Leadership of the Yoruba Assembly in Lagos has made a passionate
demand for regional autonomy, saying it is the minimum condition for Yourubas
to remain in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
They also reiterated demand on special status for Lagos, which
they said would continue to be the economic nerve centre of Nigeria and the
West Africa, hence, there should be appropriate budgetary provision that is
part of the First Line Charge in the federation account.
The groups include Afenifere Renewal Group, O’dua Foundation,
O’dua Nationalist Coalition, Afenifere Youth Forum, Atayese, Agbekoya Reformed
Society and Coalition for O’dua Self-determination Group, among others.
The ethnic group made the demands at a joint news conference
addressed at Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota, Lagos on Monday. National Secretary, Chief Ayo Afolabi and Chairman of Atayese
Yoruba Group, Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, who read the text of the conference theme:
“Regional Autonomy… or Nothing” on behalf of other ethnic groups, acknowledged
that it was inconceivable that northern leaders “are the ones leading the
campaign against devolution of power and restructuring of government.”
The ethnic group said it was baffled at the take-it-or-leave-it
attitude of delegates from other ethnic nationalities, particularly the
Northern delegates at the on-going National Conference, who circulated a
document full of fallacies few weeks ago claiming that the North “has about 80
percent of Nigerian population and that its resources were used to develop oil
sectors.”
It therefore said, if any region in the federation “needs a
stronger federating unit with greater capacity to provide education, health,
security, wealth creation and other social amenities, it is the North where
strong links exist between the level of poverty and conscription of innocent
youths into extremist tendencies.”
According to the ethnic group, it appears Northern leaders were
not concerned, and indeed have no plan for the teeming youth from the region,
as long as they are able to continue clinging to their hold on power.
Canvassing regional autonomy, the group stressed, was the most
viable instrument for a stronger and united Nigeria, noting that the Yoruba
People of Nigeria would not accept anything less than what it called minimum
demands.
They demanded that states in Yoruba land “want a regional
government with its own constitution and unfettered political and fiscal
autonomy, except on issues it agrees to cede to the federal government.”
The ethnic group also declared that the South-west geopolitical
region “must include all Yoruba people outside the imposed artificial boundaries
in Edo, Delta, Kogi and Kwara States.”
Part of its demands includes; a negotiated legislative,
exclusive, concurrent and residual list; unicameral legislature at the center;
details of the Regional legislature shall be clearly set out in the constitution;
parliamentary form of government at the center; and the right to
self-determination on and up to the right to secede.
