The Yoruba leader, Prof Banji Akintoye on Saturday likened Nigerian nation to a country under the reign of an empire, which must crumble and break up.

Akintoye said like other artificially created empires across the globe that have become history, Nigeria is a time bomb, which might soon explode unless equity, justice and fair play reign supreme in the land.

Akintoye spoke in Ibadan on Saturday during a programme on Fresh 105.9 FM monitored by our correspondent.

He said, “Some foreign powers came and created an empire and gathered a number of nationalities together and gave them a single government. Nigeria is an empire comprising many nationalities. In the history of the world, every empire breaks up and the nationalities remain.

“It is not about Nigeria alone. It is a fundamental universal world experience that empires combine many nationalities and rule over them and then the empire breaks up. So, it is to be expected that a country like Nigeria will some day break up,” he said.

Akintoye, who has taught History in universities in Nigeria and the United States and became a senator in the Second Republic, however, gave conditions that could forestall the breakup of the country.

He called on the Hausa/Fulani to give up the attitude that they own Nigeria and must continue to rule it.

“From modern perspective of governance and interrelationships, we can do things that can make Nigeria survive for a long time. Number one, we must get the people who believe that they have the right to conquer and subdue the rest of Nigeria.

“We must ask them to give up, repudiate and stop all of that disaster. They must return to civil relationship among other people of Nigeria. If they continue to act like they own the country, they will only speed up the breaking up of the country. They say Nigeria is theirs, that Allah has given it to them.

“There is no way Nigeria can continue as long as this type of agenda and ambition exists among us. The first thing is to demand of our Fulani brethren that they must repudiate the agenda,” he said.

He described the Yoruba as a “powerful ethnic group” not just in Nigeria but also in the world, disclosing that the Yoruba have the reputation of being the most educated immigrants in the United States.