• Key self-determination group, Yoruba Global Alliance, issues disclaimer

The Yoruba Global Alliance, a vibrant and strategic member of several Self-Determination Groups agitating for severance from the current unworkable contraption called Nigeria, has dissociated itself from the trending controversial ‘Yoruba National Diplomatic Passport’ which has exposed all self-appointed leaders of Yoruba country to global ridicule.

In a statement jointly e-signed by the National President of the group, Dr. Amos Arogundade Akingba, and its Chairman of Council, High Chief Tola Adeniyi, the Self-Determination Organization wondered how any group within the Self –Determination Organizations could unilaterally design, print and market a national passport for a nation which has not declared sovereignty and has no issuing authority as mandatory for all international passports.

The statement reads: "The attention of the Yoruba Global Alliance has been drawn to the existence of a ‘Yoruba National Diplomatic Passport’, designed, printed and being marketed to unsuspecting ‘Yoruba Nation’ enthusiasts by one of the several Yoruba Self-Determination Groups, to wit, Yoruba Self-Determination Movement.

"We thought it was a wicked rumour or an April Fool joke stretched far until we saw a copy of the so-called passport on the screen during a presentation by a leading and popular US-based Talk Show channel ‘Yoruba Gbode’ hosted weekly by a veteran upscale Broadcast Journalist, Yeye Sola Yussuf.

"It was shocking.

"An ordinary Primary 3 pupil of Civics Studies knows that a non-sovereign country cannot have a ‘national’ passport. In the same vein a national passport must have a legally-recognized ‘Issuing Authority’ to confirm its validity. The International community will ask ‘Who is the Issuing Authority of this bed-room conjured ‘passport’?

"A National Passport is universally accepted as the property of the issuing sovereign country. The question that begs for an answer is, ‘Whose property’ is this strange passport? Of what need or use or timeliness is this passport? Is it a travel document? So many questions. So many queries.

"We do not want to input motives for the creation of this obvious desperate search for martyrdom, but are concerned that the Yoruba nation, home to some of the brightest, most knowledgeable, most educated, most urbanized people on the surface of the earth is being driven to opprobrium by the action of a negligible few.

"The Yoruba community forcibly yoked with the choking and retarding strange bedfellows is very eager, anxious and desperate to live this imposed prison, but the people should not be taken advantage of by feeding them with unfulfilled promises, calculated mirages, and smart designs that continually drain their purses and raise their blood pressure.

"The Yoruba nation shall have her sovereignty.

"And as we all have elected a peaceful path to that a-must goal, we must be guided by a methodology devoid of self-glorification and reasonable aggregation of knowledge enriched by critical mass inclusiveness. Advocacy. Advocacy. Advocacy. We should not delude ourselves by climbing a tree from the top!

"The Yoruba Global Alliance would like to seize this opportunity to plead with the Oyo State Government and other authorities concerned to kindly release all the misguided rag-tag ‘army’ that sought to ‘overthrow’ the Agodi government last year April 13. The individuals concerned who are currently languishing in jail, abandoned, without a thought or care from anyone must have learnt their lessons. It will be unfair to keep them incarcerated while their principal instigator is left untouched."

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