Yoruba groups: Nigerians are suffering — but military intervention not the solution

An alliance of over 130 pan-Yoruba and community-based groups has kicked against calls for military intervention in the country.

In a communiqué, the Alliance of Yoruba Democratic Movements (AYDM) blamed the conflict in the country on “inequality, distribution, and ownership of wealth and the means of production and the lack of the will to address the national question”.

AYDM is the alliance of over 130 pan-Yoruba and community-based groups, including the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC-New Era), South West Farmers Union (SWFU), the Yoruba Community in Northern Nigeria (YOCON), the South West Vigilante, the Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association (NATA South-West) and several others.

The communiqué was issued after a meeting attended by over 1,300 delegates representing different groups of artisans, farmers, and pan-Yoruba self-determination groups from the six south-west states, including Kogi, Kwara, Akoko Edo, and Itsekiri.

There were calls for a military intervention in the country during the #EndBadGovernance protest that took place in many parts of the country early this month.

In the communiqué issued by Popoola Ajayi, general secretary of AYDM, and leaders of other organisations, the alliance said military rule is not the solution to the country’s problems.

“We are alarmed that some people, in their desperation, are calling for military rule. Let those who plan a return to dictatorship know that there will be no military rule in the entire Oduduwa territories,” the communique reads.

“Our people will resist with all our strength, even if it means armed resistance.

“Those calling for military intervention are the same people solely responsible for the rot, the systemic decay, the persecution of ethnic groups, and the laying of the very foundation responsible for the current challenges that confront Nigeria.

“The people calling for military intervention kept quiet for eight years when their own candidate was the president of Nigeria with his parochial and self-serving policies, which partly created the woes that currently face the country today.

“But in less than one year, they want the country to burn.

“There is a plot by some martial forces to stage a military coup and stage a comeback of the same forces that laid the foundation for the ruin of the country.

“We are concerned that since the 1960 independence, Nigeria has been eluded by sustainable peace and development, and life and living have been characterised by the lack of a national consensus, which was largely responsible for the unfortunate civil war that lasted for 30 months with close to a million souls lost.

“The essentials of life are beyond the reach of the common person. There is massive corruption in the midst of plenty; there is hunger and brutal deprivation of access to opportunities.

“Nigerians have been pushed to the wall. But the solution is not to add salt to the injury by bringing back the same class that created the conditions for the rot we find ourselves today.”