By Kayode Emola
Last week, we saw numerous videos across social media showing Boko Haram terrorists invading a military barracks in Marte local government of Borno State. Without wishing to sound biblical, this gives a clear indication to our Yoruba people that the days of sitting on the fence are over.
The attack, which occurred around three o’clock in the morning of Monday 12th May 2025, left not only vast amounts of military hardware destroyed, but also scores of soldiers dead. If anyone needed further proof, this is it, that the insecurities facing Nigeria will not just disappear by folding our hands and hoping ever more fervently. We must accept that this is one more event in a long line of calamities, evidencing that Nigeria is on its last days as a nation.
We would be foolish to believe that what is happening in northern Nigeria does not affect us in far southern Nigeria. Since the days of Frederick Lugard’s merging of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria so that the resource-rich South could financially subsidise the less productive North, the Yoruba people have suffered from diversion of resources – resources that are rightfully theirs – away from their lands.
We will continue to see this pattern propagated in the current crisis, as human, military and financial resources will be sequestered from our land in an effort to quell the terrorist uprisings in the North. Yet this is a profound injustice for our people, who are being penalised for our government’s own security failings. Better that we should have our sovereign nation to be able to decide for ourselves how our resources should be allocated – and, furthermore, to be able to allocate those resources to our own self-defence when required.
After all, we have seen precious little concern for our people when it pertains to similar wanton killing of our farmers, traders, and traditional leaders in our land, just to mention a few. If there is no hope for our people’s security whilst we are a part of Nigeria – and with a fellow Yoruba holding the seat of Nigerian President, no less – then it is clear that we have no future as a part of this country.
Remaining in the country will result in the loss of our people’s security, livelihoods, wellbeing and ultimately their lives, and what future can a people have if they are all in the grave? We either remain in the country and have no future, or fight for our future by removing ourselves from Nigeria.
Furthermore, the ongoing violence in the North has led to the mass displacement of innocent citizens from their northern communities. As a result, their population is heading southward, in the hope of finding solace in our lands. Whilst Yoruba people are renowned for their hospitality and willingness to help others experiencing crisis, we cannot be blind to the implications that this may have on our resources.
Ever-increasing numbers of people reliant on the agricultural, mineral and spatial resources will lead to such resources being stretched ever more thinly. Combined with the disruption to agriculture and trade routes already caused by banditry and terrorist attacks, this could result in critical failure of our resources to meet the people’s needs.
Therefore, we cannot sit idly as Yoruba and watch as if it does not concern us. Even if we feel no shock, no sombreness, no compassion for what is happening to these people in the North, we must see that as long as we remain part of the same country as them, the shockwaves will ripple out to catastrophically impact us all.
The time has come for all of us to come together and reason out a solution of how to make Yorubaland and its people safe. This is not the time to call on the government or to call on the traditional leaders to find a solution. We have seen that the government will rather watch innocent people die than reach out to save the populace.
They are comfortable with diverting our focus towards the insecurity in the land, whilst they help themselves to the treasury. We should not let the politicians take us for granted and play Russian roulette as though our lives, the lives of our children and those after them don’t matter.
I will beseech our Yoruba people to understand that nothing good will come out of Nigeria as it is today. We need to gather ourselves together and, united as one people with one voice, stand up for Yoruba independence. This is no longer a matter of politics or even one of national and cultural pride. This is a matter of survival, and survival of all is what matters.
