By Ralph Agbana.
Apapo Omo Yagba (AOY), a socio-cultural group of Yagba people in Okunland, Kogi State, on Monday converge in Mopa, headquarters of Mopamuro Council, where leaders and stakeholders declared a state of emergency on the high rate of insecurity, road infrastructure decadence and youth unemployment in the region. The meeting, which held under the aegis of “Yagba Unity Summit 2025” emphasised the importance of peace and unity as bedrock of sustainable development and prosperity of Yagbaland.
A statement issued by the AOY Summit Media Sub-Committee noted that although Yagba people are “traditionally united” unity advocacies cannot be overemphasized.
The media sub-committee stated in part: “We must always reorient ourselves on its importance. The Yagba Unity Summit, just as the theme implies, is mainly to foster unity for peace, understanding, and cooperation among Yagba people. When peace and unity are achieved, then we will be able to look into other critical areas that are of interest to Yagba people, and that bothers on our prosperity as a community and a people. The summit will enable us to develop strategies into solving problems of insecurity, youth unemployment, and infrastructural underdevelopment that affect us as a people.”
The statement added that the summit discussed issues that relate to the exploitation and use of natural resources in the region. “With youth unemployment on the rise, we considered skills and capacity development. In other words, develop our youth on how to create jobs and businesses that run on our land. Preservation of our cultures and traditions to enhance community building will also be discussed.”
The summit held at Mopa Town Hall was well attended by stakeholders of Yagba, including the political leadership, at federal, state, and local councils; economic and education experts, traditional rulers and delegates from across the three local government areas.
Themed “Unity in Diversity: Building a Brighter Future for Yagbaland”, the communique jointly signed by Engr Ayodele Osasona and Prince Philip Orebiyi, Chairman and Secretary of AOY Unity Summit 2025 Organizing Committee, respectively affirmed that AOY is a sociocultural organization that was formed to champion the well-being of the people of Yagbaland, which consists of Yagba West, Yagba East and Mopamuro Local Government Areas.
The organization, the communique stated, is saddled with the responsibility to, among others, strengthen the bond of unity among the Yagba people.
The communique also stated: “The 2025 Yagba Unity Summit was conveyed as a child of necessity and as an avenue for the stakeholders to meet, brainstorm and seek solutions to various challenges confronting us as a people. After extensive discussions, presentations, and deliberations, it was resolved that the Unity of Yagba Nation is non-negotiable, giving it’s attendant importance to the development of the area”.
The Summit also agreed as follows: “That we should continue to preach unity because it is said that ‘united that we stand, divided we fall” and that it is only in unity we can find strength to overcome our various challenges. The summit agreed that the terrible state of Federal Roads in Yagba is no longer
acceptable and that all elected and appointed political office holders in conjunction with Yagba Sons and daughters with capacity should immediately interface with relevant agencies of government to ensure that our roads are fixed. Without good roads, our economic fortunes may suffer serious setback. The summit resolved that since the exploration of our mineral resources has posed as a security challenge to Yagbaland, the strengthening of our security system has become imminent”.
On the infrastructural development lapses, the summit called on all political office holders, civil servant, business moguls and relevant personalities of Yagba extraction to, as a matter of concern, intensify lobby for federal presence in Yagbaland. This includes establishment of universities, polytechnics and branches of federal agencies on Yagba soil.
It added: “On youth empowerment, the summit recognized the importance of youths, hence under utilization of their potential through unemployment and under employment is no more acceptable. Hence, our youths must be adequately engaged through job or employment procurement in both federal civil service and agencies and at the state level. It was however resolved that all efforts should be done to ensure that our youths are exposed to and supported, and to be encouraged by our elected and appointed politicians to invest on youth empowerment initiatives.
“Infrastructure is another important issue discussed. Experts agreed that without efficient infrastructure, development may be an illusion, thus it is imperative that our people invest heavily in infrastructure. Qualitative education, quality health care delivery, good roads connecting communities and reliable power supply should be given much priority as this will enhance better life for our people.
“It was also further agreed that the Royal fathers should interface with the (office of the Governor of Kogi State) to provide more funds to the local councils to be able to handle the security issues in their various local government
The summit further appealed to our Local Government Council Chairmen in Yagbland to synergize their efforts, compare notes, and work with the conventional security agencies to fight insecurity. It was further resolved that Apapo Omo YAGBA should give support to our local hunters and other security agents for effectiveness and efficiency. It is also important to have a separate account for security trust funds and put a strategy in place to make the collection and spending of such funds transparent. The committee strategy will include getting more people that are not in AOY platform to key in, especially those commercial drivers and farmers that are mostly hit by the activities of these criminals.
“AOY should organize a regular town hall meeting where our political office holders from Local Government, State and Federal will be engaged. This will go a long way to get them connected to the electorate for feedback and most of the important issues can be discussed on how to make them more proactive to give us the best representation.
A lobbyist committee should be constituted to identify most of our people in both public and private places and see how best we can take advantage of their positions to help in the development of Yagba and to create employment opportunities for our youth.
“Our Royal Fathers should try as much as possible to reach out to their children both home and abroad to encourage them to come and invest at home. And also assure them of the safety of such investment as we have a lot of billionaires in Yagba that don’t have single investment in our land with all these opportunities in our land most especially solid minerals.
“Also it won’t be out of place if a special prayer season is organized periodically to pray for the development of our land.”
