Young delegates from the South-West region sitting at the National Conference have rejected a position document circulated by their Northern counterparts, calling it an “offensive document”.
Spokesperson of the Yoruba delegates, Chief Bisi Adegbuyi said the document was “provocative”, “divisive” and based on “assumptions and outright falsehoods”.
He said, “In the light of what is happening particularly the provocative, highly incendiary and a disuniting document distributed by northern delegates to all the delegates who are working at the committee level, it is important to say that the Yoruba may be pushing for a confederal arrangement in the Nigeria.
“This is predicated on assumptions and lies contained in the document.”
Adegbuyi stated that the cover of the “offensive document” had a diagram of a Nigerian map which apportioned 80 percent of the country’s land mass to the North while the whole of the South-West, South-East and South-South occupied just 20 percent.
“We have thought that the essence of this conference was to foster unity and find solutions to the problems confronting the Nigeian state. “It is extremely provocative for the North to be circulating document purporting that the whole of the South does not matter claiming the North is the backbone of Nigeria.”
“Yorubas have never pushed for secession in the Nigerian state, we have always laboured for unity. Our leaders, starting from the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was imprisoned, the late M.K.O Abiola that won the presidential election was not allowed to rule and was murdered,” he said.
“We are going to respond to the inaccuracies and sometimes outright falsehood contained in the incendiary document.
“The content of the document is divisive and will likely undermine the search for unity in Nigeria.
“The essence of this conference is to put our heads together and imbibe the spirit of give and take so that we can have a very strong, indivisive and progressive country that will cater to the needs of the people.
“A country that will be safe. A country where school children will not be abducted or kidnapped.”
“The problem with Nigeria is that the centre is by far too strong. If we don’t devolve power as agreed upon, that means this conference might turn out to be a waste of time.”
“The committee on restructuring have retained the existing 36 states as the federating units.
Are we in anyway restructuring Nigeria by that?” he queried.
He asked, “If we can’t achieve state police, we can’t achieve fiscal federalism, devolution of power, restructuring of Nigeria, then why are we at the conference?”
Making a case for regionalism, he posited that the current presidential system practised in Nigeria is a recipe corruption and impunity.
“Regionalism is very crucial to us. If some parts of the country don’t want regionalism, those of us that want it should be allowed to pursue it.
“We demand for self- determination within Nigeria. Failure to do this, the Yoruba nation would push for self determination.
“We don’t want Nigeria to take us back, we have suffered enough. We will push for the right of people to secede from Nigeria if they so desire because if people don’t have their wishes and aspirations met, they have the right to pull out. The United Nations guarantees that.”