Tuesday, 8th June 2021: The Yoruba Group, Ilana Omo Oodua, led by Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye, on Monday called on residents in the South west region of the country to stand up and defend themselves and their lands against external aggression. This followed the brutal killing of over 10 persons in Igangan community in Oyo State.

In a statement signed by Prof Akintoye, a second republic member of the Senate, the group urged Yoruba people to rise to the occasion by coming out to defend their land via technological, spiritual, and physical warfares.

 “It must now be clear to all Yoruba people of all classes and economic circumstances that war has come in a big way to our homeland. This war has been coming relentlessly for five years, but some of our own people failed to understand the full intent and impact of it. Some have thought the answer is to do one constitutional or political thing to Nigeria and the war would go away. But we must now all know that such propositions concerning Nigeria are blatantly unrealistic.

“And indeed these endanger Yorubaland, the Yoruba people, and the Yoruba civilization by diverting the attention of our people from the manifest reality of our time.

“We now call on all Yoruba people at home and abroad to focus on the danger of the moment in a manner that will be powerful enough to preserve our nation and civilization,” the statement added.

The group called on Governor ‘Seyi Makinde of Oyo State to shun all the constitutional objections that have been constantly raised from certain quarters whenever southwest governors take measures to defend our people.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria has failed woefully to protect the Yoruba people, along with other indigenous peoples of the Nigerian South and the middle belt against these invading, marauding forces.

“In fact when we consider all the behavior of the federal government in the face of this danger to the indigenous peoples and citizens of Nigeria, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the federal government is a sponsor of the terror in our land.

“The Federal Government persistently gives to the wide world a false picture of the situation by claiming that everything is a product of climate change even as the Fulani insistently issues statements that their mission is to conquer and subdue all the indigenous peoples of Nigeria and forcefully take their land for Fulani folks from all over West Africa. And even as international terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, and even Al-Shabab come to reinforce this Fulani terrorism all over Nigeria.

“While allowing the Fulani to move freely with and to import various categories of weapons into Nigeria, the Federal Government prohibited the possession of any kind of firearms by any indigenous citizens of Nigeria, sending the police and army to seize such privately owned weapons including those for which these citizens had earlier been licensed for hunting and sports,” the statement added.