Prof Banji Akintoye, the leader of the Yorùbá Nation, has reaffirmed that he was still the leader of the group.
This came as a reaction to reports that he has stepped down from his position as the leader of the group.
While addressing newsmen at a meeting, he revealed that he has only been relieved of his responsibility as the chairman for Ilana Omo Oodua.
He said: “What happened was very simple, which is to withdraw from the day-to-day involvement in the affairs of the large and prestigious organisation Ilana Omo Odudua, because involvement in that mighty organisation, is becoming disruptive, adding too much weight on my load in the general self-determination struggle and YSDM activities around the world, where everybody abroad believes the person they can call is Prof. Akintoye.
“So at that time, on a very high level of the self-determination struggle, I am perpetually busy. Then, side by side with that has been the fact that I am also the leader of Ilana, founder of Ilana, the Alana, and the patron, which meant that nobody in Ilana with any problem has felt confident that their problem can be solved without Prof. Akintoye being the person in charge, that just became too much.”
“I have asked people to look at it for me, but what everybody kept saying is that “You are the father of Ilana, nobody can do that for you, you are also on the higher level. You are the face that the world knows, and therefore, how do we do it without you?
“So finally in a meeting of leaders from various parts of the world, which was held about a month ago, it was decided, if you want this man (Prof. Akintoye) to continue with this work for a long time to come, we have to relieve him of Ilana responsibilities, and that was music to my ears because everybody said yes, we now agree. I have written a letter to Ilana in the past week, saying that I am withdrawing my services in the regular day-to-day management of Ilana, but I am still the patron,” he added.
The professor said a newspaper platform took advantage of the scenario and came up with an untrue narrative.
He said, “A number of things then happened, first is that many people cannot think of Ilana without me and a newspaper in Nigeria decided to make mischief out of the situation.
“I’m Banji Akintoye, I have a duty to respect every Yoruba institution and the Punch is one of our most prestigious institutions in Yoruba land so I must be very respectful to whatever I say about them but they played a pity game of attention peddling by distorting the obvious message on the letter that I wrote to Ilana Omo Odudua, saying I have resigned from Yoruba self-determination struggle. They are allowing themselves to be used by people known to me, to intentionally put the wrong narratives out there.
“Simply, the situation is this, I am still a father, patron, and mentor to Ilana, but I have withdrawn personal participation in the day-to-day management and activities in Ilana, I have handed over to my deputy whom I believe would do the job.”