Threat Of Insecurity Forced Yoruba People To Recognise OPC-Aare Gani Adams

The Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland and National Coordinator of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), has described the Yoruba people as wicked and ingrates, who only remember and recognise his group because of the treat of insecurity in the southwestern region.

Adams who was reacting to a suggestion by a guest lecturer that the group need to change people’s perception about it, during the ‘2019 OPC Leadership Retreat’, in Osogbo, said the perception that his group was violent can not change.

He said the group, which was termed violent and hard from the formative state, had done so much to be people friendly but the political class and hypocrites in the Yoruba race had been doing so much to eradicate and tear the group apart.

He said the Yoruba people, through political and religious sentiments, turned their back on his group, labelling them as fetish , violent and unrefined people, forgetting the several struggles and sacrifices they have made to keep them safe.

He said now that the issue of insecurity was now becoming increasingly unbearable in the region, they are now calling on him and the OPC to go and face kidnappers and highway bandits, and herdsmen disturbing the peace of the region.

He ask the political class and religious fanatics, that had been antagonising the group, to take up their Bibles and Quran and go into the forest and face the bandits, questioning why they are calling on the OPC to go and face the bandits now.

He, however, said the OPC would never forget the Yoruba tradition and culture and that the group, being a traditional freedom fighting and militia group, would not change or deviate from its ideology and beliefs.

A guest lecturer at the retreat, Adeboye Adebayo, had earlier Itemised the qualities that a good leader should have, stating : honesty, integrity , humility, confidence as parts of the qualities a good leader must possess.

He said the national leader and coordinator of the OPC, Gani Adams, have all the qualities of a good leader, urging members to tap and learn from his leadership qualities and skills.

Adebayo quoted Gani Adams as saying the OPC was formed to defend and propagate the truth, and also to protect the interest of the Yoruba people, adding that, this had been the course the national leader had been pushing.

He however said the protection of the Yorubaland must be a priority for all the leaders of the group, as well as all well meaning sons and daughters of the Yoruba race.

He called on leaders of the Congress to also work on changing the perception of the people about the group stating that it does not speak well when the people, the group is protecting and fighting their course, are terrified of them or sees them as terrors.

Mr Wahab Yusuf, a lecturer of Public Administration at Ibadan Polytechnic, in his own lecture, commended the leadership of the OPC, admonishing members and followers to be loyal to their leaders.

Yusuf called on members of the Congress to always learn from their leaders, to be patient and love their leaders, as whatever they do to those ahead of them is what those coming behind them would also do to them