2019 Elections won’t solve Nigeria’s deep-seated problems

By Ayo Olowu

The outcome of the 2019 elections will fail to address Nigeria’s deep-seated national question, the Yoruba Liberation Command, (YOLICOM) has said.

The Pan Yoruba group said expressions through violence in some parts of the country were indications of political and economic exclusion and the burning desires of many Nigerians to establish political and economic self-determination which the Nigerian state continues to stifle and undermine. The group urge Yoruba people to insist on restructuring of the country as a first step to a truly democratic foundation.

The group said in the past few years, the number of Nigerians participating in the electoral process has reduced to about 20 percent of the entire population representing a vote of no confidence in the entire self-serving democratic structures.

The group in its new year message to Yoruba people said the two leading Presidential hopefuls, General Mohammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) are birds of the same feather who represent the old order *and the emergence of either will not lead to a paradigm shift from the ignoble past.

YOLICOM also condemned in the strongest term the launch of Operation Python Dance expected to cover the entire country including Yoruba territories saying the exercise was an attempt to sustain an atmosphere of threat, fear and terror across the country.

'Operation Python Dance is a coup against democratic culture. It is an attempt to prepare the ground for martial domination through a culture of siege and intimidation.'

YOLICOM in the statement signed by its spokesperson, Mr Akinola George urged Yoruba people to insist on referendum and restructuring of the country to guarantee ethnic self determination.

YOLICOM said Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu who spearheaded the alliance between Yoruba and the Fulani North committed a grievous blunder that has brought a great affliction on the entire Yoruba Nation.

“This alliance is one of the most tactless relationships in the history of politics in Yorubaland. The objectives were driven by individual interests rather than the utilitarian good of the Yoruba Nation. We are sure the entire enterprise will collapse since it is not built on any enduring idea or philosophy”, YOLICOM said it supported the declaration of the Nigeria Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) after its conference held in Lagos early December.

The NINAS emphatically stated that what Nigeria's forefathers negotiated with and inherited from the British collapsed in 1966. The republican constitution and the constitutions of the four regions of North, West, East and Midwest all collapsed with it.

On December 11, 2018, history was made when different nationalities, represented by self-determination groups from four “geopolitical zones” of Nigeria – The South-west led by Yoruba Liberation Command (YOLICOM), the South-east led by the Biafra Coalition and the Lower Niger Congress (LNC)(Igbo Caucus), the South-south led by the Lower Niger Congress (LNC)(Ijaw Caucus) and the Middle belt led by the United Middle Belt Indigenous Peoples Coalition UMBIPC.

This time, indigenous, grassroots groups, which had been at the forefront of the agitations for self-determination, regional anatomy, resource control, sovereign national conference or outright separation of their respective sections of the country, came together to speak with one voice.

The resounding conclusion of their meeting was that Nigeria has failed as a country, and that it should peacefully dissolve.

The group said the current alliances between some Yoruba groups and the PDP and APC candidates were mere illusions since the alliances did not involve the people. It is unwritten, undefined, loose, secret and without any public seal.

YOLICOM said some Yoruba groups are committing the same horrendous errors Asiwaju Tinubu made in 2015, towards the forthcoming elections. Apart from Asiwaju, the two factions of Afenifere, one on the side of Buhari and the other on the side of Atiku are making the same mistake of committing Yoruba to their own parochial candidates without any robust and constructive engagement of the Yoruba population and the relevant strategic Yoruba groups.

It noted that Nigeria was murdered in January 15, 1966 when the first military coup took place and overthrew the constitutional order agreed to by the founding fathers of Nigeria which was buried in July 29, 1966, when another faction of the military eliminated the first and forcefully imposed a fraudulent constitutional order, which has sadly subsisted till date.

Whatever is masquerading as Nigeria, under one form of military imposed constitution or the other, is fraudulent and fake. It was never agreed to by a consensus of the people, freely acting together to declare their constitution under which the nation is formed. The statement in the latest 1999 constitution claiming “we the people…” tells a lie about the document thus rendering the contents and its potency null and void.

Therefore, without a constitution, there can be no valid election, and without a valid election, no constitutional government can be formed. Any activity outside of this outlined process is a conspiracy, an imposition and whichever government is formed from such an exercise remains a force of occupation and an external sovereign exercising an undesired hegemony over the indigenous peoples of the nations we represent.

YOLICOM emphasized that the only way to extricate Nigeria from doom is for the country to have a REFEREDUM, and not elections. Let all the various nationalities trapped within the Nigeria conundrum individually decide whether or not they want to remain in Nigeria and as Nigerians, and under what conditions they wish to associate with other partners in a rump Nigeria that may remain thereafter.

The rush to elections merely postpones the evil day – And this is not likely going to be for long!

YOLICOM completely abhors and condemns the stands of the two factors of AFENIFERE who have chosen to support either of the candidates of APC (Mohammadu Buhari) and PDP (Abubakar Atiku) in the planned elections.

Both candidates represent the Fulani North who have proved to be the historical detractors and enemies of progress of the Yoruba nation. Bola Tinubu led the Yoruba into a blind alliance with the reactionary north without first negotiating the Yoruba position and our demands. AFENIFERE, by these broken, disjointed and ill thought out decisions to support either of these two candidates have tactlessly taken a decision to back the elections and inadvertently lead the Yoruba people into more years of slavery, misery and impoverishment. YOLICOM rejects any attempt by any group whatsoever, purporting to represent Yoruba interest, to lead Yoruba into another misadventure using both of its disgruntled factions.

YOLICOM demands for a referendum now instead of elections. The Nigeria country is torn apart enough, as it seems.