The declaration that resulted from the 1997 Yoruba Convention in Houston deserves a special mention, especially in view of the confusing reports on the declaration at home in Nigeria and elsewhere on the globe.

While the delegates from the Egbe Omo Yoruba in North America, Oduduwa Movement in Europe, Oodua Foundation in Nigeria, and Oduduwa Youth Movement in Nigeria deserve to be congratulated for their realistic approach to the problems facing the Nigerian state, it is important to observe that the reporting on the conference by news houses in Nigeria over stretches the truth of the convention for various reasons.

Some objective or neutral newspapers reported for sensational reasons on the cover pages that the Yoruba may secede while others over interpreted the declaration to mean that the Yoruba are to secede. In a country where there had been attempts at secession, it is not unexpected that this kind of reporting might raise the blood pressure of supporters and enemies of the Yoruba alike. The sensationalization of the Houston declaration has given detractors of the Yoruba and those committed to the repression and underdevelopment of the Yoruba another occasion for Yoruba bashing. Apart from several statements warning the Yoruba of the dire consequences of secession, some Yoruba traditional rulers on errands for the junta have assured the international community that they, as traditional rulers, are in the best of positions to gauge and characterize the true intentions of Yoruba people nationa-wide. At home in Nigeia and abroad, some of these leaders have appealed to their audiences that their reading of the Yoruba mind is that Nigeria is more united now than ever before!

What the royal emissaries of the junta in Nigeria and others have emphasized is the issue of secession while the Houston declaration is about the restoration of autonomy to the Yoruba region and other regions in the federation. Common sense requires that a demand for autonomy as a basis for reinforcing unity in diversity in a federal republic should be addressed on its own merit rather than on the wishful thinking of masters of disinformation and agents of distraction.

The noise about secession in Nigeria and by agents of the dictatorship abroad is a childish attempt to draw attention away from the real message and occupy the mind of the national and the international community with nonissues. What the Yoruba are asking for at present is a return to a demilitarized constitution and polity that guarantees a return to the regional autonomy on the basis of which the British granted independence to Nigeria as one nation-state. Even if Abiola is released today to actualize his mandate, it is crucial for the Yoruba to insist on the restoration of autonomy as part of the transition to full democracy in a post-military Nigeria. There is no connection between autonomy for the regions and secession or disintegration. Ethiopia is a united federal republic with a constitution that guarantees autonomy for its diverse nationalities.

In view of the desperate campaign by the junta and its messengers to confuse regional autonomy with secession or disintegration, the Yoruba organizations that met in Houston need to take their message of autonomy directly to the people of Nigeria and the friends of Nigeria in Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the rest of Africa. Now that Britain is talking about national renewal through the devolution of power and the United States, as ever, religiously respects its time- honored federalism, it is important for the Yoruba and other Nigerian nationalities that believe in the principle of autonomy as a basis for unity in a multiethnic state to intensify their campaign for sustainable democracy in London and Washington, two cities currently inundated by messengers of the Nigerian junta.

As the Yoruba people say: One hundred pieces of rags do not automatically make a masquerade. The Houston communiqué, as honest and forward looking as it is, requires to be sold to lovers of democracy and genuine federalism all over the world. The Yoruba Autonomy Bond should be taken to Yoruba people wherever they are on the globe as soon as possible. This is the best way to create a conducive environment for taking the crusade for a lasting democracy

and true federalism to the world. As noisy as the errand boys of the junta may be at present in Europe and the United States, it is important for lovers of the cultural rights of Nigerians to remember that ideas can only be debated; they can never be killed. In addition to launching the Yoruba Autonomy Bond, there is an urgent need for starting Yoruba Autonomy Newsletter as an organ for total demilitarization of Nigeria.