Public Statement from The Yoruba Party In the UK (YPUK)

(website: yorubapartyuk.org; email: info@yorubapartyuk.org)

There is a video circulating on the social media in which Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the UK Conservative Party, threatened to make life difficult for immigrants in the UK as well as deter others intending to come here. 

I issue this response in my capacity as Leader of the Yoruba Party in the UK (YPUK), which we formed a year ago to provide political voice to the Yoruba community in the UK.

Behind the UK immigration policy is the perception that as immigrants come from poor countries, they would contaminate and infest the British way of life. Perhaps I could remind Britons that Yorubaland was not always a poor country. In 1900, the total value of trade between Britain and Yorubaland was £3.5 million (ie more than £50 billion in today’s money). By 1913, the value of trade had more than trebled, by 1918, it had reached £17 million (ie more than £250 billion in today’s money). Yoruba trade with the British Empire was more than 60% of the total in 1913 and had reached more than 80% of the total by 1917. In other words, the value of British trade with Yorubaland in those days was second to none. Yorubaland contributed £6 million to Britain’s effort to pay off the Imperial War Debt; the interest and sinking fund on this money reached £13 million (1e £195 billion in today’s money) spread over 36 years, meaning that we Yoruba were still secretly paying for WWI on behalf of the UK up to the 1950s. Britain owes us bigly.

The Illegal Immigration Act 2023 and the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 are parts of a long list of racist and xenophobic asylum policies adopted by British politicians, particularly the Tories, over the years. Failure of these policies reveal their total lack of understanding of the underlying problem. Mass immigration, legal or otherwise, is not about attraction. Rather, it is an equation in which ‘fleeing from’ is on one side and ‘fleeing to’ is on the other side. The ‘fleeing from’ is the initiating cause of the ‘fleeing to’. There is no ‘fleeing to’ without ‘fleeing from’. It is self-evident therefore that Britain could not have a successful immigration policy without first addressing the ‘fleeing from’ side of the equation. Kamala Harris understood this. British politicians by contrast believe that the optics of ‘fleeing to’ was so powerful that it would always get them elected into office.

The ‘fleeing from’ does not benefit Yorubaland. On the contrary, it is devastating for Yorubaland. Yorubaland is losing its youths as it previously did with the Transatlantic Slavery. What YPUK wants from Britain is a policy that discouraged the ‘fleeing from’ Yorubaland, and encouraged stay at home. The key is the legal relationship between Britain and Yorubaland that was established in 1888 with a non-cession treaty of friendship and preferential trade signed by Queen Victoria, for Great Britain, and Alaafin Adeyemi, for Yorubaland. The treaty, which was ratified by both parties on 16 July 1890, has been kept in abeyance by the British ever since. Indeed, the British assassinated the Alaafin in 1895. Britain implementing the terms of the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty will transform the economic fortunes of Yorubaland and immediately put an end to emigration from Yorubaland. Kemi Badenoch  knows, or ought to know, that we Yoruba would not be emigrating to the UK in numbers if Britain had not saddled us with Nigeria.

Baasegun (Dr) Olusola Oni

Leader, The Yoruba Party in the UK