for in the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties (VCLT), Article 29, Territorial scope of treaties, ‘Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, a treaty between one or more States…is binding upon each State party in respect of its entire territory.’
The parties intended their treaty:
1. To establish the boundary and frontiers of a State called Yorubaland. Lord Lugard at Paragraph 20 of his report acknowledged that there was a Yoruba Government over this territory, with a population of over a million.
2. To bear the hallmarks of finality. There was nothing in the treaty to indicate that the frontiers agreed were to be provisional or temporary. As promulgated in the Libyan/Chad dispute (ICJ Reports 1994, p. 6), a boundary established by treaty achieved a permanence that the treaty itself did not necessarily enjoy. The treaty could cease to be in force without in any way affecting the continuance of the boundary.
3. To have an international character. The treaty was a ‘friendship-and-trade’ treaty intended to be used to deter French incursions into Yorubaland. The French at that material time were hovering on the western perimeters of the Yorubaland. Britain believed that the Alaafin was capable of entering into a treaty relationship with their Queen, and was capable of acting at the international level.
4. To have the force of international law, that is, binding and enforceable. Pacta sunt servanda, one of the oldest principles of International Law, applied. VCLT Article 26 articulated the law: ‘Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.’
The incorporation of the Yorubaland in the Amalgamation of Nigeria on 1 January 1914 was ‘a fundamental change of circumstances’. Britain unilaterally used its own internal laws to make this change. Nevertheless, the principle of pacta sunt servanda still prevailed. The change of circumstances could not, and did not, terminate the territorial integrity of the Yorubaland.
1. VCLT Article 27, Internal law of States, rules of international organizations and observance of treaties says: ‘1. A State party to a treaty may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform the treaty.’
2. VCLT Article 62.2 says: ‘A fundamental change of circumstances may not be invoked as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from a treaty:(a) if the treaty establishes a boundary.’
The following conclusions fall from the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty:
1. Britain established by a treaty dated 3 July 1888 that the Yoruba people had an inalienable title to a territory with defined borders.
2. Britain established by a treaty dated 3 July 1888 that the territory, Yorubaland, was a State in its own right; with an international character.
3. Britain did not have the right under the said treaty to amalgamate the Yorubaland with Nigeria.
4. Britain amalgamating the Yorubaland with Nigeria did not change the status of the Yorubaland as a State in its own right.
We have repeatedly made clear to you, and to the Nigeria government, that the Yorubaland wished to come out of Nigeria. The 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty gave us the legitimate expectation. We respectfully demand that Nigeria vacates the Yorubaland with immediate effect.
We are comforted in our demand by The All Africa People’s Conference (Accra 10-13 December 1958) that ‘a) denounces artificial frontiers drawn by imperialist powers to divide peoples of Africa, particularly those which cut across ethnic groups and divide people of the same stock ; b) calls for the abolition or adjustment of such frontiers at an early date; c) calls upon the independent states of Africa to support a permanent solution to this problem founded upon the true wishes of the people.’
We respectfully request that you kindly respond within 14 days of the date on this letter.
We remain respectfully yours
Baasegun (Dr) Olusola Oni
MBBS, MSc, MD, LLM, GDL, FRCSEd, FWACS, FMCS, FRCSEng
For and on behalf of Yoruba Descendants
cc:
Senator Ahmad Lawan, President of the Senate of Nigeria
Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nigeria
Hon. Olukayode Ariwoola, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria