2023: Yoruba nation agitators planning violence to truncate polls – Group alleges

A coalition under the aegis of the Yoruba Appraisal Forum (YAF) has raised the alarm over alleged plans by those championing and agitating for secession of Yoruba land from the rest of Nigeria to cause violence and chaos in the South-West and other parts of the country with the ultimate objective of truncating the conduct of the 2023 general elections.

The Forum specifically fingered self-exiled Prof Banji Akintoye and his group, Yoruba Self-Determined Movement (YSDM) of being behind the alleged plan to use the agitation for Yoruba Nation to instigate violence and chaos in the South-West.

YAF National Coordinator, Adesina Animashaun, who spoke in Lagos today at a briefing cited Akintoye’s recently reported utterances that his group of agitators would achieve the secession of Yorubaland from Nigeria in a few months time.

According to him, the statements by the self-exiled leader of agitators for Yoruba Nation should be taken seriously as indications of the violence and evil he and his followers had been planning to forcibly stop the conduct of next year’s polls in the six states of the South-West geo-political zone and beyond.

He said, “It is a known fact that the agitators for the phantom Yoruba Nation, who are known to be sponsored from within and outside Nigeria, have sinister and very dangerous agenda towards the country, particularly as it concerns the 2023 general elections. There are plans by these groups of Yoruba Nation agitators to cause violence and mayhem during the political campaigns scheduled to kick off on September 28, 2022.

“These groups of Yoruba Nation agitators have lined up various rallies and protests in all the six South-West states to coincide with the political parties’ campaigns with the sole aim of disrupting the political process, instigating violence and chaos, and truncating the conduct of next year’s general elections

“Recall that some unpatriotic elements have consistently been making aggressive efforts to disrupt the electoral processes, just to cast a pall of doubts on the conduct of the 2023 elections.

“The major aim of this is to create panic, fear and anarchy and ultimately scuttle the forthcoming elections in many states of the Federation and destabilise the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“The recent activities and utterances of a self-acclaimed Yoruba leader, Professor Banji Akintoye, currently living in self-exile in Benin Republic, are clear indications of the evil plans of the so-called Yoruba Nation agitators for the South-West and Nigeria as a whole.”

It added, “Akintoye’s recent letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, on behalf of the Yoruba Self-Determined Movement (YSDM) that the South-West wanted a “peaceful break away” of the Yoruba nation from Nigeria, and asking the President for support for the South-West people to secede from Nigeria is a ruse, a ploy and a smokescreen to hide his group’s real intention of destabilising the country. Infact, the letter has sharply divided the people of the region and now even causing some disquiet amongst the Yoruba.

“The same Akintoye also said recently that the Yoruba would pull out of the Nigerian Federation in October 2022 and won’t participate in the 2023 general elections. We don’t know when and where the Yoruba or even their leaders sat down together to take such a decision. YAF believes these are just the figments of the imagination of the phantom Yoruba Nation champion and his band of agitators.”

YAF, therefore, advised the Federal Government and the state governors to ensure the deployment of adequate number of security agents throughout Yorubaland as well as the entire country to tighten security and forestall any plan by any group or individuals to instigate violence and cause chaos before and during the 2023 elections.

It added that security agencies should not relent in beefing up security across the South-West and the rest of the country to avert the violence and chaos being planned by some unpatriotic citizens bent on truncating the 2023 polls.

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