No to Yoruba nation, we won’t allow ‘impostors’ deceive us – Akeredolu

GOVERNOR Rotimi Akeredolu has insisted that he would not support any separatist agitation for the creation of Yoruba or Oduduwa nation from the national entity known as Nigeria.

The governor said this in reaction to a statement issued by a group under the aegis of the Ilana Omo Oodua led by Prof Banji Akintoye.

The group had, two days ago, described Akeredolu as a “coward” among other unprintable names.

Ilana Omo Oodua said Akeredolu speaks for himself and not the Ondo people or the entire Yoruba race whenever he rejects the call for a Yoruba nation.

The group challenged the governor to allow its ‘1million march’ in support of its goal to hold in Ondo without him using the instrumentality of state power at his disposal to stop it.

But in a statement issued today by Doyin Odebowale, his Special Assistant on Special Duties and Strategy, the governor declared that Akintoye was not a leader of Yorubaland and could not speak for the people.

The governor said the Yoruba people would not allow the “impostors” to lead any agitation on their behalf. He also said the people of the South-West would not be deceived by the plan of the secessionists.

The statement partly read, “Let it be reiterated again. There will be no agitation for secession in any part of Ondo State. Prof Akintoye should submit himself to the people if he is so desirous of representing them.

“It is presumptuous, denigrating and condescendingly spiteful for a group of hustlers, living largely in anonymity but struggling for relevance, to keep proclaiming and legislating on issues which affect the destiny of a whole people, without the faintest suggestion of paying even scant regard to their feelings or extending due courtesy to the real representatives of the people whose opinions they discount as unimportant.

”The people are discerning. They know the impostors. They have not forgotten the activities of the suborned agitators, the presumed penitent activists. The Ondo people, and indeed Yoruba are the easiest to lead but the most difficult to deceive. With them sophistry and demagoguery have their limits.”