By Tosin Olatokunbo
Professor Banji Akintoye, the leader of the struggle for a Yoruba nation, has disclosed that the group is not interested in who becomes Nigeria’s President next year, in the light of the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s emergence as the All Progressives Congress, APC presidential candidate.
Tinubu’s emergence as the torch bearer of the ruling Party in the 2023 Presidential lection, many had predicted, will douse the tension in the South west for a Yoruba nation.
Akintoye spoke barely a week after exiled Yoruba nation activist, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, said he was planning to return to the country to continue his agitation more than a year after his arrest and trial in the Republic of Benin.
Nigeria’s Secret Police, the Department of State Service, DSS, had on July 1, 2021, invaded the Soka, Ibadan, Oyo state home of the Igboho, the arrow head of the agitation, with the aim of arresting him.
Some of his aides were injured during the bloody night raid.
Tinubu will contest the 2023 Presidential election against frontline Presidential candidates such as Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, amongst others.
The Yoruba leader had, last week, shocked not a few after he disclosed that the north will soon turn against Tinubu, a former Lagos State Governor and APC National Leader, who received massive support from the region during the APC presidential primary.
Many Northern politicians in APC are currently rooting for Tinubu’s Presidency on the popular quest for power to move to the South.
Speaking, the Elder Statesman said the Yoruba Nation has decided to leave the Country, as a sovereign Nation, and there’s no going back.
He said a Tinubu Presidency will not make any difference and will not deter agitations for the independence of a Sovereign Yoruba Nation.
“We know that one Yoruba person becoming the President of Nigeria for four or eight years will add nothing. No Tinubu or Olusegun Obasanjo can change the system because the system has been entrenched,” he said.
He said some leaders of the group moved to exile because the Government is after their life, noting that operatives of the DSS once raided his house and his Deputy, Professor Adeniran.
He claimed that the aim is to assassinate them so as to kill the agitation to achieve a Yoruba nation. No going back on the group’s quest to fight for a sovereign nation for Yoruba, the professor said.
According to him, “What we were told is that officials and non-official elements were ready to come to my house, kill me, and my wife in my bed, cut us to pieces and do the same to Professor Adeniran, my deputy.
“The persons who brought the categorical and specific information told us that we were okay on that night but that if we tried to sleep in our house the following day we will not wake up in it the day after.
“My wife is 86, while I am 87. So, we decided that the best thing is to leave. It took us a few hours to pack and leave; the next morning, we were on our way to the Benin Republic.
“It is part of Yoruba land but it is protected from the fact that it is ruled by another government. That is all.
“We have moved beyond that point. We have moved to the point of getting the world interested in what we are doing. In the modern world, you cannot take your country out of another country on your own. It is not going to happen.
“There are international conventions and relationships set up in modern times, which make it necessary for you to have the support of a wider world.
“That is what we have been spending most of our time on in recent times and it is succeeding. Thank God for whom we are. The Yoruba Nation is famous and so, fighting for the Yoruba Nation is considerably easy.”
