Afenifere tackles Akeredolu over stance on South West presidency

• Says It’s Turn Of South East

The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has taken a swipe on Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State over his stance that the South West Region must not jeopardise its opportunity to produce the next president in 2023.

The mainstream Yoruba group said the recent move by Akeredolu in stating that activities of agitators in the South West would not be condone, the governor was indirectly seeking the support for the presidential candidate of his party.

Afenifere, in a statement entitled Akeredolu: Between Equity and Opportunism released, yesterday, by its Secretary General, Sola Ebiseni, said: “As the Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum ought to promote the overall agenda of the southern part of the country.”

Akeredolu, on Friday, at the launch of an emblem appeal to flag off the 2023 Armed Forces Remembrance Day, warned against Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB’s) style of sit-at-home in the South West.

The statement read in part: “Akeredolu is within his right, as the South West Coordinator of his party’s campaigns, to imagine the opportunity coming his way and his party in the pipe dream of presidential power.

“It is, however, unimaginable that the Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum would descend to the abyss of equating his pontification for the equity of a Southern presidency with the hegemony of his or other ethnic nationality.

“To say that the clamour for Southern president was “especially for South West” was not only most insensitive but also to make a fool of his colleagues outside of South West. No wonder then that the Governor of Delta, in whose office the Southern Governors’ Conference was held was the first to betray the cause by accepting the second fiddle position of the vice president to the detriment of what has turned out to be their feeble declarations.

“The unkindest cut of Akeredolu’s new song was his reference to IPOB, as if he had any control over the choice of a different modus operandi employed by different agitating groups in Nigeria.

“Truth be told, there is no region of Nigeria where the elite, including the ruling class in government has been able to determine the methods adopted by agitators or succeeded in checking the effects thereof.

“So, let Akeredolu not boast of any capacity to dictate the method adopted by the Yoruba agitators or seek to set the rest of Nigeria against his Ndigbo colleagues or the entire South East in his unhidden separatist agenda of securing undue advantage for his party and region in the quest for the Nigerian president of Southern extraction.”

“”Incidentally, those who fought the civil war, truly shed their youthful blood and have seen all about Nigeria, are now in the vanguard of the national movement not only for Southern but in the quest for the requisite equity are in the queue for the Nigerian president of South East extraction. There lies the solution to separatist agitations and not self-serving sanctimonious pontifications.”