2023 Election: Tinubu is selfish_ Akintoye lambasts ’emilokan’ candidacy

Prof Banji Akintoye, the Leader of the Yoruba Nation Self-Determination Struggle, claimed on Thursday that the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate Bola Tinubu’s ambition was motivated by “personal interest.”

With his “emilokan,” which means “I am the next person,” statement, Tinubu made it clear that his mission to become Nigeria’s president was personal, not for the benefit of the Yoruba people.

Akintoye, a history professor, distanced himself from an interview he gave two years ago in which he endorsed Tinubu for president, claiming the former Lagos State governor was running at the wrong time.

Akintoye clarified on Thursday that he is not endorsing Tinubu and will not vote for the former governor in next year’s election. The leader of the self-determination movement also chastised other Yoruba politicians running for office, saying they were doing so at the expense of Yoruba people seeking emancipation in order to achieve the Yoruba Nation.

According to him, I have no personal animosity toward any Yoruba candidate for office. But I feel bad for you. You are leaving a legacy that your children’s children will be ashamed to know about in the near future.

The statement read, “Our brother, Tinubu, you are fighting for yourself alone when your whole family is perishing. There is fire on our roof as a nation. It is unbelievable that any Yoruba man would do to his people what you are doing to our people now. You have been carrying around a video of an interview that I granted Alaroye in the campus of Obafemi Awolowo over two years ago.

‘They asked me that if there was no struggle for self-determination and you want to recommend a Yoruba person for President of Nigeria, who would I recommend? And I said yes! If that is so, I would recommend Tinubu, without any hesitation.

“But that is if the times are right, the times are not right, you know, I do not endorse any Yoruba man, Tinubu, or any other for any elected position, any position at all in Nigeria at this time. I stand fully and without looking back, with the Yoruba struggle for self-determination for our own country, for the Yoruba nation now!

“That’s the truth of the matter. Dear Tinubu, please don’t deceive yourself. You cannot deceive our people. You think you can carry that kind of video around and deceive our people, our people are smarter than that. The world is watching you.

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“Our history will judge that at a time when our nation needs to stand up and defend itself, you started to bring up an agenda. A personal agenda of your own before them. You are asking us to vote for you. We will not vote for you.

“Whether it is for the Presidency or the Senate or House of Rep or whatever, we will not vote for you. We would have taken our country out of Nigeria by then. So, we advise you now to return to your people. I am advising you now, to return to your people and wash your soul clean. You are doing a thing that is unpardonable.

“Tinubu, you are destroying the Yoruba future. You are creating a legacy for yourself that your children’s children will be ashamed to know in the future. We ask you to return. You can still save yourself now and your future. We are determined to take our country. And I’m standing solidly with the young people who are running around trying to take their country.

“Oh! you might say they are fighting themselves, that’s what young people do everywhere. That does not mean that they don’t want their country, they want their country. And the Lord God, the creator of All Nations, has given them that country, and very soon, the Lord will deliver their country into their hands.

“Then it will be their duty to settle down and begin to do for their people the kind of government that Yoruba people have been giving to their people from the beginning of time, a government whose objective is the improvement of the life of the people of our nation.”