DATE 07/10/2025.
It is one of the enduring tragedies of Nigeria’s post-colonial history that the most educated segment of the country’s media elite remains trapped in the colonial vortex of ethnic suspicion. Each time a Yoruba-owned platform like The Nation, Punch or Tribune turns its searchlight on IPOB as the The Nation tried to do in a piece titled “IPOB and the Future of South-East” published on October 7, 2025, it resurrects the ghost of the British-engineered antagonism that kept two proud southern nations—Igbo and Yoruba—perpetually divided for imperial comfort.
Instead of confronting the unrelenting encroachment of Fulani hegemony in their own homeland—from the humiliation of Ilorin to the herdsmen siege on Ibarapa—certain Yoruba commentators prefer to perform the familiar ritual of blaming the Igbo. They publish editorials that demonize IPOB, not because IPOB has harmed them, but because speaking the truth about Fulani domination- a people not indigenous to Nigeria, might cost them patronage from the political masters whose chains they polish daily.
The British Legacy of Distrust
The historical record is clear: the enmity between the Yoruba and the Igbo was neither natural nor inevitable. It was cultivated by the British colonial administration, which found it convenient to keep Nigeria’s most dynamic ethnic blocs at each other’s throats. When Lord Lugard described the South as a “collection of mutually suspicious tribes,” he was not observing a fact—he was creating one. That legacy endures today in the editorial policies of media houses more loyal to old colonial hierarchies than to African solidarity.
The Irony of Selective Outrage
The irony is tragic. While Fulani oligarchs have swallowed Yoruba land piece by piece, while the sons of Oduduwa are being displaced from ancestral territories, the loudest Yoruba media voices are not confronting this creeping conquest; they are vilifying IPOB for refusing to submit to it. They are performing outrage by proxy—mocking the courage they secretly envy.
In truth, IPOB is not at war with the Yoruba nation. IPOB is at war with oppression—colonial or post-colonial, foreign or domestic. The movement’s central achievement, often ignored by its detractors, is that it made it impossible for the Fulani expansionist agenda to overrun the East as it has overrun large portions of the North-Central and South-West.
IPOB as a Mirror, Not an Enemy
The continued obsession of certain Yoruba intellectuals with IPOB reveals something deeper than politics—it exposes a moral crisis within their own society. A people who once led Nigeria in progressive thought, constitutionalism, and liberal nationalism are now reduced to defending the very structures that enslave them. When Yoruba journalists use their columns to deflect from their people’s humiliation in Ilorin or Oyo, they do not injure IPOB; they injure Yoruba dignity.
The truth, however unpleasant, must be told: IPOB stands today as the only mass movement in Nigeria that has successfully defied the twin empires of corruption and cowardice. To dismiss it as a “terrorist organization” while ignoring the terror of bandits, herdsmen, and state violence is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Toward a New Southern Consciousness
It is time for Yoruba intellectuals of conscience to abandon the colonial game of divide-and-rule and to embrace the larger struggle for liberation from northern domination and foreign manipulation. The Igbo do not seek competition; they seek justice. IPOB is not the enemy of the Yoruba; the real enemy is the mindset that mistakes submission for wisdom and silence for peace.
Nigeria will remain a colony—whether of Britain or of its internal satraps—until her southern nations rediscover the solidarity that once made them formidable. That begins with truth: that The Nation, BBC, and others who recycle imperial talking points about IPOB are not defending journalism—they are defending their chains.
Let those who can hear, hear. The time for Yoruba self-deception is over.
The writer is an Abuja based humanIPOB AND THE YORUBA CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE
BY ONYEDIKACHI IFEDI ESQ.
DATE 07/10/2025.
It is one of the enduring tragedies of Nigeria’s post-colonial history that the most educated segment of the country’s media elite remains trapped in the colonial vortex of ethnic suspicion. Each time a Yoruba-owned platform like The Nation, Punch or Tribune turns its searchlight on IPOB as the The Nation tried to do in a piece titled “IPOB and the Future of South-East” published on October 7, 2025, it resurrects the ghost of the British-engineered antagonism that kept two proud southern nations—Igbo and Yoruba—perpetually divided for imperial comfort.
Instead of confronting the unrelenting encroachment of Fulani hegemony in their own homeland—from the humiliation of Ilorin to the herdsmen siege on Ibarapa—certain Yoruba commentators prefer to perform the familiar ritual of blaming the Igbo. They publish editorials that demonize IPOB, not because IPOB has harmed them, but because speaking the truth about Fulani domination- a people not indigenous to Nigeria, might cost them patronage from the political masters whose chains they polish daily.
The British Legacy of Distrust
The historical record is clear: the enmity between the Yoruba and the Igbo was neither natural nor inevitable. It was cultivated by the British colonial administration, which found it convenient to keep Nigeria’s most dynamic ethnic blocs at each other’s throats. When Lord Lugard described the South as a “collection of mutually suspicious tribes,” he was not observing a fact—he was creating one. That legacy endures today in the editorial policies of media houses more loyal to old colonial hierarchies than to African solidarity.
The Irony of Selective Outrage
The irony is tragic. While Fulani oligarchs have swallowed Yoruba land piece by piece, while the sons of Oduduwa are being displaced from ancestral territories, the loudest Yoruba media voices are not confronting this creeping conquest; they are vilifying IPOB for refusing to submit to it. They are performing outrage by proxy—mocking the courage they secretly envy.
In truth, IPOB is not at war with the Yoruba nation. IPOB is at war with oppression—colonial or post-colonial, foreign or domestic. The movement’s central achievement, often ignored by its detractors, is that it made it impossible for the Fulani expansionist agenda to overrun the East as it has overrun large portions of the North-Central and South-West.
IPOB as a Mirror, Not an Enemy
The continued obsession of certain Yoruba intellectuals with IPOB reveals something deeper than politics—it exposes a moral crisis within their own society. A people who once led Nigeria in progressive thought, constitutionalism, and liberal nationalism are now reduced to defending the very structures that enslave them. When Yoruba journalists use their columns to deflect from their people’s humiliation in Ilorin or Oyo, they do not injure IPOB; they injure Yoruba dignity.
The truth, however unpleasant, must be told: IPOB stands today as the only mass movement in Nigeria that has successfully defied the twin empires of corruption and cowardice. To dismiss it as a “terrorist organization” while ignoring the terror of bandits, herdsmen, and state violence is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Toward a New Southern Consciousness
It is time for Yoruba intellectuals of conscience to abandon the colonial game of divide-and-rule and to embrace the larger struggle for liberation from northern domination and foreign manipulation. The Igbo do not seek competition; they seek justice. IPOB is not the enemy of the Yoruba; the real enemy is the mindset that mistakes submission for wisdom and silence for peace.
Nigeria will remain a colony—whether of Britain or of its internal satraps—until her southern nations rediscover the solidarity that once made them formidable. That begins with truth: that The Nation, BBC, and others who recycle imperial talking points about IPOB are not defending journalism—they are defending their chains.
Let those who can hear, hear. The time for Yoruba self-deception is over.
The writer is an Abuja based human rights lawyer. rights lawyer.
