The pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has tackled the Ondo State governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, over his comment on the support given to the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, by the group.
According to Afenifere, Akeredolu does not represent the group nor the Yoruba race in his stance on the successor of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
Akeredolu had said that the endorsement of Obi by Afenifere, did not represent the stance of the Yoruba people.
Akeredolu said this while speaking on the topic, “Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Business of Nation Building”, during a Twitter Space session.
According to him, “Afenifere doesn’t speak for the Yoruba people on the endorsement of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Afenifere is divided in respect of the purported endorsement and the group’s views do not represent the stance of the Yoruba people.”
But Afenifere in a statement signed and made available to our correspondent by its secretary-general, Chief Sola Ebiseni, noted that “Yoruba know the organisation which speaks for them, taking hard decisions which others may initially despise but come round to embrace in the fullness of time.”
Ebiseni said that Afenifere was not alone in this decision and that the next president of Nigeria should be from the South and South East specifically.
According to him “Those who seek equity that the rulership of Nigeria is not the exclusive preserve of the North must also do equity by not seeking to score the same goal for themselves by foul means.”
The group’s secretary-general said, “To start with, we wish to reiterate the principled stance of the Afenifere that the next president of Nigeria should be from the South, and all things equitably considered, from the South East, for which we consider Mr Peter Obi, by his verifiable records as a two-term governor of Anambra State, most competent and suitable.
“It is a well-considered corporate decision debated for over a year of regular monthly meetings, validly conveyed in the best tradition of the organisation.
“While we have our respect for Governor Akeredolu, and his colleagues of the Southern Governors Forum, which he leads, on their stand that it is only equitable that the next president of Nigeria, after the eight years of Buhari of Northern Nigeria extraction, should come from the South, we will not lend our support to those who betray that cause for the lucre of vice presidential porridge or those who see equity only from the parochial prism of their ethnic benefits.
“We wish to state for the umpteenth time, that Afenifere is not an apolitical Yoruba socio-cultural organisation but, from its inception, political machinery as the embodiment of the worldview of the Awolowo School of Thought on how Nigeria, a country of ancient and entrenched nationalities, may best be equitably, inclusively and peacefully governed. These thoughts are encapsulated in the theory and practice of true Ffederalism in its equitable and logical dimensions.
“This philosophy, which has inexorably become the Yoruba view, also defines Afenifere’s position, either as the initiator of NADECO, on restructuring and the need not to deny the South East their turn of Nigeria Presidency. Those who strive to abridge or diminish the full effect of this covenant, on the altar of partisan or cheap tribal interests, cannot claim to speak for the Yoruba and Afenifere is not in competition with them.
“The Yoruba know the organisation which speaks for them, taking hard decisions which others may initially despise but come round to embrace in the fullness of time.
“Finally, let it be said that Afenifere is not alone in this decision that the next President of Nigeria should be from the South and South East specifically.
“Afenifere conveyed its resolution through a press conference on the 26th of September 2022, the Middle Belt Forum converged on the Jos Township Stadium on the 28th of September.
“Other ethnic nationality organisations, particularly of the Southern and Middle Belt Forum of which Afenifere is a member and other well-meaning Nigerian leaders are in agreement with this resolution which the nation needs most for an all-inclusive sense of belonging and attendant peaceful coexistence.”
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