‘No to violent struggle’ — Yoruba nation campaigners release manual for agitation

Ilana Omo Oodua, promoters of ‘Yoruba nation’ rally, has released a manual to guide its members in their cause for self-determination.

According to the Punch, the manual was signed by Banji Akintoye, its leader.

The manual comes almost three days after Sunday Adeyemo, a youth leader better known as Sunday Igboho, was arrested in Benin Republic while he was trying to flee to Germany.

It highlights conditions that must be adhered to when holding a rally or protest.

The group said it will always push for peaceful protests and negotiation, adding that any of its activists that are inclined towards violence will also be encouraged to employ peaceful and law-abiding means to resolve issues.

“The following is a guide or manual for the use of all Yoruba patriots engaged in the struggle for Yoruba self-determination. It supplies to all supporters of the self-determination struggle the kinds of information that they will need to prosecute the struggle, and it supplies guides to the struggle’s strategies and methods,” the manual reads.

“We, Yoruba, lead in the choice of the peaceful and law-abiding path to our goal of a separate country of our own. And we the servants of the Yoruba nation in this struggle faithfully operate, and will always faithfully operate, with methods of peaceful organization, peaceful demands, peaceful propaganda, peaceful protests, peaceful legal actions, peaceful political persuasion, and peaceful negotiation.

“We will push for negotiating tables, and never push for street brawls or any other kind of conflicts. And if we find, among our people, any nationalist activist person or group that is inclined towards violence, we will encourage them to turn instead to peaceful and law-abiding means.

“After careful studies of the records of separatist movements in our world, we are persuaded that the peaceful approach is more likely to succeed. Various nationalist agitations in various countries of the world have, in the course of the past century, employed violent means at various times while striving to achieve their nationalist goals.

“Yoruba groups engaged in serving the Yoruba nation need to note carefully that none of these uses of violent or terroristic methods achieved their purpose of self-determination or autonomy for their nations; all they succeeded in doing was to generate confrontations and wars with the governments of their countries.

“Young nationalist agitators, being young, are naturally attracted to tough and rough activism. From only proudly proclaiming the virtues of their own nations, youthful nationalist activists commonly tend to lapse into insulting other nations, into needless bragging and boasting, into daring or challenging other nations, or even into daring and challenging their country and its government – all of which actions tend to provoke avoidable conflicts, hostile governmental actions, and even wars. Our Yoruba youths must learn the truth that the use of rough and violent means does not usually confer success – and, indeed, that it is usually more likely to prevent success.”

The group asked the Yoruba to demonstrate civilisation and maturity while “resolutely and irrepressibly pushing our way forward to the great goal of Yoruba strength, self-determination, self-fulfillment and prosperity”.