Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan
On Thursday October 10, 2019, the Yoruba World Congress, YOWCO, an umbrella of all Yoruba Socio-cultural, self-determination and advocacy groups worldwide held its maiden meeting presided over by its leader, Professor Banji Akintoye.
The meeting which held at Ibadan, capital of Oyo State, had about 40 self-determination groups in the South West in attendance.
Central to the congress, were issues of security, economic challenges and how to move the region forward.
In his welcome address, Akintoye pointed out the importance of defending and promoting the interest of the Yoruba nation in Nigeria, lamenting the decline of the influence of the Yoruba and the various efforts by different groups to salvage the situation.
He stated “In today’s conference, we the founders and members of the Yoruba World Congress have assembled first to introduce and to highlight our objectives. We are gathered to send a clear message to the Yoruba people and to the other peoples of Nigeria that we are a great ancient civilization, the most educated people in Africa, and a people with widespread and enormous influence in the world. We are sending notice to those who harbour dangerous and destructive ideas of conquering and subduing other peoples of Nigeria that our Yoruba nation is far beyond their capabilities to subdue”.
He continued, “While we will continue to honour our tradition of hospitality to foreigners in our land, we will not hold back any effort to force out from our land any foreigners who come with the intent to hurt, to kill, to maim and to destroy. We do not harbour any ambition to subdue any people or to seize any part of their land, and we will make it absolutely clear to the world that nobody can seize any inch of our land. We also serve notice that we will resist and reverse the trend toward retrogression in the life of our nation in Nigeria. We will mount a multifaceted operation to stop our language from continuing to decline. We will mount powerful operations and campaigns to revive our agriculture, and to revive our industrial development that has been deliberately stopped in Nigeria”.
Among the groups at the meeting are factional leaders and members of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, the Agbekoya’s, Yoruba Liberation Movement, the Yoruba Afenifere Youth Council and various factional groups.