The President of Ilana Omo Oodua, Prof Banji Akintoye, has said the food blockade and constant destruction of farmlands by Fulani herdsmen was a plot by the north to starve the South-west.
Naija News reports that the Yoruba leader disclosed this in a statement on Saturday titled, ‘Only self-determination will save the Yoruba – Akintoye.’
He, therefore, urged Yoruba leaders and governors of the South-West states to rise to the occasion and save their people from the impending calamity.
Akintoye stated that for the north to consider starving Yorubas, the hostility in their spirit against the South-west must have been terrible.
He said, “No Yoruba person must now be in doubt that war has been declared against the Yoruba nation, and that we, the Yoruba nation, must be ready to use all our capabilities to defend our nation. This is no longer surreptitious but a glaring and open declaration of war on our people.
“War by starvation is the most vicious facet of war. Death by starvation is the most terrible death imaginable. For them to consider starving us at all, the hostility in their spirit against our people must have been terrible. Seeing now that the attempt to starve us to death has failed, we must thoroughly investigate the persistent suspicions of massive food poisoning from the North.”
According to the Yourba leader, the recent food blockage should serve as an eye-opener to go back to agriculture to ensure food security for their people.
He said, “Obviously, the objective of the Fulani herders and militias for destroying our farms, farmers and farming villages in the past five years has been to force us to become totally dependent on the North for all our food supply so that they may suddenly stop food supplies from the North and thereby plunge us into total starvation and ruin. Now, we have seen how these people will turn anything in which we may depend on them to become weapons against us.”