Apapo O’odua Koya, (AOKOYA) a coalition of several pan Yoruba groups, has reacted to the meeting held by the APC National Chairman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and some APC South West leaders to denounce the secessionist calls of the Yoruba Nation agitators.
The leaders, who met in Lagos on Sunday, said they were not in support of the ethnic group’s break away from Nigeria.
At the meeting, the APC leaders expressed their “strong opposition to separatist agitations and hate speeches. While urging those indulging in such to desist forthwith, they renewed their belief in the unity, stability and sustainability of the country.”
AOKOYA in a statement signed by its official, Col Abimbola Sowumi (rtd) late on Monday, said the Governors of the South West States cannot in all sense of responsibility speak for the over 80 million Yoruba people all over the world.
According to the statement, “the resolution of the Governors promotes the destructive and parasitic interests of Fulani hegemony that is bent on vanishing the Yoruba Nation.”
“It is appalling that the Governors who claim to be representing Yoruba people made this empty and anti-people resolution in the Month of May, exactly 34 years after the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
The Governors did consult the people they govern before claiming to speak for the same people.
Not even members of their Houses of Assembly were contacted. They spoke for themselves and not for Yoruba Nation” the statement read.
The group said the Governors and their family members enjoy police escort and in their tinted cars, will never appreciate the irreversible momentum of the clamour for Oduduwa Republic.
AOKOYA said since 1999, about 20 years, all the six South West Governors put together have not been able to achieve what Chief Awolowo achieved in seven years.
“There is no industry established by any one of them since 1999 that employs up to 500 people except in their private business set up with public funds but for private profit.
None of the states has a common cassava or vegetable farm. All they do is to prepare budgets every year with insignificant impact on the masses.”
AOKOYA said the Governors sustain their rule through force, bribery and disbursement of crumbs to loyalists adding that ‘none of them can walk on the streets without heavy police protection the way other democratic leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo or the Governors of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, (UPN) walked on the streets in their dominion.
“The governors bought their votes. They did not secure legitimate votes of the Yoruba people.
Every vote obtained was through brazen corruption. Every vote was bought with cash between N2000 to N5000. It shows how their mandate was secure through fraud and day light robbery”, Sowumi said.
He added that none of the state governors scored 20 percent of the registered voters in their states whereas, not a single one enjoy the mandate of 10 percent of the population in their states.
“You are men of the trashbin of history. You will soon be irrelevant in the history of Yoruba people as you have chosen to stand against the popular will of your own people’ he further stated.
