In response to Mr Akinrimisi’s recent vilification of Ilana Omo Oodua, I feel it is pertinent to recall his previous allegations. In December 2020, during a private group phone conversation that I attended with him, he accused some of those advocating for the Sovereign State of Yoruba of collecting ₦350 million from the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
This ugly aspersion has been an obsession to Mr Akinrimisi: that people have been collecting money from the Nigeria government to derail the Yoruba cause. Yet to date he has brought no evidence to substantiate his claim.
Mr Akinrimisi constant demands to Prof. Banji Akintoye, pressing him to investigate the matter despite no evidence having been provided, are absurd, ludicrous and frankly preposterous.
There is only one known story in the public place about someone receiving ₦350 million Naira from a high official of the Nigerian Federal Government, but it is totally different from what Mr Akinrimisi is propagating.
The facts of that story is that, some weeks ago, a well-known non-Yoruba gentleman whose name cannot be mentioned to protect his identity accused the leaders of Ilana Omo Oodua of defaming his name by alleging that he had received ₦350 million Naira from a top Federal Government official. The gentleman threatened that he would sue the Ilana leadership for defaming his character. Ilana Omo Oodua refused to offer any comment because nobody in Ilana had ever uttered any such defamatory statement.
The said gentleman continued to accuse the Ilana leadership of defaming him, which led some Yoruba elders to intervene. They took from the said gentleman the video which he claimed to contain the alleged defamatory statement, but there was absolutely no such statement in it - and so the whole affair died a natural death.
Apparently, Mr Akinrimisi heard some bits of this story and decided to use it to pursue his agenda of calumny and vilification against Ilana Omo Oodua and its leadership - and against the whole Yoruba Self-determination Struggle. It is a great pity that such should come from Mr Akinrimisi, a man whom we Yoruba should be respecting as one of the elders of our embattled Yoruba nation, an elder who should be contributing seriously to the promotion of the Yoruba struggle for self-determination.
It is therefore my advice to Mr Akinrimisi to desist from spreading false information to the public as this will not do our self-determination struggle any good. If Mr Akinrimisi does not believe in Self-determination or do not want to positively contribute towards the struggle, he may as well campaign vigorously for whatever he does believe in.
Mr. Akinrimisi should therefore desist from making frivolous accusations and stop crying wolf where there is none, and instead focus on his campaign for the Yoruba Self-determination struggle.
From my experience, I cannot envision how the Federal government of Nigeria would be so foolish as to spend such a vast amount of money just to frustrate the Yoruba efforts to reclaim their rightful sovereignty. The Yoruba journey to true Independence is gaining rapid momentum across the globe and very soon, we shall hold high the Yoruba flag among the comity of nations.
The various Yoruba groups and organisations are now congregating for the actualisation of their own Sovereign country under a unified, progressive banner: the Yoruba Self-determination Movement. I urge Mr Akinrimisi to invest his efforts, not in perpetuating false allegations, but behind such endeavours that will bring about the fundamental conclusion of our struggle, the realisation of our Yoruba nation.
By Kayode Emola
Yoruba Self-Determination Movement
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