Yoruba Elders talks tough over influx of Almajirai into South-west

Yoruba Council of Elders 

The Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) has described the influx of almajirai to states in the south-west region of the country as unacceptable amidst the ravaging coronavirus pandemic.

The Secretary-General of the group, Dr Kunle Olajide, advised governors in the region to put aside politics and stand up to defend and protect the lives of the citizens.


Olajide who said the importation could portend security threat to the region, saying Yoruba leaders would do everything possible to secure the people.

According to him, “ It is rather unacceptable because most of these almajirai and people from the northern are coronavirus infected, so we cannot open our door and allow them to come in. It is dangerous to the lives of our people and we are not going to tolerate it.




“We Yoruba people are saying capital No to this invasion of our territory. This is our country and if Northern governors in their conference could be begin to ship and transport almajirai to their northern state of origin. What is now the intention of bringing them to the south-west here and I want to say we Yoruba leaders reject them.”

“I want to appeal to our state governors in the south-west to for one moment surrender their personal ambitions to protection, interest and welfare of the majority. They should refuse to continue to please the master and accept anything that is dropped in their table.”



Meanwhile, the spokesman of Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, Abdulazeez Sulaiman, has accused Southern governors of humiliating northerners residing in the region under the guise of intercepting Almajirai.

Sulaiman said the inhumane action of the southernern governors against the northern citizens has been their long time agenda against the region which they have been working "strenuously to ensure that the region remains backward, weak, confused and bewildered by myriads of challenges and problems."

He said, "What is happening in the South in the guise of intercepting almajiri is part of a wider agenda to frustrate all northerners, particularly the Hausa/Fulani out of southern Nigeria.


"For too long, enemies of the North both foreign and local have worked strenuously to ensure that the region remains backward, weak, confused and bewildered by myriads of challenges and problems.

"The current onslaught in the pretext of sending back almajirai, is, therefore, part of a mega but clandestine plot spanning several years. It is one aspect of the plan to dehumanize the North and decapitate it through exploiting its internal weaknesses and cleavages.