SELF-DETERMINATION CONFLICT: How Yoruba Nation parted ways with Lower Niger agitators — Prof Akintoye

SELF-DETERMINATION CONFLICT: How Yoruba Nation parted ways with Lower Niger agitators — Prof Akintoye

LEADER of the umbrella body of Yoruba Self-Determination Groups, Ilana Omo Oodua, IOO, Professor Banji Akintoye, has explained that how his group parted ways with the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS).

According to him, he quit as Chairman of NINAS to protect his reputation and integrity as well as that of the Yoruba Nation agitation and self-determination.

Akintoye had, some months ago, not only quit as Chairman of NINA but also pulled his group out of the group.

In a telephone conversation through his Communication Manager, Maxwell Adeleye, Akintoye noted that the decision became important when he observed that the agenda of NINAS is different from that of the Ilana Omo Oodua.

He added that he got a hint he was going to be expelled as the Chairman by the Secretary General of NINAS, Tony Nnadi, and that led to quick resignation and even pulling of Ilana Omo Oodua from NINAS.

Contrary objective

“Prof Akintoye is only trying to protect his reputation and the integrity of the Yoruba Nation agitation and self-determination”, Akintoye said.

“When you form alliance with people and you realize that the people you form alliance with have contrary objective from what you have, you will have to re-strategise and reinvent. That’s what Prof Akintoye has done.

“We got a hint and Tony himself confessed in an interview he granted that he was planning to expel Baba Akintoye from the group.

“Where does a Secretary expel the Chairman?

“Tony was introduced to Baba Akintoye by the former Deputy Chairman of Ilana, Madam Sade Olukoya, and they came with an agenda that was not clear.

“They said that there is nothing like Biafra. What then should be in Lower Niger? They said from Delta South to the boundary of Cameroon is Lower Niger.

“We in the Yoruba Nation, we are from Atlantic Ocean to Jebba and Itsekiri land, all the present Asaba is part of the old Western Region and it should be one.

“We need to include our brothers in the Middle Belt.

“They are working for the Republic of Lower Niger we are working for Yoruba Nation.

“Their own agenda is different from ours and since they have come out openly with what they want to use NINAS to do, it is best to steer clear. “Nobody had ever heard of NINAS until Akintoye joined.

“It was brought to us in December 2020 and they came up with their document and afterwards they depended on our structures for their activities but in other things they will say NINAS belongs to them.

“When they want to organize press conference they refer to it as Lower Niger/NINAS press conference and we keep asking them what that means, we don’t do that with Ilana Omo Oodua press conferences.

Kanu, Igboho

“We had been asking them to tell us what they want, we know what Kanu and Igboho want, we also know what we want, what does Lower Niger Congress want?

“Lower Niger Congress does not exist anywhere. What the people of South-East and South understand is Biafra.

“Tony and his collaborators are working for Movement for New Nigeria but we in the Yoruba bloc are saying what we want is Yoruba Nation. No retreat, no surrender.

“As far as we are concerned, Olukoya has been expelled and that Executive Council has been dissolved. There is no division in Ilana, whatever happened in NINAS is not an issue.

“Prof Akintoye resigned because he does not want to be caught in the web of those campaigning for Lower Niger Congress.

“So, he doesn’t want to be involved in any 2023 campaign which is what some of those people want to do while hiding under Yoruba Nation”.