The Assembly of All Yoruba Groups Worldwide held in Ibadan on Thursday ended in disarray as the meeting failed to produce any consensus on the way forward.
There was an attempt to remove Prof Banji Akintoye, the incumbent Yoruba leader by some groups opposed to his leadership.
Akintoye, an emeritus professor of History and the former President General of Yoruba World Congress, had on Sunday announced the change of name of the group which he led for slightly over a year, to Ilana Omo Oduduwa after a leadership crisis.
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The meeting had started well without any issue and Kunle Adesokan, a representative of Prof Akintoye, had addressed the gathering and took his seat.
The chief convener of the meeting, Victor Taiwo, had circulated his speech to almost everybody present and as he began to read the speech, some of the supporters of Akintoye started to heckle him.
Akintoye’s supporters later said they would not sit there and watch Taiwo hurl insult at Akintoye, who they described as a great leader.
Part of Taiwo’s speech read, ” Now that Prof Akintoye has made public pronouncement of his abandonment of the Yoruba World Congress supposedly housing several organisations in Yorubaland and since he never reckoned with the Ibadan electorate, that means he has personally thrown away the crown of Yoruba leadership placed on his head on August 22, 2019. Do we therefore need to declare that he has lost his position as the Yoruba leader? I never said so, let the Yoruba decide.”
However, he was not allowed to finish the speech before the meeting abruptly ended in confusion as his supporters and Akintoye’s supporters engaged in a shouting match.
Many of the leaders attempted to restore order but they were not successful.
The Publicity Secretary of the Oodua People’s Congress ( Faseun faction) Lawal Kazeem, put the decision to affirm Akintoye as leader or remove him into voice vote.
Although not all of those in attendance answered “yes” in support of his continuation in office nobody opposed the decision. He therefore said Akintoye remained Yoruba leader and some of the leaders of the groups in attendance affirmed their support for him.
The President, Yoruba Youth Socio-Cultural Association, Mr Olalekan Hammed, also affirmed the support of the Yoruba youths for the leadership of Akintoye. He said nobody should attempt to remove Akintoye because he had done very well.