YCE, DAWN Commission laud scheduled meeting with APC presidential aspirants in S’West

The Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) and Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, yesterday, lauded the scheduled meeting being championed by South-West leaders for presidential aspirants from the zone on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Guardian gathered that APC’s founding National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande; former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba and other stakeholders are the conveners of the parley billed for Lagos State Government House in Marina, on Friday.

Expected to attend are APC stalwart, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Senator Ibikunle Amosun.

REACTING to the decision, Secretary-General of YCE, Dr. Kunle Olajide and Director-General of DAWN Commission, Mr. Seye Oyeleye, said the planned meeting was a welcome decision and strategic.

“It is a welcome decision. I have earlier predicted that at the appropriate time, the leaders would meet them. It is a right step in the right direction to avoid rancour and bitterness among them,” he said.

On his part, Oyeleye said it is gladdening that they are meeting.

He said that the meeting would enable the region present a common front and bring decency into the campaign, hoping that the reason would prevail.

The director-general said: “We have more than enough competent hands coming out from South-West. They want to give their experience to Nigeria at large.”

“Now, we also have to understand that it is all about politics at the moment and politics involves strategic thinking. And in South-West, we need to be strategic if we indeed want to clinch that position of Presidency next year. I think that the meeting that has been called for Friday is in order. I don’t know what they will discuss but at least, all the aspirants in the South-West will agree on a common front. Agreeing on a common front can be in different ways. They can decide among themselves that they would have a single candidate and put him forward. Or, they can decide that during their campaigns for delegates’ votes, they will not antagonise one another. Because at the end of the day, they are still brothers within the same family.

“So, the meeting is critical and I am glad that elders in the South-West have deemed it fit to bring them to that meeting. There have been some dangerous tendencies in the last few weeks, which are detrimental to the political interest of the region. Such a meeting, which hopefully will be well attended, will be for the collective interest of Western Nigeria politically within the Nigerian state.”