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Group dismisses claims of ethnic bias, recalls Obasanjo’s crackdown on OPC in 1999
The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) has strongly dismissed allegations that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former President Olusegun Obasanjo supported the Yoruba against the Hausa-Fulani or any other ethnic group in Nigeria.
The clarification came on Thursday through the organisation’s National Public Relations Officer, Akin Adesina, during a press conference held at Orita-Aperin, Ibadan, Oyo State. Adesina was reacting to recent claims by Buba Galadima, a chieftain of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), who alleged that both Tinubu and Obasanjo looked the other way during violent OPC incursions in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Galadima, in a live television programme earlier in the week, had stated that certain northern groups recruited the late President Muhammadu Buhari into politics because the OPC, between 1999 and 2000, invaded Ilorin, Kwara State, with the sole intention of uprooting Fulani structures. He further claimed that neither Obasanjo, then Nigeria’s president, nor Tinubu, who was governor of Lagos State at the time, did anything to curb the actions of the Yoruba nationalist group.
But OPC described the allegation as a gross misrepresentation of history and an attempt to rewrite facts. “Galadima was a friend to our late founder, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, and equally to our current President, Prince Osibote. Unfortunately, someone who enjoyed such closeness would now resort to falsehood,” Adesina said.
He explained that in Kwara State, especially Ilorin, the situation was far different from Galadima’s narrative. “About 70 per cent of the indigenes in Kwara are of Yoruba descent. They did not need to mobilise outsiders to fight for their cause. The Emir of Ilorin himself rules over Yoruba descendants. Bringing Tinubu into this matter is an outright mischief,” he stressed.
The OPC spokesman also recalled a tense episode in October 2000, during the tenure of late Oyo State governor Lam Adesina. According to him, Fulani herders had invaded farmlands in Saki, destroying crops within a 100-kilometre radius and killing local farmers. This provoked an intervention by then General Muhammadu Buhari, who stormed Ibadan in the company of General Buba Marwa, Aliko Mohammed, Hassan, and other Arewa elites, accusing the people of Saki of killing 68 Fulani herdsmen.
Adesina noted that Governor Adesina, rather than succumb to pressure, Governor Adesina summoned the state’s security chiefs—including the Commissioner of Police, the State Director of the State Security Service (SSS), and the Local Government chairman of the affected area—who presented security reports indicting Fulani herders as the aggressors responsible for the killings.
“In the light of these facts, what role did Obasanjo or Tinubu play in the Ilorin or Oyo crises?” Adesina queried, adding that it was unfair to drag their names into matters with no connection to them.
He further reminded Galadima that Obasanjo, far from protecting OPC, had ordered a “shoot-on-sight” directive against the group when he assumed office in 1999, in a bid to curb what was then perceived as a threat to national security. “If Obasanjo could go as far as issuing shoot-on-sight orders, how then can he be accused of shielding OPC?” he asked.
Adesina also referenced two other notable crises in Lagos at Mile 12 and Idi-Araba during the early 2000s, which involved clashes between Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani communities. He insisted that those incidents equally had nothing to do with Tinubu’s alleged support for ethnic bias, describing the insinuation as false and divisive.
“Buhari is no more, Lam Adesina has gone, and the then governor of Kwara State is also dead. Now Galadima suddenly seeks to rewrite history and incite ethnic discord. We expected statesmanship from him, not reckless utterances capable of dividing our noble country,” Adesina concluded.
The OPC, therefore, urged Nigerians to disregard Galadima’s allegations, maintaining that both Obasanjo and Tinubu remain leaders with broader national outlooks who never promoted ethnic supremacy at the expense of Nigeria’s unity.
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