A United Kingdom-based Yoruba socio-cultural group, The Isokan Yoruba, has taken a swipe at a Yoruba monarch, the Olowu Kuta and Chairman Supreme Council of Owu Obas, Oba Hameed Makama, for his stance on the current manhunt for self-acclaimed Yoruba self-determination activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho).
This was contained in a statement issued on Monday and signed by the president and general secretary of the group, Chief Akinola Rufus and Ilelaboye Akinnagbe, respectively.
Operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS) had on July 1 invaded Igboho’s Ibadan residence, killed two guards, arrested some people and vandalised his property.
Following the attack, the federal government had declared Igboho wanted, much to the chagrin of several groups and individuals across the globe.
But the Owu monarch, Oba Makama, had weighed in, advising the Yoruba nation agitator, Ighoho, to give himself up to the DSS, saying it is the honourable thing to do.
Reacting to this stance, however, the Isokan Yoruba group said the monarch goofed and demanded that he should retract his statement, describing it as “a position of an attention-seeking glutton pursuing bread and butter at the expense of his race.”
The group said the Owu monarch “is running a lone race to the destruction of his people and with very dire consequences.”
Isokan Yoruba warned that the Yoruba race will not spare anybody going against the popular agitation for a Yoruba nation, which according to the group, came as the last alternative after the popular call for a true federalism seemed to have hit a brick wall.
“We should view the ongoing clamour for a Yoruba nation as the last hope for our race and the manhunt for Chief Sunday Adeyemo Igboho as a siege on the Yoruba race. Any attack meted out to Igboho is a direct attack on Yoruba people and will be resisted by all of us.
“Igboho is a symbol of our people. He can have his foibles, just like all of us. He is human and susceptible to making mistakes. But in the present manhunt, we are not seeing his image but the struggle he represents, which is the popular stance of the overwhelming majority of the Yoruba people.
“We shall shield him, we shall support him, we shall fight for him, win or sink with him on this course which he championed for the good of all of us.
“We are tired of a Nigeria that promises no hope for our race; a Nigeria that is daily plundering our economy, raping, maiming and killing our people so indiscriminately.
“We shall fight with Igboho until our freedom is delivered. Scores of Nigerians, including school children, are in kidnappers’ and bandits’ dens. The government claims knowledge of their whereabouts but cannot go after them to rescue these hapless citizens. Same government is swift to invade Igboho’s house at midnight. Shame!” The group said.
The group called on Oba Makama to withdraw his “terrible statement” and tender an unreserved apology to the Yoruba people or be ready to face the people “with his pro-evil position on a race so battered and traumatised by the ruling bigots whose intention is to render us frustrated and useless, by turning our land to undeserved war zone.”
It wondered that Oba Makama who could not issue a press statement to condemn the barbaric killing of one of his colleagues, Oba Israel Adeusi, the Olufon of Ifon, Ondo State, by the Fulani bandits; and another prominent king that was kidnapped in Ekiti State and also antagonized the #EndSARS protests by supporting dastardly acts of the Nigerian Army.
It called on the entire Yorubaland to beam their searchlights on him, saying “he is not of one of us; he is a sell-out.”
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