By Kayode Emola

Last week, the Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and his entourage visited the United Kingdom for a 2-day state visit. Whilst many of his critics say the visit should have been postponed or cancelled due to the multiple bomb blasts in Maiduguri. Others are of the opinion that such events are difficult to put on hold due to months of preparation.

Whatever argument is put forward, the important thing is that the event has come and gone. What we need to analyse is who truly benefits from this state visit? Is it President Tinubu and the Nigerian people or the UK government and its citizens?

To start with, the UK has a long history of putting its national interest first before any personal interest. Whereas Nigerians have a history of putting personal interest first before their national interest. That said, we need not look further at who is going to benefit more from the state visit of President Tinubu.

History teaches us that when it comes to diplomacy and agreement, the UK government cannot be trusted wholeheartedly. Not least because in the late nineteenth century, the British government signed several treaties of trade and friendship with many Yoruba monarchs, only to usurp their powers, transferring such powers to their own self-appointed administrators.

Today, those monarchs who are supposed to be the custodians of the governmental leadership in Yorubaland are mere spectators in royal regalia. Simply because they trusted the smiles of the British officials without truly knowing the snares that were set before them.

The UK government is not foolish to put up a lavish party for the Nigerian President just for showmanship. The British government knows when to use their high stakes diplomatic state visit as a tool for its national interest. This visit, I believe, plays into that scenario very perfectly.

Several commentators have spoken about the money the British government paid the Royal Niger Company to buy Nigeria in 1899. Many have linked President Tinubu’s visit to the UK to the royalties due Britain from the construction of Nigeria Ports Authority, which has been stopped for several years now. All these are just theories and without empirical evidence cannot be corroborated.

Whilst we may not know the full details of what transpired behind closed doors between the British government and the Nigerian President. One cannot help but wonder why a state visit with a country that the USA has designated as a country of particular concern.

I am not against a state visit for the Nigerian president to the UK. However, if the UK government were to be sincere about its interest in Nigeria, it should have helped the Nigerian government in tackling insecurity in the country. In the last decade alone, a report from ‘Protecting the Civic Space’ indicates that no fewer than 91,740 people have lost their lives between 2011 and 2024 in Nigeria. This figure should make any right-thinking nation pause and ask itself what the root causes of the problems are.

However, Britain is not ready to face the hard truth that it is partly responsible for the problems bedevilling Nigeria today. The ghost of the forced 1914 amalgamation of Southern and Northern Nigeria continues to haunt Nigeria even in this twenty-first century. Despite many British politicians, including former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying the amalgamation should never have happened.

There is still opportunity for the British government to make amends by addressing the amalgamation issue; if not, many more people are going to die needlessly in Nigeria. The Fulani North, whom the British government handed over the power of Nigeria to when they left in 1960 after Nigeria attained independence, have promised a mass jihad by the end of this month.

If the Fulani threat is anything to go by and their level of preparation ascertained by several security groups, then I don’t think we should wait until thousands of people are slaughtered before we see the dangers in Nigeria. The country sits on the cusp of history, and it shouldn’t be written with the blood of the innocent people who did not choose to die in this manner.

I will implore the Yoruba people not to read any genuine meaning into the state visit of President Tinubu to the UK. The UK has never been a friend to the Yoruba people, they’ve only been a friend to their own national interest.

What we must do is ask the United Kingdom what measures it is putting in place to help with the de-amalgamation of the country. As this is the only genuine gesture that can save countless lives that may be lost due to insecurity rampaging the country. Anything short of this is the United Kingdom turning a blind eye to the real tasks that are at hand to save lives and properties of the helpless Nigerians who are in the crossfire of several militias terrorising the country.

By Kayode Emola

Two weeks on from the conflict between the US & Iran and there is no end in sight. Many analysts are asking what the real cause of the fighting was and what is the US government hoping to achieve. Till date, the White House has not come up with a coherent reason as to why they went into the war other than they thought the Iranian regime was going to strike first.

The fact of the matter is that the US government went into this war with their eyes closed and when their eyes were opened, the world was already in chaos. A chaos that everyone, no matter where you are on this planet is going to partake in. So, all we need to do is to brace ourselves for the challenges that will follow in the coming days, weeks and months that will follow.

As it stands, President Trump is in a bind and has limited options on how to manoeuvrer the situation. He is hoping that the Iranian regime will capitulate and plead for clemency but that is never going to happen. The Iranians saw the weakness in the US plan from the beginning, and they exploited it big time.

They knew the US was going to finish them off militarily on an open combat, so they weren’t going to even try to confront the US on the battle ground. Rather, they resulted to an asymmetric warfare where Us interests were the targets.

They were prepared to hit the US where it matters most and that is on the economic front. Had the US opened their eyes to calculate the risks before venturing into the war, they would have been better prepared to deal with the fallout from the Iranian resistance.

The world we live in has experienced a lot of shocks in recent times which it is still recovering from. Not least the recent covid-19 pandemic that put many nations in dire financial constraint. On top of that, we had the Russian/Ukraine war that stretched the finances of many families all round the globe. Yet again the world is plunged into a war between the US and Iran, one which no analyst can say precisely when it would end.

From all indication, it seems as though there will be more pain before we begin to turn a corner. The Iranian economy has already taken a big hit from the many years of sanctions and may or may not be prepared for what is to come. The rest of us who do not know what it means to live inside austerity for many years like the Iranians have endured will have a taste of what it means to have your food being rationed if the war doesn’t end soon.

Either way, there are some few pointers as to the direction of travel for this ongoing conflict. The first is that the war has gone so bad for the US that President Trump has lifted sanctions on Russian oil on a whim. That is a big win for President Putin who has endured selling his crude oil at a cheap to India for over 4 years. Instead of the $20 mark he was collecting for a barrel, he can now charge over $100/barrel.

The next is that no amount of oil pumped out by Russia can make up for the over 25 million barrels of oil per day that was previously being pumped into the international market by the Gulf States. This means that if the war doesn’t end anytime soon, then the world would be in for a serious economic shock due to the shortage of energy readily available for distribution.

This brings me to the Yoruba question of independence from Nigeria. We have seen that the Nigerian security agencies are helpless in the face of terrorism confronting the country. Everyday we hear of terror attacks on our military infrastructure with no decisive response from the security agency. This can only mean one thing, that the Nigerian military do not have the wherewithal to confront these attacks.

It then goes to show that the security of our communities cannot be trusted to a Nigerian state that is lying to its people about the state of its defence capabilities. Our Yoruba people must as a matter of urgency begin to build resilience in our defence capabilities to confront the Fulani jihadist who believe that once they overpower the Nigerian army, they can overrun the country as they see fit.

We as Yoruba must learn from the Iranian regime that did not just capitulate in the face of a great adversary. Rather they confronted the Americans and its allies with the little strength that they have, and it seems to be keeping them going for now.

Whether the Iranians will surrender as President Trump has demanded remained to be seen. However, the pain that is spreading because of the conflict will be felt by everyone around the world. With Russia now actively playing the role of a mediator between the US and what is left of the Iranian government, one can only hope that diplomacy is given a chance to succeed for the sake of humanity.

If not, we might get to a point where either side will result to the use of a nuclear weapon in resolving the impasse. One that will have a devastating consequence for the entire world for a long time to come. My advice for those who are able at this juncture will be for people to stock up on supplies and be ready to ride this out for the long run and not just hope that the conflict comes to an end soon.

By Kayode Emola

In February this year, the Fulani terrorists issued a stern warning to the Yoruba people of Southern Nigeria that they would be restarting their 1804 Uthman Dan Fodio Jihad. Their intention is to conquer Yorubaland and the entire Southern Nigeria for their Fulani tribe, who are not originally from Nigeria.

This brazen audacity shows that these Fulani militias and their paymaster do not understand the deep history and culture of the Yoruba people. If they do, I don’t think they would dare to issue such a genocidal threat on our people and a land that we inherited from our forebears.

The Fulani must have mistaken the 8-year misrule of late President Buhari from 2015 to 2023, which favoured the Fulani tribe above every indigenous people of Nigeria. They must be thinking in their mind that they could conquer and subjugate our people with their crude method of governance that uses religion as a deception.

They must know that the Yoruba are a sophisticated people whose history dates back millennia, and our culture transcends the Yoruba borders of Nigeria. Yoruba is not just the largest tribe domiciled in Africa but also has a huge diaspora population that stands ready to defend our homeland, and people should the need arise.

It is therefore foolish for the Fulani people to think that they can come to Yorubaland in the name of Islamic jihad to conquer a people who were the first to bring Islam into Nigeria. The average Yoruba person does not hold a religious bias and will not succumb to any conquest by whatever ammunition the enemy may possess.

The Fulani militia, who dared to invade Yorubaland in the nineteenth century, regretted ever setting foot on Yoruba soil in the name of jihad. Likewise, those who tried their luck in the twentieth century. Therefore, any potential or real threat by the Fulani militias in this twenty-first century to invade Yorubaland after the Ramadan fasting would be met by a swift and decisive counter-offensive.

That the Yoruba haven’t responded in kind to the egregious crimes being committed against our people in Nigeria by the Fulani people is down to our belief in trying to settle disputes through diplomacy.

Yoruba people are descendants of royalty and great warriors; therefore, we are not a people that can just be pushed aside by mere threats from anyone, let alone the Fulani people. Our Yoruba warriors and hunters stand ready to face off any perceived or real threats by the Fulani people, and we shall respond in kind if they dare to raise a finger this time around.

The collective decision of the Yoruba people in Nigeria is to become autonomous and have our sovereign nation and to raise our flags in every nook and cranny of Yorubaland. This reality will happen sooner rather than later should the Fulani militia think they can conquer Yorubaland using force.

It is no secret that the Fulani people do not want the Yoruba, Biafra and other indigenous nationalities to leave Nigeria. This is due to their selfish and greedy nature that makes them parasitic to their hosts wherever they find themselves.

Therefore, the Yoruba people must ensure that this is the last daring act by the Fulani people against the Yoruba nation if they raise their hands against our Yoruba people. We must stand in unison, not just to push back this nauseating garbage from the Fulani people, but to make sure this is the end of the Nigerian project.