…berate Aregbesola for calling agitators foolish
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Some Yoruba groups have flayed the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, for branding agitators for Yoruba Nation as foolish and war-mongers. They threatened to disrupt the forthcoming governorship election in Osun State next year to prove a point to the minister.
While speaking at his 64th birthday event organised by the Awolowo Centre for Philosphy and Ideology in Ijebu Ijesa recently, Aregbesola condemned those agitating for self determination, saying they might plunge the country into another civil war. He said agitators were ignorant of what they had embarked upon, warning that it would take Nigeria 50 years to recover should another civil war break out in Nigeria again.
But in their separate reactions, two Yoruba groups, Ilana Omo Oodua and Apapo Oodua Koya said the Yoruba people would prove Aregbesola wrong that they are not foolish.
In a statement signed by Akinwande Kayode, Deputy Secretary General of Ilana Omo Oodua, the umbrella body of Yoruba Self-Determination groups, under the leadership of Emeritus Professor Banji Akintoye, the group threatened that 2022 Governorship election in Osun would not hold in order to prove to Aregbesola and other politicians that agitators were not foolish.
He said, “Aregbe (Aregbesola) and the politicians in Osun will know we are not foolish, we will not allow the governorship election to go as expected. They will know that the number of people on our side is more than the remnants of those people who want to continue with the status quo. Let us wait till then.”
Also speaking, Maxwell Adeleye, the Media Communications Secretary of the group, said the minister was only displeased with the crowd that the movement was pulling.
Adeleye said, “Aregbesola was governor in Osun State for eight years and he governed the people. It is very unfortunate if he said Yoruba Nation Agitators were foolish.
“Was he saying that the Osun State people that he governed and who are currently at the forefront of the Yoruba Nation agitation are foolish? We were in Osogbo, Osun State and the crowd of people that received us was so huge. Was Aregbesola saying those people are foolish?
“He is merely expressing his frustration that the Yoruba Nation self-determination crowd, passionate and determined, is increasing, from one state to another, against his expectations.
“Aregbesola is currently serving those who are against the liberation of the Yoruba Nation. He is, therefore, just trying to impress his equally frustrated pay masters – who are determined to frustrate our freedom, but we are putting it to him that he and his likes have failed.
“The power of the people is the ultimate in a democracy. No dictator has ever defeated the collective will of the people. Aregbesola and his cabal will fail,” the group said.
For the Pan Yoruba Coalition, Apapo Oodua Koya, in a statement signed by its spokeperson, Ahmed Akorede, “Aregbesola is a huge embarrassment to himself and to Yoruba people all over the world.”
“He has embarrassed himself and portrayed himself as parochial, self-centered, myopic and essentially out of touch with the trials and tribulations of his own people,” the group argued.
