•Says failure of Northern leadership responsible for influx of Almajiri

By Dapo Akinrefon

PROFESSOR Banji Akintoye, academic, historian, writer and Second Republic Senator, is the leader of the Yoruba World Congress, YWC.
In this interview, he expressed worry over the influx of northern youths into the south, saying it is a failure of the northern leadership. Excerpts:

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, how do you see the influx of Almajiri into Southern Nigeria?

The northern governors seem to have woken up from the Almajiri problem created by the northern culture.

Now, they are forcing the Almajiri to go back to their places of origin but many of them don’t want to be taken back. So, many are finding their way southwards.

It is a very terrible situation because these are not just ordinary times. Coronavirus is out there and in the north is massive, so most of those who are fleeing do not want to be taken back to their places of origin, they choose to roam wherever they want and most of those coming southwards are infected with the coronavirus. We do not know how many of them are infected with coronavirus but we know that some of them are.

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So, they are bringing for us in the south a very complex problem because already, we, the southwest, are the gateway to Nigeria. Almost all of the contacts with the outside world come through Lagos. We are only lucky that we have governors, who are rising up to the task of tackling the coronavirus especially the governor of Lagos State.

So now, to bring the infection from the north to the southwest, is to rate a totally unacceptable situation. We, Yoruba, cannot accept those people. In addition to what we already have; they cannot bring their own coronavirus to the south. We cannot accept that. This is not politics, this is a matter of life and death and the northerners should begin to recognize that and tell their people not to flee to south-west because we will not accept them in the southwest. There’s a ban on interstate travels that must be respected.

I want to congratulate our governors for turning them back. All I will ask them to do is to strengthen the border patrol and send every one of them back to where they are coming from.

What do you think is responsible for this?

The plot to take over the south has been in existence since 2014 and it has sought assistance from the northern officials in the Nigerian federal government.

You will see it in what they call the herdsmen. The herdsmen are not looking for lands for planting and grazing land.

They are people who have been indoctrinated to go to the Middle Belt and the south to take territory for Fulani and they don’t hide it.

We know that all these things are been said and the cattle rearers are not coming alone, they are accompanied by well trained military personnel, armed with sophisticated weapons.

That agenda is there and it is continuing, it is part of the coronavirus. They are still coming to kill farmers, rape women and destroy farms; that is why we, in the southwest, put together the idea of Amotekun but it is quite difficult for the operation to take off. Although some governors are ready, they are now beginning to look for ways to commence the operation despite the coronavirus.

The United Nations recently adopted the Yoruba nation into the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, UNPO, what informed this?
The admission into UNPO put in the hands of the Yoruba nation is an instrument that we can use powerfully to mould whatever we want to do, we can use it to establish ourselves under reliance of self-governance in Nigeria, our independence and autonomy sovereign country
It depends on us what we want to use it for and the Yoruba people are taking a serious look at that now.

A large majority of Yoruba will rather now have a separate independent sovereign country and it is going to be done in a way to show that the Yoruba are civilized people and not just troublemakers and create a situation in which people will be killed and so on forth. We don’t want to do that, we want to leave hostility behind, we want to leave friendly neighbours behind, how to achieve that is now the work of statesmanship.

Do you think all Yoruba are on the same boat with you on this?

That is not possible; there is no nation in the world that its people will be on the same page on a particular issue. There are always individuals with a difference in their understanding. Some would want to use that opportunity to make money. But I believe that majority of the Yoruba do want it.