The Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Aare Gani Adams, on Tuesday, says the Yoruba people are wont to destroy their warriors with their own hands.
Adams said some Yoruba politicians are now using popular Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, well known as Sunday Igboho, to malign him and destroy all that he had built in the last 28 years by calling him “a coward”.
“On the braveness of Sunday Igboho, some wicked politicians in Yorubaland have stepped in to use him to destroy their enemies and to even call them names. How can somebody call Iba Gani Adams that has been in the trenches for the past 28 years a coward? the chieftain said on Arise TV’s The Morning Show monitored by The PUNCH.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that Igboho issued and enforced a vacation order to the Fulani herdsmen accused of perpetrating crimes ranging from kidnappings, killings, rape to invasion of farmlands with their cattle in Igangan, Ibarapa Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Speaking on Tuesday, Adams said Igboho has the genuine interest of the Yoruba people at heart but some politicians have infiltrated the struggle to “malign me and dent my image”.
He said, “I started this struggle at the age of 23 years when OPU (Oodua Peoples Union) has not been on ground. We started OPU in 1994 and I risked everything for Yorubaland. I have been to jail for three times. The total of my detention was 17 and a half months. I lost everything I had in this life. I started from the scratch in 2008 and I didn’t surrender because my people have to be liberated.
“How can somebody now come out – Sunday Igboho –and use his braveness of one day to destroy somebody who has been in the struggle for 28 years. There is a more than meets the eye.
“Yoruba always destroy their warrior at the end of the day. About 78 per cent of those that fought for the people, they destroyed them. We know what happened to Abiola. A lot of the people who asked him to declare himself as a president ran away from him when he was arrested. It was just a few people in NADECO that stood by MKO Abiola.”
Adams said the Yoruba nation has to be well-coordinated in its liberation struggle.
“Why should you say I’m a coward by now? I have five children and the whole of my family (members) are still living with Nigerian passports. I am a convener of Oodua Progressives Union.
“Ten years ago, my people in Europe told me to get European Passport; they wanted to do it for me within two years. I told them they will use it against me in the struggle of Nigeria and they will say I can’t fight for them again. So, I rejected it and I and my family (members) are still living with Nigerian passports and still living in the country.”
Punch
