Adebanjo alleges Akande showcasing Tinubu for 2023 presidency through lies

Says Osoba, other AD govs victims of treachery in 2003 elections

The leader of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has claimed that a former Governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, is selling Yoruba race out in a bid to ensure the former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, emerges as president in 2023.

Adebanjo, who spoke yesterday during an interview on Arise Television, described Akande as a political neophyte. Akande, the pioneer Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), last week, presented his book to the public. In one of the accounts in the book, Akande claimed that Adebanjo pestered Tinubu to build a house for him.

The elder statesman, however, denied the claim, describing Akande as just an apron string of Tinubu.

“He is too junior for me to be commenting on what he said. I signed his papers to be governor. And the condition we gave for him to become governor was that of sovereign national conference for the restructuring of the country back to federalism. That was the condition for his election in 1999 and he reneged on that.

“We warned them when they reneged. They have sold out the Yoruba race to President Muhammadu Buhari all because they want Tinubu to be president.

“But telling lies is the one I don’t know and I don’t know how a man like Akande, who claims that we all come from the root of Obafemi Awolowo, can be taking pride in his participation in the government of Buhari when all those who supported him initially are now regretting that they did so.

“There is no sensible man who will come out now and say he is proud of Buhari. It shows the type of character he is. So, he is too junior for me to be commenting on what he said.”

In the same vein, Adebanjo said he had no pity for the former governors of Ogun State (Segun Osoba), Ekiti (Niyi Adebayo), Oyo (Lam Adesina), Osun (Bisi Akande) and Ondo (Adebayo Adefarati) over their losing election after entering into an agreement with Obasanjo in 2003.

He said Osoba and his colleagues were victims of their own betrayal of the principle of truth.

“It is as a result of their betrayal. Osoba and the rest made an agreement with Obasanjo behind us to despise the leaders of Afenifere because they claimed that we were responsible for their election. And they wanted to say that they could win election without us.

“So, they made a deal behind us with Obasanjo and at the end of the day, Obasanjo kicked them out. They got the result of treachery. They were thinking that the man will keep to his words and they will claim to have won the election without the support of leaders of Afenifere. That was what took them to that disaster.”

“So, it is an act of betrayal. They wanted to be in power willy-nilly at the expense of philosophy, principle and at the expense of the truth and at the expense of the interest of the Yoruba people. And they are getting the result.

“Even the alliance, which they said they are having with President Muhammadu Buhari now which is causing trouble, how can you imagine someone who is a product of the Awolowo philosophy having an alliance with somebody like Buhari?

“And I described them at that time as a collection of incompatibles. So Afenifere has no business with them at all. It is Osoba and others who had a parley with Obasanjo. I don’t know anything about it. It is their business.

“It was not a free and fair election. Obasanjo tricked them and sent them out of office but because they were not loyal to the leadership of Afenifere, they didn’t follow in our footsteps. They were following their own. But Tinubu was smart. He saw ahead but Osoba thought that he could get on with Obasanjo. It is a question I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to be involved in their own controversy now because I have my own views about the whole thing. They sold themselves to him (Obasanjo) and they reaped the result of their disloyalty to the party. That is my conclusion.”