Alaafin of Oyo in this statement declares that the Yorubas are no fools and can adequately defend themselves.
1. No vacant land anywhere on earth, all lands belong to a people either as ancestral homeland or by staying there for ages, law supports this.
2. All lands on earth are attributed to a people by name more than by country name.
3. Thus we have have the Bantu and their land in their geographical location, Herero in Zambia, Ga and Ashanti in Ghana, Kikuyu in Kenya, Hausa owing their land in the north, Igbo with their own land in southeast. If anything happens in those lands we call the inhabitants not government, even if we call government they still go for the inhabitants.
4. That reason why Yoruba can’t own their ancestral homeland and its security will become a case classics for the world to hear. Why an ethnic criminal will legislate on another man’s land shall be judged by man and gods. Although that will be after we do the needful. Meaning of needful may not be known now
5. If lands belong to inhabitants then the peace and the security of that land must be the responsibility of the inhabitants. The inhabitants should know who to allow who not to allow depending on the existential threat available.
6. If someone has no right to occupy a room in your house without your consent, I think it’s wrong for any ethnic group to occupy any portion of another man’s land without consent, authority, or approval. It won’t end well for the people who made such incursions. Why should someone just enter into my bush and settle down? What of the plans I have for the land? Should I pay someone who is not a stakeholder before I can dwell on the land my ancestors had been on for centuries? It may result in something terrible soon?
7. Igbo could be found all over Nigeria likewise Yoruba but they all live in towns not secretly entering into a dark Forest with arms. Why those who enter Yoruba forest come with arms shall be discussed but not on a round table. I am sure of that.
8. Yoruba have two options: it is either
1. Yoruba vacate Yoruba land and move into the Atlantic ocean so that their host can have peace
Or
2. Yoruba will fight back by all available and possible weapons the human mind can conceive be it charm, thunderstorm or other unconventional means perhaps those who urge Invaders will have a rethink.
Ondo state didn’t say other ethnic groups should leave the state, NO! The governor said LEAVE THE FOREST AND LET US KNOW YOU.
9. The population of the killers no matter their tribes can’t overwhelm the entire Yoruba land because they just assumed that they are violent but they forget that the WILL to survive in one’s ancestral land is beyond weapons especially on our lands and in our forests. We wait till all civil means are exhausted. Sooner the world will experience the reason why Yoruba must live. I mean live peacefully in their homeland
10. Yoruba invest in children in the west. A poor widow will still send her children to school with the little she has without government assistance. In another land children are thrown into the street to beg, we don’t have issues with that it could be cultural. Why should someone whose parents never seen as worthy of anything become a menace to the one who invested in her children and be abducted like a goat? It won’t end well, will never end well. They will rather die defending their rights to survive than living in infamy.
10. It is assumed that Yoruba are cowards but they will soon know the difference between being intelligent and calculative and crass display of empty physical strength by fools.
11. Did government consider what will happen to Yoruba men in the army? A Yoruba men recruited in the army are drafted to fight Boko Haram but before they could come back their mothers is been kidnapped at home and their sisters been raped at home. Am sure those soldiers will soon abscond with weapons and come back to defend their homeland called ancestral homeland.
12. Where conventional approach failed alternative means are upheld. Sunday Igboho, Amotekun, Agbekoya, OPC, Local vigilante, and others could be crude but I will say it here: NO CRUDE WAY TO SURVIVE OR STAY ALIVE. The first law of living is survival, we survive to negotiate how to live together.
13. I am sure this will fade off before December by any means possible. Either government rises to it at the federal or state level or the locals result to alternative means something must happen.
The utterance attributed to Garba Sheu is too low, how he tries to dictate for governor on how to secure his domain is too ludicrous. I haven’t heard of him when kidnapping and raping took place. We shall see the end.
The first responsibility of any government is the security of life and properties not pampering criminals and sending condolence messages to victims of kidnapping.
14. I appreciate it.
Oba Adeyemi Lamidi,
the Alafin of Oyo
