Yoruba Nation responds to Sultan of Sokoto on plans to impose Sharia in the South West

THE BOSS NEWSPAPER 

Following the insistence of the Muslim community, with support from the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, to establish Sharia law in South West states, deeply populated by Yoruba ethnic indigenes, the leader of the Yoruba Nation, a group fighting for the independence of the Yorubas from Nigeria, Prof Adebanji Akintoye, has sent a chilling response to the Sultan.

In a six-page document, dated February 1, 2025, which the Yoruba Nation leader personally signed, the group warned the Sultan and other Advocates of the Sharia law in Yoruba land, and jettison the idea, noting that the Fulani has more important duty of Islamizing their indigenous herders, who are believed to be worshipping other deities in the wild, and not Muslims as popularly believed.

The response is presented in full as follows:

The Sultan of Sokoto and the topmost leader of the Fulani of Nigeria,

We Yoruba people have read your statement that was sent to the public through the Deputy National Adviser of the Nigeria Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Imam Haroun Eze, following the failed attempt to impose Sharia Courts on the Oyo and Ekiti States of the Yoruba people of the Nigerian Southwest. Since your spokesperson, Imam Haroun Eze made your statement to the public, we hereby make our response also to the public.

Your representative chose to make your statement to the Yoruba people as if you are an overlord of the Yoruba people. You statement said in effect that Yoruba people must accept Sharia as dictated by you. We have great respect for you as a traditional ruler, Your Highness, but in the current circumstance, because of your chosen approach, we are reluctantly compelled to spell out our response in ways that truthfully uphold our Yoruba nation’s integrity, leaving no doubt about what we know and understand as our nation’s relationship with you.

Your representative, Iman Eze, said you are the head of the Islamic religion in Nigeria. Well, while our Yoruba Muslims faithfully surrender their lives to the Almighty God Allah and fully exalt Allah’s great Prophet Mohammed as their Guide, most do not know you as the leader of their Islamic religion in Nigeria. There is no provision in the tenets of Islam that lays the duty on our Yoruba Muslim people to accept you as leader of Islam while we Yoruba are still part of Nigeria. It has now become necessary to get rid of the presumption that you are the leader of Muslims in Yorubaland. In the past ten years, your Fulani people have killed countless thousands of Yoruba Muslims in all parts of Yorubaland, have destroyed the farms, villages and other assets of Yoruba Muslim farmers, have raped and killed countless Yoruba Muslim women, and have kidnapped, and extorted millions of Naira as ransom for, countless kidnapped Yoruba Muslim men, women and children. These horrors by your Fulani people are continuing in Yorubaland as we write this response. At no time in these ten years have you raised your influential voice against these heinous crimes by your Fulani people against Yoruba people – or even, at least, against Yoruba Muslims. We think you should not find it difficult to understand that Yoruba Muslims cannot accept you as leader of their Islamic faith in Nigeria. That is very important. You must have noticed that in the enormous mass of hostile responses among Yoruba people against your representative’s public statement on your behalf, there are as many Muslim as non-Muslim voices – in fact, probably more Muslim than non-Muslim voices…