A pan-Yoruba group, Yoruba United Front, has called on the people of the South-West to be wary of the deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi Il, saying his antecedents show him as an ethnic bigot and a hater of the Yoruba people.
In a statement by its National President, Alhaji Raimi Ali, and National Secretary, Deacon Samuel Aderanti, on Sunday, the group said it was surprised that Sanusi who had earlier declared the Yoruba as the problem of Nigeria would seek asylum in Lagos.
The group warned Yoruba leaders, especially politicians, to be wary of Sanusi’s antics, saying he had a mission to achieve “otherwise why did he chose Lagos why not Kaduna or any northern city?”
The group said, “What does Sanusi really want? That is the question every right-thinking Yoruba person should be asking and why is he taking Yoruba land as a place of refuge now that he has problem with his kinsmen.
“The Yoruba people will never forget the diatribes of Sanusi who excoriated the icons of Oduduwa land in a 1999 speech where he described the entire Yoruba leadership as an ‘Area Boy’ institution.
“He lambasted the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and other revered Yoruba leaders in petty, bitter, tribalistic usages. He even claimed that Alhaji Shehu Shagari was overthrown in 1983 because Chief Awolowo lost the Presidency.
“It is rather ironic, sickening and absolutely unacceptable that this same Sanusi will choose the Yoruba heartland, which he once condemned in the most violent language, as a place of succor when his own people have disowned him. We urge our people to be wary of this man whose agenda and purpose are puzzling and dubious.”
The group, therefore, warned Yoruba leaders not “to allow Sanusi who is an ethnic bigot to systematically build a Fulani camp in Lagos.”
It said, “We should be wary and ask him what exactly he wants in Yorubaland. Those Yoruba lackeys rushing to visit him either in form of old school students’ association or whatever form should remember Sansui’s past, his hatred of anything Yoruba and should realise that Sanusi is a rabid, radical Islamist who should not be treated as a pan-Nigerian patriot.”

By Oluwatoyin Omojuyigbe