Akintoye debunked the claim, stating that he can never be bought over by money.
Yoruba historian and founder of the Ilana Omo Oodua, Prof Banji Akintoye has reacted to a report that he was considering quitting the struggle for Yoruba independence.
SaharaReporters had reported on Thursday the accounts of sources who said Akintoye was being pressured by government agents to quit the agitations.
Akintoye, according to multiple sources privy to the happenings, is considering an offer from the agents of the Nigerian Government to be paid millions of naira to dump the struggle in a tactical way that many agitators may not suspect, including himself.
“The Nigerian government wants to kill the brand of Ilana Omo Oodua Worldwide (IOOW) just the way the defunct Yoruba World Congress (YWC) under Akintoye was killed before Ilana Omo Oodua was birthed,” one of the sources had said.
But reacting in a statement on Friday, Akintoye debunked the claim, stating that he can never be bought over by money.
He said he has no reason for abandoning the organization founded by him for the service of the Yoruba nation, towards achieving Yoruba self-determination.
“Ilana Omo Oduduwa has, by the grace of God, grown in a short time to become the mightiest powerhouse in the Yoruba struggle to liberate itself from the poor governance, awful insecurity, and disastrously mismanaged economy of Nigeria.”
He added, “I have no information whatsoever that any official of Buhari's government has been sent to bring any money to me, but I doubt it. I doubt it because the people in the Fulani cabal managing the Federal Government know me very well, and know that I absolutely cannot be bought or bullied by them.
“They know that in my much younger years as a prominent youth in the political family of our father, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, they could not buy or bully me. I am sure that they are afraid to send their money to me in this my grand old age because they know I regard their money as filthy money. I am still the brave patriot and uncompromising fighter for truth and integrity that my God made me to be.
“We Yoruba will soon free ourselves from the death and decay that Nigeria has become. We will soon take our people out of the mud-pit of Nigeria into our own sovereign Yoruba country, into our land of great progress, of abundant and equal opportunities, of law, order, of security and justice, where our youths will surprise the world with their industry and their inventions.
“Through Ilana and our other self-determination organizations, our Yoruba nation has gone a long way in its self-determination struggle, by operating with peaceful and law-abiding means. For us of Ilana and other true Yoruba patriots, there is no going back or looking back in this struggle.
“Because our enemies of all kinds are already smelling defeat, they are resorting to spreading false stories in the press concerning us. But that will not help them or deter us.”