YOLICOM writes letter to all Yoruba Obas, declares ‘Oduduwa republic’

The Yoruba Liberation command has written a letter to all the Traditional rulers in Yoruba land over its intentions to secede and form ‘Oduduwa Republic’.

PoliticsNGR has been furnished with the letter signed by Mr. Adeyinka Grandson, a member of YOLICOM and President of the Young Yorubas for Freedom. Read the letter in full below;

Open Letter of Citizens and other Freeborn people of Yorubaland to their Obas:

His Majesty Ooni Adéyẹyè, Ojaja II
Ooni of Ife’s Palace
Enuwa Square
Off Aderemi Road
Ile-Ife, Osun State

August 22, 2017

Your Majesty,

We are well assured you cannot forget that the cause of our choosing you to be Obas was to deliver us from all kinds of bondage and to preserve Yorubaland in peace and happiness. We are your principals, and you, our agents; it is a truth which you cannot, but acknowledge.

For if you shall assume or exercise any power that is not derived from our trust and choice therein, that power is no less than usurpation and an oppression from which we expect to be freed.

Whatever our forefathers were, or whatever they did or suffered from the 200 years of the British colonial thugs’ slavery and colonialism and the 50 years of Hausa/Fulani’s autocratic military and civilian regimes, we are the men of the present age and ought to be absolutely free from all kinds of exorbitance, molestation or arbitrary power; and you we chose to free us from all, without exception or limitation either in respect of persons, groups, degrees or things; and we were full of confidence that you also would have dealt impartially on our behalf and made us the most absolute free people in the world.

You seem unable to fight for our liberties – Oduduwa Republic, but want Nigeria remains; he that speaks of Nigeria cruelties of Yoruba people must be thrust out of your Palace and society; your Babalawos must pray for Nigeria – as if it had not deserved to be dissolved by all the nations within it, or as if you thought God were a respecter of the British people who created the chaos of a country. By this and other of your dealings – your frequent treating and tampering to maintain Nigeria – we that have trusted you to deliver us from its oppression and to preserve us from its cruelties are wasted and consumed in multitudes to manifold miseries, whilst you lie ready with open arms to continue the fraud to make way for your personal aggrandizement.

Have you shook this nation like an earthquake to produce no more than this for us? Is it for this that you have been so free to use and being so bold, both with our persons and estates? And do you (because of our readiness to comply with your desires in all things), conceive us so stupid as to be contented with such unworthy returns of our trust and love? No. It is high time we are plain with you. We are not, nor shall not be contented. We do expect, according to reason that you should in the first place declare and set forth Nigeria dissolution openly before the world, and in addition to showing the intolerable inconvenience of having Yorubaland as part of a fraudulent contraption of the British from the constant evil practices of ethnically motivated killings – and to so declare Oduduwa Republic, and to publish your resolution never to have any more to do with Nigeria.

You must also deal better with us concerning the prospect of Oduduwa Republic than you have done. You only are chosen by us the people; and therefore in you only is the power of binding the whole Yoruba nation by making, altering, or abolition of laws. You will, therefore, be prejudicing us if you could not make a pronouncement with royal assent of being our Obas, ending the British’s fraud.

What is this about going to the US, disguise as going to the UN? If we want out of Nigeria, must we wait till the US and EU assent? They are predominantly white and we are predominantly black, their assent will imply gross absurdity and shows them as superior to us. This will damage the confidence of our youths. For where their assent is necessary and essential, they must be as free as you to assent or dissent as their understandings and conscience should guide them. 

There is no reason for you to wait for their assent. In time past, they have stood still and seen many of us – and some of yourselves – violently abused without reparation by the Hausa/Fulani. June 12 readily comes to mind here.

We desire you to free us from Nigeria’s abuse and negative voices, or else tell us that it is reasonable we should be slaves – this being a perpetual prejudice in our Obas neither consulting with freedom nor safety. 

You know the constitution of Nigeria is unworthy of a free people and deserves from first to last to be considered and seriously debated, and reduced to an agreement with common equity and right reason, which ought to be the form of life of every government – the unitary system itself being, but a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage; and the laws that have been made since 1966 have in very many particulars made our government much more oppressive and intolerable. 

Forsake and utterly renounce all crafty and subtle intentions from the Hausa/Fulani’s Sultans and Emirs to have Nigeria remains a country; 

hide not your thoughts from us and give us encouragement to be open-breasted unto you. Proclaim beforehand what you determine to do in establishing Oduduwa Republic; and hear all things that can be spoken with or against the same; and to that intent, let the imprisoned presses at liberty that all men’s understanding may be more conveniently informed and convinced as far as is possible by the equity of your proceedings. 

I have the honour to be, Kabiyesi, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant.

Ka de pe lo ri, ki bata pe le se, ki irukere ko di abere… Ase. 

Adeyinka Grandson,
President of the Young Yorubas for Freedom,
Member of the Movement for Oduduwa Republic
Member of Yoruba Liberation Command.—PN