By Ologeh Joseph Chibu
Renowned Yoruba leader and advocate for self-determination, Professor Banji Akintoye, has revealed that he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Akintoye who now lives in exile said there is no going back on the agitation for Yoruba Nation. He said the Yoruba people are determined to actualise a sovereign Yoruba Nation.
In an interview, Prof. Akintoye refuted claims that herdsmen attacks on Yoruba communities have subsided under the current administration, stating that the situation remains dire despite a shift in response strategies.
“It has not calmed down. I don’t know where people get the information that it has calmed down. The thing is that our people are better prepared to meet them and to handle them. They have the instruction from the leadership of our struggle that when they have an encounter with the Fulani, they must not make the usual kind of noise that they were making in the past. So, there is a statistics published here by the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics, published in December. It has the following very scary details. It says that between May 2023 and the end of April 2024, 614,935 people were killed, while they kidnapped 2,235,954. In the Yoruba South-West, the number of people killed in those 12 months is 15,693. I am in a tough situation, this tough position, whereby I get the reports of every one of these encounters. In Yoruba land, it is still rampant.”
Touching on Nigeria’s economic challenges in the interview with The Punch, Akintoye cited statements by prominent figures like former Central Bank Governor Dr. Chukwuma Soludo and the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun. “Dr Chukwuma Soludo, who was formerly the governor of the Central Bank, made a statement soon after Tinubu became president. He said by the time Tinubu was being sworn in, the Nigerian economy had collapsed. He said it was like a dead horse, that some people were somehow managing to keep looking like a horse. The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, said before the session in the Senate that we have reached a point where we cannot even hope to be able to borrow money anymore to run the government because already 98 per cent of the federal revenues are being consumed on servicing foreign debts. That is a big thing. A day or two later or earlier, the security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, told a meeting of security chiefs from all over Nigeria that this government inherited a bankrupt economy and that there was no money anywhere to run the country, the government. That was two days after Wale Edun’s statement at the Senate. So, with what Tinubu is facing, I admire his courage, but I don’t think anybody can accomplish what he is trying to accomplish.”
On why he is not leading the Yoruba self-determination struggle from Nigeria, Akintoye said, “Every living thing wants to live. I want to live too. I want to live to accomplish the struggle and to hand the Yoruba nation to the Yoruba people. There were plans to get rid of me. Fortunately, we got the information and, within 24 hours, in fact, the next morning, I had to leave Nigeria. It was that desperate. I had to leave Nigeria that morning, the next morning. I got the information about this time today and by tomorrow at 7 am, I was driving out of Nigeria. That is it. You see exactly what happened to Sunday Igboho later. Igboho also left. That’s what they had planned for me. Unfortunately, the young men who gave me the tip-off didn’t say it was also for Sunday Igboho. So when it happened to Sunday Igboho, about two to three weeks later, I was very unhappy. If I had known, I would have told him before and he would have left the country and they would not have come to his house.”
Akintoye expressed his commitment to the Yoruba nation cause, emphasizing that his goal is to live to see the realization of self-determination for his people.
