Afenifere Rejects Akintoye, Igboho On Yoruba Secession

The pan-Yoruba sociocultural and sociopolitical organisation, Afenifere, has described the call for the exit of Yoruba from Nigeria as “undesirable, self-serving and unnecessary at the moment at least.”

National Publicity Secretary Jare Ajayi said on Monday the problems bedevilling Yoruba land and Nigeria as a whole “are not merely because multi ethnic groups make up the country.

Rather, the country’s multi-various problems can be traced to lack of good governance.”

Prof. Banji Akintoye and Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho were reported to have jointly sent a letter to President Bola Tinubu demanding the setting up of a negotiation team that will midwife the exit of Yoruba from Nigeria within two months.

But Afenifere faulted the duo’s positions. The group said: “There is no doubt that a lot of Yoruba can be better than they presently are.

“But whatever deprivation Yoruba may be experiencing today in the Nigerian nation is not due mainly to the fact that they are Yoruba.

“The deprivations they may be suffering could be traced to the general misgovernance that corporate Nigeria had been subjected to over the years, if not decades.

Meaning that marginalization, deprivation, injustice, mis-governance etc that the Yoruba may be experiencing today is, if truth is to be told, not peculiar to Yoruba alone.

“We are not, by this submission, claiming that Yoruba are getting the best or should not be better served.

“Far from it, what we are saying is that it would be unfair to use the excuse of the deprivations in the land as an alibi to want to leave Nigeria.”