Kogi, Kwara Yoruba want merger with South-West states

    
The Yoruba in Kwara and Kogi states have resolved to canvass during the forthcoming National Conference for boundary re-adjustment which will unite them with the South-West states.

This came to the fore in Ibadan on Thursday during the Yoruba Assembly for 2014 National Conference where a unified agenda to be canvassed by the Yoruba race at the national conference, was endorsed.

The Yoruba people in the two states include the Ekiti, Igbomina and Bolo peoples in Kwara State; and the Okun and  Yagba peoples in Kogi State.

Chairman of the three-man committee, which drafted the agenda, Chief Olu Falae, said his committee held several meetings with the people in the two states in order to reflect their wishes in the generality of the Yoruba agenda at the national conference.

Falae, who is a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, said, “We decided to visit our kith and kin who are in what I call the domestic diaspora in Kwara and Kogi, they are all here.

“We held several meetings with the Yoruba in Kwara – the Ekitis in the two local governments,  the Igbomina and the Bolo peoples; and in Kogi, the  Okun people and the Yagba people.

“We held several meetings with them singly and jointly to ensure that whatever we put in the agenda represents their own wishes.”

Representative of the Kogi people at the conference, Mr. J.O Yusuf, expressed delight over the initiatives of the Yoruba in the South-West to re-unite with their counterparts in other zones of the country.

He said at various levels, the Okun people in Kogi State had demanded that a state should either be created for them or allowed to be merged with the existing Ekiti State in the South-West.

“We want a state for the Yoruba in Kogi State and if this cannot be done, we want the boundary to be adjusted.

“This decision has been taken at Okun Development Association, Okun Elders Forum have met and resolved on this issue that if we cannot get a state, we wish to be excised from Kogi State and merged with Ekiti State.”

The conference was attended by the host governor, Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, traditional rulers and political leaders.

Governor Kayode Feyemi of Ekiti State,  Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State and Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun sent representatives to the conference.

But the governors of Lagos and Osun states, Messrs Babatunde Fashola and Rauf Aregbesola respectively, were absent and was not reperesented.