Yoruba Group In Diaspora Warn Igbos: ‘Enough Of Attacks On Our People’

The age-long peaceful relationship that has existed between the Yoruba and Igbo people in the country appeared threatened as the Odua Descendants Union, a Yoruba cultural organization, has threatened to retaliate further attacks on Yoruba personalities.

The formidable group based in Seattle, Washington, USA, in a statement signed by its coordinator, Comrade Adeyemi Aboderin, said the level of attacks on Yorubas as a race and people by certain individuals of Igbo stock as a reaction to Chief Femi Fani-Kayode’s articles was unbecoming.

It said: “We shall no longer tolerate any attack on any Yoruba personality. We hope this will serve as a notice to our brothers and sisters across the Niger that it is no longer going to be business as usual. Enough of these attacks on our people.”
The group explained that it was constrained to draw the attention of all Nigerians to what it called calculated campaign of calumny and threat against the Yoruba people by some Igbo groups.

“These campaigns have become loud since the publication of an article by former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode. These attacks have continued unabated despite his explanations that his comments have been greatly misunderstood, and that his intentions were not to ridicule or malign the Igbo.
“Some Igbo groups have not stopped at attacking him alone, but have gone ahead to issue threats against his wife and children”.

The group said having studied the increasing spate of attacks and others like it in the recent past, it had concluded that the attacks on Fani-Kayode are a mere smokescreen, and that the main target of the attacks was definitely the Yoruba race.

It described the incident as a calculated attempt by some Igbo groups to disparage and insult the Yoruba, with a more sinister motivve to follow.

“It should be noted that the said comments by Fani-Kayode, which many of the groups are referring to, was in response to an earlier statement credited to former Abia State governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, describing Lagos as a ‘no man’s land’. Maybe matters would not have degenerated to this level if Kalu had stopped at that.