By BONIFACE AKARAH

Yoruba nationalist group, the Yoruba Parapo, has asked the United Nations, African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to supervise a peaceful plebiscite on whether the Yoruba people should form a sovereign Oduduwa Nation through a negotiated separation from Nigeria.

The group made the request in a letter dated October 12, 2026, signed by its Ambassador Extraordinaire, Olujobi Olushola, and addressed to the Chairman of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization (C24), with copies to the ECOWAS chairman, the AU Peace and Security Council and the British Foreign Office.

Under its proposed “Velvet Divorce Model,” Yoruba Parapo called for a referendum across what it described as Yoruba homelands, followed by negotiations on assets, debts, citizenship and borders if a clear majority voted in favour of separation.

The group proposed the referendum question as follows: “Do you wish the Yoruba people to exercise self-determination and form a sovereign Oduduwa Nation within its True Map, in peaceful negotiated separation from Nigeria?”

Explaining its position, Yoruba Parapo argued that the 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria was carried out by Britain without a plebiscite among the peoples concerned.

It further claimed that the Yoruba people constituted a distinct nation based on their language, culture, traditional institutions and economic resources, citing areas including Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara South, Okun and Itsekiri.

The group also cited insecurity, economic marginalisation and constitutional grievances as reasons for seeking a referendum, arguing that these concerns could not be resolved within the framework of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution.

In its appeal to the UN committee, Yoruba Parapo said its proposal was intended to pursue self-determination through legal and peaceful means rather than violence.

“We do NOT seek war. We seek law,” the letter stated, invoking the peaceful separations of Singapore in 1965 and Czechoslovakia’s successor states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993, as precedents for negotiated separation.

The group asked the UN, AU and ECOWAS to facilitate the proposed plebiscite and, if the outcome favoured independence, support negotiations between the proposed Oduduwa Nation and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It also pledged “total non-violence and non-incitement,” saying it was willing to engage the Nigerian government in dialogue under UN and AU mediation.

Yoruba Parapo further claimed that an economic viability dossier, which it described as a “Transport 4-Pillar Blueprint,” had already been filed in support of its proposal.

The letter cited provisions of the UN Charter, the common Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and UN General Assembly resolutions 1514 (XV) and 2625 (XXV) as the legal basis for its request.

The group concluded its appeal with a call for a peaceful approach to the question of Yoruba self-determination, declaring: “History will record whether Yoruxit was done by gun or by pen. We choose the pen.”

The letter represents Yoruba Parapo’s request and position; it does not establish that the UN, AU or ECOWAS has agreed to supervise the proposed plebiscite.