Afenifere tasks Buhari on vow to ‘clean up the mess in Nigeria’

Says parties must be sensitive to the yearning of members on zoning

The Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, yesterday, challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to translate his vow to ‘clean up the mess in Nigeria’ into reality.

President Buhari, while receiving the new Executive Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) in his Aso Rock office, Abuja, on Friday, April 8, 2022, led by the institute’s new president, Mrs. Comfort Olu Eyitayo, had restated this vow according to a statement signed by his media spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina.

In his words: “Having served as a military Head of State, and returned to politics to serve as a President, after losing three elections, I have seen the system of accountability in the country, and the mess to be cleaned up.”
HOWEVER, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Jare Ajayi, the organisation, while lauding Buhari for admitting that there are undesirable situations in Nigeria that need “to be cleaned up,” regretted that it took the President about seven years in office to appreciate ‘the mess’ that needs to be cleaned up.

The Yoruba group agreed with the President that by the virtue of various positions he had held, including being Head of State and the fact that he contested for the Presidency before winning the fourth time, ought to make him do far better than what Nigerians have got so far from his administration.

RELATEDLY, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) yesterday, said political parties must be sensitive to the yearnings of their members and the pulse of the country in their effort in zoning the presidential ticket.

Secretary-General of YCE, Dr. Kunle Olajide, while speaking with The Guardian in reaction to the story that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would throw its presidential ticket open in 2023, said: “Zoning is not in the constitution. It is the internal affairs of the political party.

He said political parties must be sensitive to the feeling of the public and listen to what people are saying. The political parties must listen to the yearnings of their members”.

Also, Chairman, Ondo State Chapter of the YCE, Chief Anthony Meraiyebu, while speaking with journalists in Ibadan, described the decision of the PDP to throw open the contest for its 2023 presidential ticket rather than zoning it to the Southern part of the country as unpatriotic and insensitive.

Meraiyebu said that the game-plan was to ensure that another northerner succeeds President Buhari in case Nigerians decide to vote another party come 2023.