The Oodua Nationalist Coalition (ONAC) has called on Yoruba people to prepare for their own sovereign nation.
ONAC said its call was in reaction to the threat by some northern groups as well as “pain and misery on the Yoruba people due to distortion of the development plan of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo for the South-West”.
ONAC consists 18 groups, including Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM), Oodua Republic Coalition (ORC), Yoruba Revolutionary Congress (YORC), Oodua Muslim-Christian Dialogue Group (OMDG), Yoruba Students Nationalist Front (YOSNF), Oodua Hunters Union (OHUN), among others.
A statement on behalf of the coalition signed by Micheal Popoola, Oluwole Suleiman and Mrs Aduke Fadahunsi, and made available to newsmen, yesterday, called on Yoruba people in the territories of the Hausa-Fulani North to be guided by a strong sense of history and the fact that they will not be spared by those who claim to be their hosts.
“We advise them to begin to make alternative plans for the inevitable upheaval being promoted by the Fulani oligarchy.
‘North has always been the aggressor because of the region’s loss of power and the unhidden desire to make Nigeria the irreversible extension of the Fulani emirate.
“What we see is violent conflict of civilisations which can only be resolved when each region go her own way.
“In the bid to keep Nigeria as one country, millions of people have been killed and the lives of children wasted, the future pauperized and the potentials of Yoruba young men and women bottled or chained with fetters of iron.
“Today, we make the historic declaration that Yoruba people are ready for our own Oduduwa Republic. We have watched events these past days. The cloud is getting thicker.
“The poisonous rain appears ready to fall. It is time for the Yoruba people to be ready to defend our homeland from being seized by local imperial elements and their collaborators.
“We assert Yoruba self-determination and sovereignty. We shall work for it. We will actualize it,” ONAC said in the statement.
The group stated further called “on Yoruba people all over the world to prepare for a sovereign nation for the people of the South-West. We are over 50 million and far more than the population of 140 countries in the world.”
“Yoruba will be the third biggest nation in Africa and about the 28th biggest nation in the world. We are big and knowledgeable enough to be a sovereign nation. We assert the Yoruba self-determination without any further delay.”
ONAC said with the position of Northern youth asking Igbo to quit the North, the outright demand for Arewa sovereignty by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), and the legitimate demand for Biafra by Igbo, the call for a Niger-Delta Republic, “It is time for the Yoruba people to stand for Oodua Republic without any further delay.”
“Yoruba people this time will not support any attack on self-determination. We shall mobilise the masses and prevent Yoruba people from being used for any attack on the long suffering indigenous peoples of the South-East and the South-South”
ONAC said the quit notice was not against the Igbo alone but also against the Yoruba since “Igbo is not written on the forehead of residents in the North.”