The open letter, dated April 17, 2024, was signed by both Akintoye, Igboho and one Ola Ademola.

They called on the President to within the next two months set up a negotiation team to negotiate the exit of the Yoruba people from Nigeria.

The letter by the Yoruba Nation arrowheads came about a week after some armed agitators invaded the Oyo State Government House, attempting to hoist their flag on the premises of the state House of Assembly.

The agitators were subdued and 29 of them were last week taken before a magistrates’ court in Ibadan, which ordered that they should be remanded in the prison custody.

Both Akintoye and Igboho dissociated themselves from the violent action.

However, in their open letter made available to our correspondent in Ibadan on Sunday, the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement, said, “We have the honour to send to Your Excellency this important letter on behalf of the many millions of Yoruba people at home in Yorubaland in Nigeria and in the Yoruba Diaspora in almost all countries across the world.

We send this letter as a follow-up to our earlier letter, dated August 06, 2022, which we delivered to your predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his exalted position then as President of Nigeria.

“Since 2015, the Fulani have been killing widely among the other peoples of Nigeria, including us Yoruba, destroying farms, villages and other assets, kidnapping men, women and children, extorting large amounts of money as ransom from friends and family of the kidnapped, and repeatedly asserting their intention to seize the homelands of all the indigenous peoples of Nigeria for the purpose of turning all into a Fulani homeland.”

The group said in the Middle Belt, horrendous blood-letting was going on with many families forced into Internally Displaced People Camps while many of their villages were seized by the Fulani and renamed as Fulani villages.

“In our Yoruba homeland, our people are resisting somewhat better, but the Fulani attacks and killings and kidnappings are unrelenting and are coming daily, leading to horrific instability, and forcing most of our farmers to abandon farming altogether, thereby dooming Yoruba people to years and years of famine.”

It further alleged that an unofficial estimate showed that Fulani had killed as many as 29,000 Yoruba people since 2015 till date, adding that aforementioned reasons were enough for them to seek breakaway from Nigeria.

“All these actions by the Fulani are, to us Yoruba, a sufficient reason for our seeking to separate our Yoruba Nation from Nigeria. Most of us, Yoruba have no confidence in the ‘restructuring’ that some of our most respected Yoruba leaders (such as our fathers in our highly exalted Afenifere) are advocating.

“And our reason is that we know that restructuring cannot keep the Fulani marauders away from our homeland.  Since, after restructuring, the Fulani would still be Nigerians like us, and would still have full citizens’ rights to come in large numbers, and with weapons and intent to kill and destroy and seize land, to our homeland.

The Fulani elite seem to be saying in effect that they intend to make Nigeria ungovernable for President Tinubu, and that they would never accept any official action of his.

“We are acting for and on behalf of our 60 million Yoruba people of the Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo State, respectively, plus the Yoruba Local Government Areas of Kogi and Kwara State, and plus the Itshekiri homeland of Delta State, all together constituting the Yorubaland in Nigeria, hereby most humbly place our crowning request before Your Excellency as follows:

“That the Nigerian Federal Government shall, within the next two months, but not later than June 15, 2024, inform us Yoruba Self-determination Movement that the Nigerian Federal Government has graciously agreed to our proposal for negotiation and that they have set up a negotiation team that will meet and have a dialogue with our Yoruba Nation’s negotiation team.

“That the Nigerian Federal Government shall invite the United Nations, African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, to send observers to the negotiation meetings.”

It, therefore, promised to forward the list of its negotiation team to the government as soon as it received a message in response to its request for the negotiation.

The group said contrary to claims from several quarters that Akintoye resigned and left the struggle, its former leader only stepped down on account of old age.

In a statement on Friday signed by its General Secretary, Tunde Amusat, the group advised Nigerians to be wary of those trying to twist Akintoye’s resignation.

According to Amusat, Akintoye never said he was withdrawing from the Yoruba Nation agitation nor resigning his membership of IOOW. He remains our lifetime mentor and one of our patrons.

The statement read, “We wish to state that the letter of resignation of Professor Banji Akintoye was very explicit and was without ambiguity. Baba never said he was withdrawing from the Yoruba Nation Agitation nor resigning his membership of IOOW. He remains our lifetime Mentor and one of our Patrons.

For the sake of emphasis, Ilana was formed by over 100 Yoruba Self-Determination Groups in 2019, first as Yoruba World Congress before it was rebranded to IOOW in 2020 in order to make the struggle indigenous and traditional.

“Baba Akintoye was elected by these groups to lead the Yoruba Nation struggle which he graciously accepted on September 11th, 2019. Baba joined the struggle through a group, Oodua Foundation Inc.

“We, therefore, wish to set the record straight that Professor Banji Akintoye is our lifetime Mentor and one of our Patrons in the Yoruba Nation Self-Determination Struggle.

“We appreciate his commitment to the development of the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement through Ilana Omo Oodua Worldwide and we will continue to consult him at all time as we progress in the struggle for the freedom and liberation of our land.”

The former Yoruba Nation leader handed the baton of leadership to his former Deputy, Prof. Wale Adeniran, citing old age and a weakened body system as his reasons.

But in a letter addressed to Adeniran on Thursday, Akintoye explained that he did not resign from the position to evade responsibility over the crisis rocking the self-determination group.

Read the full content of Akintoye’s resignation letter below:

Dear Wale, I write this letter to you in your position as Chairman of Ilana Omo Oduduwa to congratulate you and the newly elected Executive Council of Ilana.

“I also hereby inform Ilana through you of my departure from further responsibilities in Ilana. I urge you and all others not to think that this step is a consequence of recent difficulties in Ilana. As you know better than any other person, I have been seeking for over a year now to take my leave from Ilana because combining the duties of Ilana with the duties of the greatly elevated demands of the Self-determination Struggle has been too heavy for me at my age. I am greatly honored that you as the closest person to me in Ilana, most Ilana members, and all Ilana committees, have for months been urging me not to leave Ilana because, according to you all, Ilana is my special ‘baby’ in the whole Self-determination Struggle. But you would remember that in a special meeting of leaders of the Self-determination struggle from all over the world about a month ago, you and all the other meeting participants agreed graciously that I should give up my duties in Ilana because of my heavy accumulation of duties to the higher levels of the whole struggle. As for our current difficulties in Ilana, I am sure you would testify that I am not leaving because of them, and that, in general, even the greatest of difficulties never make me quit. I am imbued with God-given confidence that I can bear all things and solve the most tortuous complications among men, because God in His mercy has given me the gift of a heart that loves all persons in all situations.

Still, I must ask you to forgive me for leaving Ilana to you in its current condition. I had wanted to leave Ilana immediately after the special meeting of worldwide leaders about a month ago, but I decided to help you to iron out some of the ongoing difficulties before leaving. Unfortunately, things have not improved as quickly as I expected, and you now have to face a situation in which some of our extremists are still compounding the difficulties. However, I have much confidence in you – including confidence that you will find ways to steer our Ilana back to the path of compromise, unity and strength.

“Finally, I must congratulate and thank you for your very high quality of leadership in this struggle for our embattled nation. I must congratulate and thank you, particularly for your bearing with strength and fortitude the frequent vilifications and false accusations. We who have stepped out bravely to liberate our Yoruba nation and to save it from being destroyed by the destructive forces of Nigeria are going through a lot of fire from our own people. No doubt, we shall soon be hearing from some habitual detractors that it was you who disloyally plotted against me and made me to leave Ilana, but we must not let such talk bother us in any way. By the grace of God, we shall win this war and liberate our Yoruba nation, and thereby giving our nation the freedom it desires to develop into a greatly respected modern country in the world.

“Of course, you know that I shall always be available to you – to you personally as a friend and close associate in the higher levels of the Self-determination Struggle, and to Ilana as Patron and Mentor in the way that I am Patron and Mentor to other Self-determination Organizations.

“I thank God for His leadership qualities in you and thank you for giving yourself so unstintingly to our struggle for our nation. Accept my best wishes for you and your family.”

It was gathered that Akintoye’s resignation followed alleged infighting among members of the self-determination group.

But in a statement on Thursday announcing the decision of Akintoye, the group’s General Secretary, Tunde Amusat, said the former Yoruba Nation leader handed the baton of leadership to his former Deputy, Prof. Wale Adeniran.

Amusat claimed Akintoye handed over the mantle of leadership to Adeniran, citing old age and a weakened body system as his reasons.

According to Amusat, the worldwide congress of Ilana Omo Oodua held on December 17th, 2022 accepted Akintoye’s resignation and affirmed Adeniran as the new leader of the group.

He added that the proposed amendment to the constitution affirming Adeniran’s position as Chairman will be tabled at the next worldwide congress before the end of this year for ratification by registered members.

“Akintoye extolled the principled virtues of Adeniran, commending him for his consistent patience against all forms of blackmail, slanders and defamatory affirmations which had been unleashed against him in the past by those he (Akintoye) described as “disgruntled elements”.

“Adeniran is a retired Assistant Professor of African Studies and the pioneer Commissioner for Education in Osun State. He hails from Ile-Ife,” the statement read.

The activists, including Prof Wale Adeniran, also prayed the courts to declare that the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, which are scheduled to be conducted in June and July by the Independent National Electoral Commission, cannot be validly held under the said illegal and invalid constitution.

The Communications Manager, Ilana Omo Oodua, Mr Maxwell Adeleye, said in a statement on Wednesday that the suits were filed by the counsel for the Yoruba Nation agitators, Mr Tolu Babaleye.

The agitators listed the Attorney-General of the Federation and INEC as defendants in the two suits

Apart from Akintoye and Adeniran, an Ado Ekiti-based medical doctor, Chief Bayo Orire, and 15 others are demanding a total decommissioning of the 1999 Constitution to pave the way for a referendum so that the Yoruba people could decide on their nationhood first and foremost.

They argued that the preamble of the constitution claimed that the people of Nigeria solemnly resolved to live together and made the constitution, but that the document was fraudulent and should be declared null and void.

In the event that the above sole issue is resolved in the positive, the claimants prayed the court for the following reliefs:

“A declaration that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) is invalid, illegal and of no effect whatsoever by reason of its failure to satisfy the essential requirements of referendum and national consensus expected of a valid constitution.

“A declaration that the preamble/introductory passage to the 1999 Constitution inserted into the constitution by the military government, which says, ‘We the people of Nigeria have resolved to give ourselves a constitution’, is a lie when in the actual fact it was the military government that came up with the document and imposed it on the Nigerian people without any contribution from the Nigerian people; it has, therefore, rendered the constitution illegal, invalid and null and void and of no effect on the grounds of naked lie fraud.

“A declaration that no valid elections, whether presidential, governorship, national and state assembly or councillorship, can be validly held under the said invalid and fraudulent constitution as one cannot build something on nothing in law and expect it to stand.”

The group called on all Yoruba people, especially, self-determination activists in Ekiti and Osun states, to mobilise themselves and ensure that they were present in court in Osogbo and Ado-Ekiti whenever the cases were called for mention

The statement added, “This is a clarion call to our people within and beyond Yoruba land that it is time to jettison our personal interest for the overall interest of our land.History and posterity will never be kind to us if we miss this historic opportunity to salvage our land and restore our stolen nationhood. We must all come out in our large numbers to show solidarity, peacefully and lawfully, in support of this case because a landmark decision awaits the Yoruba people.”