The Yoruba community in Kwara State under the auspices of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) yesterday canvassed a reunion with their kith and kin in the South-West geo-political zone.

The ARG had earlier supported the proposed national conference by President Goodluck Jonathan, believing that it is an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past.

Addressing a press conference in Ilorin, Chairman of Kwara ARG, Chief Joe Olarogun, who was represented by his Secretary, Mr. Jaiyeola Omotosho, said whoever is able to organise a successful national dialogue will be writing his name in gold.

The group said such conference should have preceded Nigeria’s amalgamation in 1914 to reflect the true feelings and aspirations of the various nationalities that make up the federation. He commended President Jonathan for having the courage to organise it now.

The ARG lamented the forced marriage of strange bed-fellows in the 1914 amalgamation and what it has done to the Yoruba people of Kwara and Kogi States, who were placed under strangers that had come to dominate their (Yoruba) erstwhile territory.

“For us in Kwara State, the conference is designed to address almost two centuries of injustice that the Sokoto Caliphate imposed on us as a result of the erstwhile territory of the Yoruba by the Fulani through the Jihad of the early 19th Century.

“Yoruba of Kwara and Kogi States had missed several opportunities to be set free of the imposition when the caliphate became defunct in 1903 with the defeat of Sultan Attahiru in the battle of Burmi,” the group further lamented.

The ARG therefore said that; “The country could not work as presently structured” and asked that the conference, after the recommendation of the Senator Okunrounmu Committee, should group the Yoruba in Kwara and Kogi States to form a state of their own.

According to them, such restructuring should be ‘along regional lines, the Yoruba of Kwara and Kogi want to be part of the South-West using River Niger in Jebba as the Northern boundary of Yoruba land.