The leader of Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-political group,
Pa Ayo Adebanjo, has reiterated why the group will continue to support the
Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, among other candidates in
the forthcoming 2023 General Election.
The Afenifere chieftain had earlier declared support of the
group for the LP presidential candidate in an online radio programme, ‘Yoruba
Gbode’, where he said, “Peter Obi can rule independently without the influence
of those criminals in the government, stressing, “Tinubu will only give
continuity to Buhari’s incompetence.”
In a statement made available on Monday,
September 26, 2022, titled, “Why Afenifere Supports South East Presidential
Candidate for 2023 Presidency” in response to the spokesperson for the All
Progressives Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Bayo Onanuga’s Facebook post
accusing him (Adebanjo) of speaking for himself and not the group, Adebanjo
said, “Before the political parties conducted their primaries, a journalist
asked, what is my view about the 2023 general election? I answered and said the
country should be restructured before the general election, and he followed up
by asking if there should be an election, which zone should the Presidency come
from? And I unhesitatingly said, of course, the South-East.
“After the primaries and the candidates emerged with Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu from the South-West, APC; Atiku Abubakar on the platform of the PDP
and Peter Obi on the platform of Labour Party and I announced Afenifere’s
support for Peter Obi, not a few Yoruba leaders question why I should be
supporting Peter Obi, a candidate of the Igbo extraction against Asiwaju Bola
Tinubu, a Yoruba.”
Adebanjo explained that the presidency is not a contest
between the Yoruba and the Igbo, adding that Afenifere is a Yoruba
interpretation of the social welfarist ideology of the then Action Group, a
political party founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his colleagues in 1951 which
advocated federalism as the best form of government to enable the federating
units the autonomy to thrive and for peace to ultimately dwell in the country.
Continuing, Adebanjo asserted that the group was
contributing to shaping Nigeria into a federation where no person or ethnic
nationality would be sidelined or oppressed.
“In the countdown to the 2023 General Election, long before
the parties conducted their Conventions to elect their National Executives and
candidates, we had insisted and still advocate restructuring before the
elections proposing a synthesis of the identical Resolutions of the 2014
National Conference and the APC El-Rufai 2018 True Federalism Committee.
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“We did this as Afenifere and on the wider spectrum of the
Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum.
“We did this, when politicians, in spite of the monumental
crises confronting the nation, carried on as if the attainment of power was all
that mattered, the SMBLF unanimously proposed that the minimum condition for a
peaceful transition from the disastrous eight years of Buhari’s government
headed by a President of northern extraction was to have the next President
from the South.”
The nonagenarian maintained that the quest for peace based
on equity and inclusiveness had resulted in Yoruba taking the first turn of
zoning arrangement in 1999 that brought in former President Olusegun Obasanjo,
and the North taking a turn, rotating back to Yoruba being the Vice President
under a President from the northwest axis while the South-East is marginalised.
He, however, appealed for presidential power to be ceded to
the Igbo people of the South-East since power has rotated back to the South for
equity.
“Peter Obi is the person of Igbo extraction that Afenifere
has decided to support and back. He is the man we trust to restructure the
country back to federalism on the assumption of office.
“To keep Nigeria one, everyone should be Obi-Datti
compliant,” he added.
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