The worldwide leader of the Ilana Omo Oodua, Prof Banji Akintoye has said there is no going back on the actualisation of the Oduduwa Republic.
Akintoye described the Yoruba as a civilised people who cannot continue with the barbarism of the suspected Fulani people that have held Nigeria to ransom, adding that only Ethiopia can be older than the Yoruba people in terms of civilisation.
The don revealed that the anticipated Oduduwa Republic will continue the civilisation agenda of the late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowon.
Akintoye disclosed this during an interview on CityTalk with Reuben Abati, which was monitored by ODUDUWA NEWS on Saturday.
“There is no nation in tropical Africa that is older and also more civilised than the Yoruba nation, except perhaps Ethiopia.
“We are going to continue in the civilisation nation-building that has been for years which the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo wanted to continue in the 1950s. We cannot stay with Nigeria where Fulani have made the rest of us continue in barbarism.
“Yoruba is a civilised nation. When the white man came in the middle of 19th century and began to spread Christianity through education, our country was better ready to receive education than any tropical nation because for missionaries in any part of Africa, they had to station in the bush and start looking for people to educate. But our case was not like that in Yorubaland.
“In Yorubaland, you just go to Oba in the city and introduce yourself to say you have come. There’s a photograph of missionaries arriving in Oyo to greet Alaafin in 1883. It was a great picture, with a large number of people, and the Oba himself on the throne and the missionaries in front of him to greet him.”
The octogenarian historian stated that the Nigerian government has put Fulani people in key posts, especially in the security arms of the country, and they have constitutional powers to run most of the affairs of the country via exclusive control.
“Fulani play the dominating factor in every part of Nigeria. The constitution is helping them at the moment, and we have to go out of such a country. There is 98 control of power in the constitution and 68 out of them are under the federal government that is controlled by the Fulani.
“The remaining 30 are shared between the federal and states concurrently with the proviso that if the federal and state governments clash, the state government must surrender and the federal government must take precedence.
“We are going to liberate our people and have our civilised country. We cannot continue with a country where all major key posts are headed by the Fulani, and that wouldn’t have been an issue but the barbarism is too much. The police department, the army, the customs, the secret state services and the rest are headed by the Fulani.
“People are saying there will be war. Well, we are trying to not make war happen because we don’t want to brutalise anybody but if they make war happen, they will be sorry, that’s the situation.”