A coalition of all Yoruba groups and organisations in the diaspora, Oodua One Voice, has been launched in Canada.
A statement by the coalition’s Director of Communication, Mr. Zacheaus Somorin, who said the coalition was launched on June 12, 2020, added that the formation was as a result of the urgent need to unite all Yoruba in the diaspora.
According Somorin who is based in Canada, the coalition became imperative to bring all Yoruba professionals in many parts of the world including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, Africa, Asia, South America, North America and Australia under one umbrella to have a convergence point for charting a new course for a better future for the race back home in Nigeria.
The statement clarified that Yoruba One Voice is not an organization, but a formidable coalition of every Yoruba organisation in the diaspora that believes in solidifying its unity, pointing out that periodically, the coalition intends to intervene and engage the Yoruba people at home in terms of governance, socio-economic justice and fairness for all.
”Over the years, Nigeria’s leadership deficit has been intractably inefficient, tribal and palpably hopeless; hence the need for intervention in terms of policy direction, accountability by Yoruba intellectuals abroad who have garnered global exposure and education towards having a livable Yoruba nation,” the statement added.
According to the group’s Director of Communications, ”In recent times, there have been centripetal and centrifugal forces calling for the geographical/constitutional laceration of the Nigerian state. These have been motivated by the intractable disillusionment that permeates the nation state called Nigeria.”
Somorin stated that Oodua One Voice was founded to engage various progressive groups, within the confines of the law, in ensuring that the people of the South-west do not suffer continued economic isolation, being trampled upon and subjugated, adding that a sustained agitation for the ”Yoruba’s economic liberation is urgent and critically fundamental at this point in time”.
”It has been observed that many Yoruba youths have been forced to stay and overstay abroad due to lack of opportunities at home – most jobs have been taken over by those who are not sons and daughters of the soil. Also, the agitation has become urgent based on the fact that most resources being generated in the South-west are taken to the centre – Abuja, as structurally facilitated by arrogant defiance to true fiscal federalism. The South-west contributes 90 per cent of the country’s non-oil revenue to the federation account,” he said.
The statement explained further that ”historically, the South-west had the first television station in Africa; first university, among other firsts. But as things are, Oodua One Voice, as a diaspora Yoruba coalition is of the opinion that the Yoruba glory is being trampled upon based on how Nigeria is presently structured – politically”.
