A colony had no international personality. It was neither a sovereign nor a corporation. A colony was simply the British Crown acting through agents. The colony was merely a particular aspect of Royal power; it had no independent existence from the British Crown. The colony was not clothed with a juridical personality; it had no entitlement to protection of rights. The colony existed in politics only; it was neither an entity in law nor in equity. The giving of independence to a colony gave rise to the ‘colonial State’. The clothing of the ‘colonial State’ with a ‘sovereignty’ by the coloniser had no precedent in law, its legality was dubious. The ‘colonial state’ was a usurpation and, therefore, an illegality.

Colonisation gave rise to two types of sovereignty, namely, right of ownership (legal sovereignty), and jurisdiction and control (administrative sovereignty). The Apapa Land case confirmed this dichotomy. Nigeria possessed only administrative sovereignty over the Yorubaland, not legal sovereignty. A state could administer a territory even though sovereignty resided somewhere else other than in itself. For example, the Allies administered Germany after WWII even though the titles resided in Germany. Similarly, Britain administered the Yorubaland as part of its colony Nigeria even though the title remained in Yorubaland. Nigeria was the administrative successor to Britain so that the relationship remained as before. Nigeria itself was not sovereign until gifted ‘sovereignty’ by Britain on 1 October 1960.

Legal sovereignty was composed, amongst others, of ownership over traditional land, the right to preserve one's culture, identity, language and tradition, and the right to be governed by one's customary law. Legal sovereignty was, by its very nature, original. It could not be derived from another sovereignty. Legal sovereignty was not a transferable commodity. Legal rights that attach to a particular territory, such as, the Yorubaland, subsist even if the territory were usurped into a ‘colonial State’, such as, Nigeria. The legal sovereignty of the Yorubaland was unquestionable and inalienable. International law entitled the Yoruba peoples the right to exit Nigeria as an exercise of their inherent legal sovereignty over their territory.

In its Resolution 1514 (the Law of Decolonisation), the UNGA ‘Convinced that all peoples have an inalienable right to complete freedom, the exercise of their sovereignty and the integrity of their national territory’, promulgated that in the granting of independence, ‘the integrity of their national territory shall be respected’(Article 4). In its creation of the ‘colonial State’ of Nigeria on 1 October 1960, Britain prevented the Yoruba people from exercising ‘their sovereignty’, and Britain did not respect ‘the integrity of their national integrity’. Britain acted in defiance of the Law of Decolonisation. By making this application for UN Membership, the Yoruba people were seeking to exercise their legal sovereignty over their land, and to protect their national integrity as guaranteed to them by UNGA Resolution 1514. The Yoruba reject the incorporation of their legal sovereignty within the ‘colonial State’ of Nigeria, for to do otherwise was to consent to Britain’s usurpation act of colonisation.