THE pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, on Monday, dissociated itself from the agitation for the creation of a sovereign Yoruba Nation out of Nigeria.
It described the call for the exit of Yoruba people from Nigeria as undesirable, self-serving and unnecessary.
Afenifere, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, said Nigeria’s problems were beyond its multi-ethnicity or diversity.
Afenifere’s position comes about two days after the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, led by Prof Banji Akintoye and Chief Sunday Adeyemo, alias Sunday Igboho, wrote an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, seeking a peaceful breakaway of Yoruba people from Nigeria.
In the letter, dated April 17, 2024, the Yoruba Nation advocates cited insecurity, particularly the killing of Yoruba people by armed herdsmen from the North as the reason Yoruba people should exit Nigeria.
They argued that Yoruba people have not been well fared in Nigeria, adding that their welfare would be guaranteed under a separate sovereign entity to be called the Yoruba Nation.
They called on President Tinubu to, within the next two months, set up a negotiation team to fashion out the peaceful exit of Yoruba people from Nigeria.
In his statement on Tuesday, Afenifere faulted both Akintoye and Igboho’s position on many grounds.
The organisation said, “First was on the reason adduced for the request to exit Nigeria, which was on the basis of perceived marginalisation that Yorubas are suffering in Nigeria. There is no doubt that a lot of Yoruba people can be better than they are presently. But whatever deprivation Yoruba may be experiencing today in the Nigerian nation is not due mainly to the fact that they are Yoruba people.
“The deprivations they are suffering could be traced to the general misgovernance that corporate Nigeria has been subjected to over the years if not decades. Meaning that marginalisation, deprivation, injustice, misgovernance, etc, that Yoruba may be experiencing today is if truth be told, not peculiar to Yoruba alone.
“We are not, by this submission, claiming that Yoruba people 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. What we should clamour for is good governance that will enable every segment of society to have a better lease of life.”
Afenifere also faulted the claim by Akintoye and Igboho that they were speaking for all Yoruba people, both at home and in the diaspora, wondering when they conducted a referendum to determine the number of Yoruba people who desire to leave Nigeria.