BY DAPO AKINREFON
A YORUBA group, Oodua Descendant Union, ODU, has appealed to the Igbo to desist from making inciting comments capable of severe consequences.

In a statement by the group’s coordinator, Adeyemi Aboderin, the group said it was reacting to what it described as “calculated campaign of calumny and threat against the Yoruba people by some Igbo groups.”

It said: “These campaigns have become loud since the publication of an article by former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode. These attacks have continued unabated despite his explanations that his comments have been greatly been misunderstood, and that his intentions were not to ridicule or malign the Igbo. Some Igbo groups have not stopped at attacking him alone, but have gone ahead to issue threats against his wife and children.

“The ODU has taken time to study these attacks and others like it in the recent past, and has concluded that the attacks on Fani-Kayode are mere screen-smoke.

The main target of these attack dogs is definitely the Yoruba race. The Yoruba has a saying that when a child threatens to slap you, the child is not acting alone. He has the backing of an adult who is acting behind the curtains. It is in this light that we view this latest attack as a calculated attempt by some Igbo groups to disparage and insult the Yoruba.”

In addition, it said “this unguarded and uncouth statement by a group as the Ohaneze, is without doubt a call to war. How would these people have viewed it if the same remark about Enugu, Onitsha or Aba has been made by a Yoruba group?

“We are sure that songs of war would have been loud on the streets of Enugu and other major towns in the East.

But be that as it may, the Oodua Descendant Union, both home and in the Diaspora, wish to, as a matter of huge importance make this loud to our Igbo brothers, that much as we are accommodating and willing to live side-by-side with any human race in peace, the Yoruba will no longer tolerate the deliberate disparaging of our land by anybody, including the Igbo.