Makanjuola Muhammad gives reason why Yorubas must also secede from Nigeria

AS separatists feelings and aspirations continue, Makajuola Adigun Muhammad, a leading voice for the emergence of Oduduwa Republic has lent his voice to the barrage of voices calling for Nigeria's break-up.

He said this in a piece titled ''Oduduwa Republic, the key to unlocking Yoruba greatness.''

In his message, he lamented that in spite of the golden fleece and education acquired by a good number of Yoruba youths coupled with the abundant mineral resources in their land they only end up doing menial jobs in a ''useless, one Nigeria while other people with low levels of education control and own everything that belongs to their original owners: AWON WEERE!''

In his rather lengthy piece below, he decried the level of enslavement of the Yoruba people in what he described as the 'criminal Nigeria'.

Below is the full article:

''To demonstrate my deep knowledge of Yoruba History before the criminal advent of Nigeria, at this juncture, it is apposite and indeed relevant, to refer to what a few people have observed and said about the Yoruba Nation and people in antiquity and how they have evolved over the centuries even before Nigeria was born in 1914, which some half-baked Yoruba-Nigerian graduate historians do not know and will never learn because of the UN-dignifying roles the country of their enslavement defined for them to be, mere spectators. It will surely be appropriate to assert that the re-awakening of a people consciousness to their slavish status within a country they are lumped into, to be enslaved forever, could only be made possible by their deep knowledge of who they are in the past within the context of the evolution of the super-structure that served as their political, economic, cultural and social impediments, as a people and as an indigenous nation to achieve their fiery destiny!

It is imperative to start with a distinguished African whose ancestral roots are traceable to the Yoruba race.

He is Anthony Enahoro, one of the inheritors of the British pseudo democracy in Nigeria. His remarks to which formed parts of world of wisdom that is promoting the genuine current relentless struggle to berth a Yoruba Republic to which we like to refer are recorded in page 40 of the summer edition of Isokan Yoruba Magazine.

Chief Enahoro said: "May I now proceed from the general to the particular, in other words, yourselves Ladies and Gentlemen, and the African nation you represent, namely the Yorubas. You and your fore-bearers have made a distinctive contribution to African existence-your history and culture; your music and what has been described as your fraternity; your peaceful and non- imperialist relations with your neighboring nations; your artifacts; like Ife heads; your wholehearted acceptance of democracy(It is still on record that only in the old Western Region of Nigeria, which was mainly Yoruba, did a party in power lose an election, accept it democratically and philosophically, and win again on the rebound; your forward-looking adaption of Modern concepts of government-popular free Education, regulation of Chieftaincy system by Status, popular projects like the television and radio, Ife University, farm settlements, housing schemes, free interaction between religious communities; your dress modes(stylized aso-oke for examples; your specific religious tolerance between Muslims and Christians. E.t.c, these are attributes and traits which define, delineate and explain the character of Nations and people and illustration that they could be sovereign on their own. In our distinctiveness, we interpret and characterize the people (Yorubas), who and what we are; our position in black Africa context and other African nations" Anthony Enahoro concluded.

Another Historians and writers who extolled the culture, tradition and virtues of the Yorubas before the unification of this wonderful nation into Nigeria in 1914 is the indisputable that none supersedes William Henry Clarke. He committed himself to devotedly and invaluable service in Nigeria with particular regard to African studies. And as a pioneer missionary of the Baptist mission. For a period of four years, he served in Yorubaland; he devotedly studied Yorubaland and the society in remarkable and enduring detail. In his book-Travels and Explorations in Yorubaland 1854-1858,reading from pages 186,189,237.245, 291,gave well established details of the advancement of the Yoruba Nation and people prior to their being satanically unified with strangers later designated as “Nigerians” in 1914. The advent of Nigeria was to cut off if not possible, slow down and destroy the journey of the Yoruba Nation and people from matching into a sustainable modernity and sovereign indigenous sovereign hood.

Another eminent historian who wrote about the Yoruba was Robert Smith, the author of the Kingdom of the Yorubas; a senior lecturer in history at the University of Lagos, presented Yoruba history as the history of a number of separate sovereign states and people, pursuing their individual yet converging paths and conscious of their relationship to one another through common traditions of origin language and culture.
He further asserted:

The Yorubas of West Africa (not Nigeria) are a numerous people with many kingdoms, among whom some twenty or more rulers over what formerly distinct and independent States. While the rest, amounting in one lists to over one thousand, are subordinate rulers whose territories consist of single towns and groups of villages. They form the third largest ethnic group (Nation) in Africa’s most populous failed State, Nigeria. Some nine million of them of which the population has increased further than the above in contemporary times, living in the rich forest and farmland of South-Western part of Nigeria; they are of Negro stock, whose language belongs to the Kwa group… Which predominates in West-Africa; though it remained unwritten until the 1840s, Yoruba is rich in Oral literature, and there are many dialects. Primarily, they are farming people, cultivating their family lands in individual holdings, at the same time they have many ancient towns, so they appear to the most urbanized of the people in tropical Africa;.. But Yoruba in its history and the bulk of its population, each has well over half a million inhabitants. Their art and culture are being increasingly studied. The incomparable ‘Bronze’ of Ife, for example, is no longer seen as isolated and enigmatic phenomena, but are now confidently interpreted as testimony to the greatness of the Yoruba past and to its continuity. To this we ask and why should the majority of our people suffering masses in today Nigeria remain with the country if our Ancestors had achieved the above greatness in the past?

The Yorubas have undoubtedly occupied this homeland for many centuries, When the Portuguese arrived on the coast in the 15th century, the Yoruba political organization into a number of major and minor states had already been evolved, and may well have been in existence for several hundred years, as an examination of their king-lists and other oral data suggest.

In conclusion, why should Nigeria unity be greater than an indigenous organic Nation that had evolved for thousands of years? Our elites are just merely afraid to demand for Oduduwa Republic.

Oduduwa Republic is the key to unlocking the Yoruba greatness in the world of today!

Makanjuola Adigun Muhammed! A Proud Yoruba Nationalist!''