According to the leaders of the Yoruba Nation agitation, the Federal Government has until June 15, 2024, to extend an invitation to them for a roundtable discussion on the ethnic group’s status in Nigeria. 

The trio of Professor Adebanji Akintoye, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, the head of the Yoruba National Defence, and Otunba Ola Ademola, vice-chairman of the Yoruba Self-determination Movement, signed a letter addressed to the President that contained the ultimatum.

The letter read in part: “That the Nigerian Federal Government shall, within the next two months, but not later than June 15, 2024, inform us Yoruba Self-determination Movement that the Nigerian Federal Government have graciously agreed to our proposal for negotiation and that they have set up a negotiation team that will meet and dialogue with our Yoruba nation’s negotiation team”.

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The letter also included a proposal to secede from Nigeria due to herders’ reported hostilities, which included frequent kidnapping, killing, and maiming of Yoruba people.

The letter, dated April 17, 2024, reads, “We send this letter most respectfully to Your Excellency as a follow-up to our earlier letter, dated August 06, 2022, which we delivered to your predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his exalted position then as President of Nigeria.”

“Since 2015, the Fulani have been killing widely among the other peoples of Nigeria, including us Yoruba, destroying farms, villages and other assets, kidnapping men, women and children, extorting large amounts of money as ransom from friends and family of the kidnapped, and repeatedly asserting their intention to seize the homelands of all the indigenous peoples of Nigeria to turn all into a Fulani homeland.”

“In the Middle Belt, horrendous blood-letting is going on, very many families have been forced into Internally Displaced People Camps, and many of their villages have been seized by the Fulani and renamed as Fulani villages.

“In our Yoruba homeland, our people are resisting somewhat better, but the Fulani attacks and killings and kidnappings are unrelenting and are coming.

“All these actions by the Fulani are, to us Yoruba, a sufficient reason for our seeking to separate our Yoruba nation from Nigeria. Most of us Yoruba have no confidence in the ‘Restructuring’ that some of our most respected Yoruba leaders are advocating.

The Yoruba leaders went further, “And our reason is that we know that restructuring cannot keep the Fulani marauders away from our homeland – since, after restructuring, the Fulani would still be Nigerians like us, and would still have full citizens’ rights to come in large numbers, and with weapons and intent to kill and destroy and seize land, to our homeland”.

“Their spokespersons have said again and again unambiguously that their Fulani nation has prepared all its citizens to fight their current war of subjugation and land seizure for decades and even centuries to come.

“We Yoruba must not underestimate the Fulani; we must not condemn our people to Fulani killings, destruction, molesting, kidnapping and extortion of ransom for decades or centuries to come. Our Yoruba nation may not survive such prolonged battering.

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“Mr President, another crucial matter that we Yoruba must bring before Your Excellency is the horrific and seriously disturbing character of the attitude and the utterly disrespectful approach of one of the nations of Nigeria, namely the Fulani nation, to the Federal Government and the sanctity, integrity and dignity of the Nigeria state and the public order.

“Your Excellency, since your inauguration as President of Nigeria in May 2023, the Fulani have stepped onto such a higher level of national devastation as to add mightily to our reasons for seeking to separate our Yoruba nation from Nigeria.

“We ask you to witness, Your Excellency, the two declarations of war by the Fulani against the President and the Federal government of Nigeria and against the entire Nigerian polity.

“First Fulani Declaration of War, January 24, 2024:

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