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Our ref: YONA/2024/1

3 February 2024

The President

United Nations Security Council

United Nations

New York, USA

NY10017

Your Excellency

Nigeria: the relentless killing of the Yoruba people. Time for the UN to intervene.

I write in my capacity as a Yoruba chieftain to bring to your attention the unrelenting killing of the Yoruba people in Nigeria by the Fulani ethnic group.

Nigeria is a member of the United Nations (UN). Nigeria became a member of the UN on 7 October 1960 shortly after independence. By being a member of the UN, Nigeria has agreed to be bound by the letter and the spirit of the UN Charter. 

The Fulani relentlessly carry out unprovoked and senseless killings in Yorubaland and elsewhere in Nigeria - in our villages, towns and cities, on our farms, in our forests, on our roads, and in our churches. As a result of the incessant killings by the Fulani, our people flee into displaced-persons camps within the Yorubaland and refugee camps in neighbouring Benin Republic, and our youths are forced to emigrate to just about anywhere in the world including America, Arabia and Europe. The Nigerian government does not have the capability to stop the killings and safeguard our lives. We Yoruba people wish to avoid taking up arms and starting a civil war. To this end, we implore the UN immediately to invoke Chapter VII of its Charter (Articles 39 to 42) to come to our aid and prevent further bloodshed in our Yoruba Homeland.

Article 39

The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 40

In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

Article 41

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Article 42

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

There has been a tendency for politically-correct liberals and the timid press to sanitise the reality of what was, and is, happening to us Yoruba people in Nigeria. They characterise Fulani herders, armed with AK47 assault rifles, forcibly and illegally grazing their animals on someone’s farm as herder-farmer clash. This is not so. The fact of the matter is that the Fulani herder is an armed aggressor, the Yoruba farmer his defenceless victim. Fulani herders deliberately graze on cultivated farms rather than in the virgin forests available to them. Fulani herders killed the farmer, even if he permitted them to graze on his farm. The Fulani herders then raped his wife or daughters, if he had any, before killing them too. The Fulani herders then displayed the heads of their victims that they had severed as trophies.

In Nigeria, the Fulani are the killers. The Fulani are the sole source of insecurity and violence in Nigeria. The Fulani destroy and kill for political advantage only, not for jihad. The Fulani killers target our Oba, Yoruba traditional rulers. The Fulani killing agenda was unveiled and immortalised by Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of the Sokoto Emirate, premier of the Northern Nigeria, and the Fulani political and spiritual head from the 1940s until his death 1966. Just 12 days after Nigeria’s independence, Ahmadu Bello said this: ‘The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our grandfather, Othman Danfodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as conquered territories and never allow their future.’  

Members of the Security Council are fully aware of what these Fulani barbarians and savages are doing to us in Nigeria. Several international organisations have published reports on the unrelenting violence that we endure.

The Human Rights Watch in its World Report 2023; ‘Nigeria Events of 2022’ highlights the brutal killing of worshippers in the church at Ọwọ in Yorubaland by Fulani gunmen. The Report reveals that the Fulani Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists continued to carry out attacks on churches. The Report states that over 100 Fulani terrorist groups each with membership of about 30, operated with military grade weapons. The Report recalls that in 2020, the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) had concluded that a full investigation was warranted into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Fulani terrorists.

Amnesty International report on Nigeria 2022 highlights violation of international law including crimes against humanity committed with impunity by Fulani Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. The Report states that the Nigeria state was failing in its responsibility to protect its people from abuses committed by the Fulani terrorist groups, which were directed against civilians targeting villages, farming communities, and highways and trains, which amounted to war crimes.

The Council on Foreign Relation in Nigeria Security Tracker 2023, tracked ‘violence both causal and symptomatic of Nigeria’s political instability and citizen alienation’. The data is presented in graphs. Over 5,000 deaths are reported in Yorubaland in the relevant period. The trend for deaths increased exponentially. The Fulani terrorist groups were responsible for estimated 90% of the deaths.

ReliefWeb’s Nigeria Security Analysis Report, based on the Nextier Violent Conflict Database 2921/22, highlights Nigeria’s ‘enduring rise in insecurity’ in which armed Fulani established new killing fields and continued their atrocities in previous violent hotspots. The report says age-long Fulani herders terror reign against farmers continued to deepen with new incidents and increasing fatalities, and with several communities ‘turned into piles of ruin’ as inhabitants flee for their lives.

We should be most grateful if you would be kind enough to bring this letter to the attention of members of the Security Council and issue it as a document of the Council. We respectfully request that the Council seized this terrible Yoruba situation, which is a ‘threat to peace and security’, as provided for under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Respectfully Yours

Dr Oluṣọla Oni MBBS, MSc, MD, LLM, GDL, FRCSEd, FWACS, FMCS, FRCSEng

Baaṣegun Alabẹ 

for and on behalf of the Yoruba Nation

cc:  His Excellency António Guterres, Secretary-General