The President of Think Yoruba First (TYF), Oladimeji Bolarinwa, has said there is a difference between indigeneship and citizenship.

According to a statement he issued, the only place in the world where settlers or citizens were able to destroy the rights of Indigenous people is a settler colony.

Bolarinwa defined settler colonies as countries where indigenous people have been eradicated, wiped out or turned into powerless people by immigrants.

He then went on to give reasons why the Indigenous Bill proposed by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, is dangerous to indigenous people.

The TYF President wrote, "One of the tactics of old Soviet Russia was to eradicate indigenous rights and promote citizenship rights. That was how Eastern Ukraine became "Russified" via brutal tactics like starvation, importing russian populations and banning the speaking of Ukrainian language. It was called the "Holodomor". Soviets did the same to Kazakhstan. Within 50 years of Soviet Russia, 60 per cent of Indigenous Kazakhs were killed, and Russian immigrants were imported into Kazakhstan in order to enforce national unity in the USSR.

"After the collapse of USSR, modern Russia state knows that for it to survive, it must allow non russian Ethnicities in Russia to have their autonomy and lands in order to maintain political stability.

"That is why we have Dagestan, Chenchen and Yakutia Republics in Russia. Those places Indigenous people control their politics and economy. You don't go there and be saying you want to replace indigenous rights because of citizenship.

"In the UK, you have citizenship rights as an immigrant who has integrated not indigeneship.

"You are a British, not a Scot, Irish, Welsh or English. To have indigenous rights, you must have a blood connection.

"What led to the failure of the first Republic was the agenda of Igbos to destroy the ethnic boundaries in Nigeria in the name of National unity.

"There's a current low-scale war going on in the following places across Nigeria between indigenous people and settlers, namely;
1.Warri 2.Jos 3.Taraba 4.Southern Kaduna.

"There are also non-stop ethnic clashes between different demographics in Nigeria from time to time because of this singular issue. Southern Cameroon seceded from Nigeria because of the agenda of Igbos to annexe and take over that land from them, politically and economically in 1961.

"Some of these things sound 'new' to a lot of you because of the lack of political education about the history of Nigeria, talk less of the world.

The English, who were the majority in the United Kingdom, tried for 800 years to erase ethnic identity in the UK by destroying indigenous rights and promoting only the English language. They killed millions of Irish, Scots and Welsh in order to achieve this for 800 years, yet they failed.

"What destroyed Sudan is what you are currently supporting. Sudanese Arabs wanted to homogenise Sudan by destroying the Indigenous rights of non arabs and promoting pan-Sudanese via citizenship. This was what led to the destruction of Sudan for 50 years before breaking apart.

"Why did Pakistan break into two? It broke apart because the Urdu-speaking Muslims did not respect the rights of Bengali-speaking people, and 3 million people perished, even though they were both Sunni Muslims.

"You want to create war, bloody wars and Endless wars because you do not understand that the ethnicity that destroyed Nigeria in the first Republic has started again because of their rabid agenda for conquest and territorial expansion, while weaponising Neoliberal elements like you who have zero idea about how the world works.

"Nigeria is an amalgamation of ethnic nations not a melting pot."

ASA