Voice of Emancipation: When Will Yoruba Nation Come

By Kayode Emola

Following the recent pronouncement of the United States of Biafra USB) in Finland by one wing of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), a lot of people are asking when Yoruba nation will come to fruition. The good response is that what happened in Finland, as laudable as it is, is a complete jamboree.

Firstly, to critically analyse what happened in Finland, the Igbo nation that has only 5 states in Nigeria was able to come up with 40 states of Biafra. This goes to show that the people behind this charade are not deep thinkers but very shallow-minded and are only playing on the gullibility of the innocent Igbo people.

Secondly, people will see through the lies of some few people in the Biafran struggle perpetrating themselves as the leaders of IPOB. Their purported 40 states of Biafran are nothing short of usurping other peoples’ land and declaring it as a Biafra nation. This goes to show that these people have not learned anything from history about what made the late Ojukwu lose the Biafran Civil War between 1967 – 1970

Thirdly, prior to the declaration, their supposed leader claimed that they had amassed an enormous amount of firepower to confront the Nigerian army on 2 December 2024. This claim has since proven to be lies and deception used to deceive the unsuspecting public.

I can go on with so many reasons why we should not draw conclusions or parallels between the Yoruba nation struggle with the Biafran struggle. However, time will not permit me to do justice to that. What I would rather focus on with our Yoruba people is to set out the path for the emergence of our Yoruba nation and hope that those who can discern it will understand and follow.

The path to self-determination is a hard one and only a few will find it and for those who find it, only a few will be ready to walk on that path. The majority will be served by emotions and feelings therefore missing the mark. The path to self-determination requires meticulous planning, and after much planning, then comes the implementation stage.

As it stands, there are too many voices in the room, thereby preventing adequate planning. This has sometimes made the Yoruba people feel that there is no strategy with which the self-determination struggle is being pursued.

Therefore, I want to take this medium to explain to our comrades that there is serious planning going on as to how best to achieve the Yoruba nation without shedding any innocent blood. Once the planning phase is complete, we will then move to the implementation phase. It is at this implementation phase that tensions will become heightened, and people will begin to see actions.

Following the implementation phase, we will be able to decide with the other nationalities in Nigeria how we want to separate. That is assuming the implementation phase doesn’t lead to confrontation with the Nigerian state. If it does lead to confrontation, the Yoruba nation must be adequately prepared to protect its borders and citizens and the supply of goods and services to maintain the new state.

It is when all these have been achieved that Yoruba nation will come. Without all these ingredients, countless amount of declarations will not bring about a Yoruba or Biafran nation. It is the reason why I said earlier in this piece that the actions of the Finland-based Biafran group were a jamboree that should not be taken seriously.

I will urge our people to be vigilant and steadfast in our journey to nationhood and our quest to sovereignty. We are nearly there but we still are not there yet. Preparations to get to that stage will take us at least about a year from now to mobilise and get our people ready.

It is something that must be done meticulously, and serious planning must be put in place with the end goal in mind rather than the starting point. We must plan to succeed and therefore set high bars and targets for ourselves. Our successes must be equally measured along the way to ensure that we do not falter when it matters most.

It is when we are ready to go through this journey that we can truly from our hearts of hearts say the Yoruba nation will come. If not, I am afraid, we may be jumping to the gonging band that has nothing to offer, thereby becoming artists performing a jamboree event.

The Yoruba nation’s struggles call for serious minds to come together to execute the plans of delivering the Yoruba sovereign nation to the Yoruba people. Therefore, this task cannot be left to the fainthearted, or else it may take us longer to get to our promised destination. I pray and hope that God will bring together a team that will deliver this herculean task for the Yoruba people sooner rather than later.

We have seen that Nigeria has nothing good to offer its citizens other than wanton poverty and deprivation. Therefore, we cannot afford to waste time thinking that going the way of the Finland-based Biafran group will deliver to us a Yoruba nation. We need to be focused on the right path we currently are and put our hands to work so that we can get the desired result of a sovereign Yoruba nation.