By Kayode Emola

For some time now, the Yoruba nation struggle has seemed to be experiencing ups and downs. Truthfully, this should not be a surprise, as surges and setbacks are not unusual in a struggle like ours. There is no perfect off-the-shelf template, which one can deploy in their struggle for freedom. We can only keep adapting our methods to the environment in which we find ourselves at that time, and endeavour to utilise it to our advantage.

The major ingredients for the success of any group are unity and togetherness. Sadly, we have lacked these a great deal in our Yoruba struggle. Many comrades in our ranks have been agents of disunity, sowing seeds of discord in an attempt to stall our inevitable destination.

However, the dynamic is changing rapidly, and our people are beginning to see the need to work together. Even the Holy Bible says that a house that is divided against itself cannot stand, and this is why the enemy is employing this tactic to derail our goal.

Now that the liberation struggle is back on track, the importance of taking the path of unity cannot be over-emphasised. It is the foundation on which all our work must be based, otherwise, we will find ourselves back where we started, all those years ago.

Therefore, as we march on to freedom, we must remind ourselves what freedom means. The freedom that we seek is one that ensures the government works for the benefit of all citizens, and not just the few.

We must build a nation where the rights and privileges of every person are enshrined in the constitution and protected by law. A nation where everyone can take care of themselves without needing to become reliant on bribes or the indignity of becoming involuntary beggars.

The new Yoruba nation must not be allowed to degenerate into the chaos that Nigeria has become today. We must be ready to preserve our freedom from those who desire to return us to the poverty rampant across the country. We should resist anyone, whether political groups or individuals, that would seek to take us back to a culture of government that serves only the elite and their cronies.

I encourage all our Yoruba people to remove the garments of Nigeria and embrace their true identity. We must ready ourselves to push for Yoruba sovereignty with every fiber of our being. We must strive with all desire to see our freedom from slavery come quickly. And then we need to strive all the more to sanctify and preserve that freedom for the next generations to come.

By Kayode Emola

This week we heard the harrowing news of how scores of Fulani terrorist groups have surrounded our forests up and down Yorubaland from Brigadier-General Kunle Togun (Rtd). Should anyone know better about the dangers we face as Yoruba then I believe General Togun should be a voice to be reckoned with as the former SSS Director and former Chief Commandant of Amotekun in Oyo State.

We heard General Togun narrating his ordeal with the Federal Government in trying to combat this nefarious group in our forests. Yet we Yoruba are sitting on our hands and waiting for the day the Federal Government will come to our rescue. Let’s not forget that the Federal Government under Buhari has allowed these invaders into our space since 2015.

If Tinubu since becoming President in 2023 has not made any efforts to reverse this invasion, then we need to take steps as Yoruba to fight these insecurities as best as we could. It is now time for us as Yoruba to strengthen and empower our local hunters who have been an integral part of our local security from time immemorial. We cannot ignore this warning from General Togun and go to sleep with our eyes closed as if nothing is at stake.

Yoruba is now more than ever in an existential crisis, and it is time for us all to rise to the occasion and save our heritage from going into extinction. We cannot assume that emigrating abroad is the solution to fighting insecurity in Yorubaland. We should empower our people at home with the equipment they need to confront this threat that we all face.

It is not surprising that Tinubu who is the President of Nigeria now, and who is a Yoruba has not been able to confront this challenge. The Nigeria he is handling has way bigger problems from insecurity to the economy that the President would not have time for his Yoruba homeland.

We cannot assume that because Tinubu is the President of Nigeria, he will necessarily be interested in confronting the terrorists in our forests. Tinubu has shown severally that he is more interested in becoming President than doing the work of a President. Little wonder why he spends more time abroad than in the country he is supposed to be overseeing.

His policies even though are laudable do not actually guarantee a prosperous future for the country that he leads. The only good thing about Tinubu’s policies is that it has exposed how fragile Nigeria’s unity is. It has led to the clarion call by the Arewa North to secede from Nigeria despite their insistence that Nigeria is indivisible.

We should therefore not assume that it is a given that since a Yoruba man is the President of Nigeria, then we are safe. These terrorists hibernating in our forests can one day rise to wage war against us. They have tried to lure our people into accepting Sharia which failed but they have not stopped at that but brazenly called for Jihad if we refuse Sharia in Yorubaland.

Therefore, the last option available to us now is to strengthen our hunters to have a chance to defend ourselves. There’s no point thinking that the Governors will be able to help as they themselves as Chief—Security Officers of their States are toothless bulldogs who cannot bite.

If we are to stand any chance of survival, we should try to go to work now to secure our borders from these marauding invaders rather than pander to the mediocre tactics of the Federal Government. We must act now to save Yorubaland so that we do not regret our non-action in a few years time.

By Kayode Emola

As Yoruba, we must understand that the Nigerian political setting is a game, and it is only those who are observant that will overcome it. For far too long, we have lived our lives as though little things do not matter, but those little things add up to bigger problems for us later down the line.

We have seen recently how some Islamic clerics in Yorubaland started to advocate for the Sharia penal code to be implemented in Yorubaland. At first, they claimed it was just an innocent law that would be implemented solely for those consenting Muslims who subscribe to it.

However, we know this is not true, and the real intention of these unscrupulous people is to take Yoruba for a ride. Part of their claim for introducing the Sharia is to allow Muslims in Yorubaland the opportunity to wear hijab. I have not seen where in Yorubaland Muslims are not allowed to wear hijab. Even in some Catholic schools in Yorubaland, Muslim girls are allowed to wear hijab, therefore the claims of these Yoruba traitors are unfounded.

When a protest was staged a few weeks ago to reject Sharia in Oyo state by we Yoruba, these hideous monsters went on to the next phase of their agenda by surreptitiously trying to implement the Sharia in several other Yoruba states. When we rose to the occasion last Tuesday to resist the Sharia court being implemented in Ekiti state, it forced the Sultan to speak out.

Alas, there was evidence that the Fulani north was the brain behind the introduction of Sharia in Yorubaland. They want to do this to show the world that Nigeria is an Islamic country. The most bizarre thing is that all our Yoruba politicians, traditional leaders, and leaders of thought kept mute.

It was only when the youths started shouting from the rooftop that our politicians started to get the message. We saw how Nigeria deceptively stole the sovereign power from our traditional leaders by implementing policies that made them irrelevant. Their unsuspecting attitude affected their way of life and those of ours, and if care is not taken it might affect our children.

Therefore, we must all rise and rid ourselves of this menace called Nigeria before the Fulani north imposes more devastating poverty on us. We have a golden opportunity now to tell the world we do not want to be a part of the Islamisation agenda of the Fulani and their Arab backers. We must resist it with every fiber of our being and do everything we can to build a free society for our children in a free Yorubaland.

Resisting this menace is not just by pushing back with rhetoric, it must be backed by action and the only action that is necessary now is one that calls for the total disintegration of Nigeria. It’s time to push harder for our exit from Nigeria and God willing this time around we shall breakthrough.

We Yoruba cannot continue to feed this monstrous Nigeria that gives us nothing but destruction. We must realise that the only way to protect the lives and properties of our people is by exiting Nigeria. Once we exit, we can make laws that govern everyone equally so that everyone is bound by the same legal system.

As it is in Nigeria, there are multiple laws in place depending on your status in the society. The former Governor of Kano state Ganduje was caught collecting bribes which was recorded for the world to see. The reason why his hands were not chopped off till now still beats my imagination considering that Kano state has Sharia law.

This goes to show that what the Sultan is pushing is not actually the introduction of a legal system called Sharia to govern Muslims but a deception to enslave the Yoruba people. As there are no political officers from the north where Sharia is practiced who have ruined this country being tried by the Sharia court, I do not believe that it is a law that we want to welcome in Yorubaland.

It is therefore imperative for us as Yoruba to band ourselves together and say a big ‘NO’ to Nigeria once and for all. We must be emphatic in our message that we do not want to be a part of this mess of a country anymore. The country has shown over several years that it has nothing good to offer its citizens. We cannot continue to pretend that it will one day be a great nation when all the signs show that it is already a failed state.