BY VICTOR BUORO – The Pan Yoruba Cultural Group, AFENIFERE on Monday declared that it has resolved to support Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) for the 2023 presidential election in keeping with equity, justice and fairness.
Afenifere said that in this quest for peace, based on equity and inclusiveness, the Yoruba took the first turn at the zoning arrangement in 1999, which led to the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, adding that the current Vice President is a Yoruba man and equity forbids the group for presuming to support another Yoruba person for the presidency in 2023.
In the same vein, Afenifere said that the current President is a Fulani from the Northwest and by virtue of the zoning arrangement that has governed Nigeria since 1999, power is supposed to return to the south imminently.
Leader of the Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, who stated these at a press conference in Lagos, also said that the Southwest has produced a president and currently sits as VP, while the South-South has spent a total of 6years in the Presidency, adding however that the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria.
Chief Adebanjo stressed pointedly said that Afenifere has no apologies over its resolve to support an Igbo presidential candidate which is premise on due courage of members of the group conviction that Nigeria can only prosper in righteousness, adding that now that power is due back in the South, equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo.
The group said that there is no way Nigerians can continue to demand that the Igbo people should remain in the country, while at the same time continue to brutally marginalize and exclude them from the power dynamic.
Chief Adebanjo explained that Afenifere is the Yoruba interpretation of the social welfarist ideology of Action Group, a political party founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his colleagues in 1951 with strong advocacy for federalism as the best form of government, stressing that Peter Obi is the man they trust to restructure the country back to federalism on the assumption of office.
Chief Adebanjo assured that Afenifere will not compromise the principle of justice, equity and inclusiveness because one of their own Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a frontline candidate, adding that it is on this same principle, that they condemned the PDP for sponsoring Atiku Abubakar, a Northern Fulani Muslim to succeed General Muhammadu Buhari, who is also a Fulani Muslim who will soon complete 8 years of uneventful and disastrous rule.
Chief 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 emerge with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from the South West, APC, Atiku Abubakar on the platform of 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 Igbo extraction against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba.
“I took my time to explain that the presidency is not a contest between the Yorubas and the Igbos and to a large extent I was able to convince many.
“But ever since social media has been filled with comments tending to ethnicize the campaign instead of making it issue-based,” he said.
He also said that in the countdown to the 2023 General elections, long before the parties conducted their Conventions to elect their National Executives and candidates, Afenifere 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.
According to him; “We did this as Afenifere and on the wider spectrum of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF). 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 8years of Buhari’s government headed by a President of northern extraction was to have the next President from the South.
“This position was also supported by all the southern governors, irrespective of their political parties at a meeting held in Asaba, Delta State.
“Incidentally, this North/South consideration which is at the very root of our amalgamated federation is also the most important testament of all political parties in Nigeria.
“The principle of federal character enshrined in the constitution dictates that the government of the federation or any part thereof shall not be concentrated in any ethnic group or a combination of such groups.
“It is therefore preposterous to adopt this principle for employment in public service, admissions in educational institutions, political appointment, the composition of the executive committee of a political party only to jettison it in the most important question of rulership of the federation.
“On our part, we are certainly not alien to sacrificing personal interests in the quest for a National coalition to put Nigeria on the proper pedestal. In this regard, the starting point is Southern solidarity for which we first enacted a handshake across the Niger, which had dovetailed to the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum.
“We enjoin the labour movement, students, youth organisations, women associations, and every institution whose foundation is built on fairness and justice to join hands in this task of enthroning a democratic government by supporting Peter Obi. If we are sincere and honest about keeping Nigeria together in peace, the slogan henceforth should be
“To keep Nigeria one, everyone should be Obi/Datti compliant.’
“For me, in the twilight of my sojourn on earth at 94, it is too late to derail me on the track of true federalism and National inclusiveness on which I have travelled for over 70 years of my life as one of the few surviving initial prophets, I prefer to ascend on a chariot of fire, fueled by justice and equity,” Chief Adebanjo said.
