Oduduwa Republic may not be the the thinking of key Yoruba leaders
OpenLife Nigeria reports that months and weeks after the commencement of an agitation for Yoruba Nation to be known as Oduduwa Republic, by individuals and groups, a visible signal that the agitation is mere exercise without substance emerged on Saturday in up North, Kaduna.
Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, who chaired the 11th Annual Lecture in honour of the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello, organised by Arewa House on Saturday, March 27, clinically disabused the mind of all Nigerians that the thinking of Professor Banji Akintoye over secession of the Yoruba Nation to form Oduduwa Republic from Nigeria is certainly not the way to go.
The theme of the lecture is ‘Governance and Youth Inclusion in Nigeria’s Development, Post COVID-19 Era.’
According to Tinubu, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, worked together with others such as the late Obafemi Awolowo and the esteemed Nnamdi Azikiwe, to help establish Nigeria as one indivisible and independent nation.
“It is the is the foundation laid by these extraordinary men that we must continue to build so that Nigeria may achieve its manifest destiny and realise the promise of a greatness too long deferred,” he said.
This statement indicated, in several ways, that Bola Tinubu, who has controlling influence over Governors, Senators, Reps members, traditional rulers and industrialists in Yoruba land, has not bought into the secession agitation championed by Professor Banji Akintoye to form Oduduwa Republic.
The Professor of History had, in the recent past, berated the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, for rejecting the agitation for the creation of a Yoruba nation.
Akeredolu had during the swearing-in of Princess Oladunni Odu as the new Secretary to the State Government and other Special Advisers in Akure, the state capital, said, “No part of the entire state, known and delineated as Ondo State, shall permit any Yoruba nation gathering or agitation.“
Reacting to Akeredolu’s position, Akintoye’s Ilana Omo Oodua said Akeredolu spoke for himself, and not the people of Ondo State.
In a statement titled, ‘Our Agitation Shall be Bloodless, Intellectually Rooted, Legally Grounded’ Professor Banji Akintoye and his group agitating for a Yoruba nation called Oduduwa Republic said “It is not that of a plot for secession as erroneously branded by Akeredolu, but a struggle for self-determination.”
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