A support group for the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, the South-West Media Outreach for Atiku Abubakar (SWMOAA), has criticised the recent romance by the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a faction of the apex pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, led by Pa Reuben Fasoranti.
A statement signed by its coordinator, Kola Ilori, said “What played out in Akure when Tinubu and the self-styled Yoruba leaders came visiting, and which has been adequately described in many quarters as ‘abduction of Pa Fasoranti,’ was the height of greed, desperation and selfishness.”
According to the statement, it was a known fact that Tinubu never recognised Pa Fasoranti as the leader of Afenifere, rather, it was Chief Ayo Fasanmi that Tinubu and his party’s governors coveted as the Afenifere leader.
“How does Tinubu’s opportunistic presidential ambition translate to be in the best interest of the Yoruba people in the contextual Nigeria situation of today,” the statement asked.
The group, made up of erudite journalists, both serving and retired said that Tinubu’s much touted “lifelong ambition” to be Nigeria’s President at all cost, is anachronistic to Yoruba’s existential wellbeing, as variously expressed by different Yoruba interest groups, both at home and in the diaspora.
It said, “It would be injurious and misleading to paint the Yoruba people as tribalists, and people of low esteem, which betrays the ‘Omoluabi’ ethos of strong character and integrity, for any faction of Afenifere to ever think of endorsing Tinubu, despite his deep character flaws, if not for pecuniary interest.”
It added that Tinubu’s antecedents are well documented and advertised among the Yoruba people that they could not be hoodwinked by anyone, group or the latter day self-styled Yoruba leaders to be railroaded to supporting a particular candidate, whose only credible credential is being a Yoruba man.
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