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Yoruba youths tackle Afenifere over defence of Obi’s endorsement

By Seye Olumide (Southwest Bureau Chief) and Rotimi Agboluaje, Ibadan
24 October 2022   |   5:26 am
Yoruba Youth Socio-cultural Association (YYSA), yesterday, tackled pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, over its comment that Nigeria’s presidency is not for Yoruba alone.

Chief Ayo Adebanjo of Afenifere

… as Atiku’s support group blasts Wike for endorsing Sanwo-Olu

Yoruba Youth Socio-cultural Association (YYSA), yesterday, tackled pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, over its comment that Nigeria’s presidency is not for Yoruba alone.

Recall that the Secretary-General of the group, Chief Sola Ebiseni, had, on a television programme, said it took Afenifere more than a year of rigorous debate to arrive at the decision to back a candidate from South East.

‘’The Nigerian presidency is not a personal bead of the Yoruba; it is the bead of every Nigerian. So, if it is the turn of the Yoruba to have the bead on the waist of their child, Afenifere will fight for it. We did it during the NADECO, not just because Abiola was a Yoruba man, but also because we thought that was justice. Come to think of it, how will anybody have any misgiving about Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Afenifere? He is a member of Afenifere, and one of the most respected Nigerians of Yoruba extraction. Afenifere’s support for Obi has nothing to do with personality. It is a matter of peace in the nation,’’ Ebiseni had said on the TV programme.

But in a statement made available to The Guardian by its National President, Habib Olalekan Hammed, YYSA said political power is neither Yoruba nor Igbo property.
It said: “Intelligent Nigerians are aware of the fact that power is not given, it is taken. Besides that, they will not give priority to ethnicity above competence. People cannot be carried away with Afenifere’s deceitful and perceived normality or fairness.’’

MEANWHILE, the National Mandate Group (NMG), a support team of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has flayed Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, for allegedly meddling in Lagos politics by openly endorsing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for a second term.

Vexed by Wike’s declaration, the Lagos State Coordinator of NMG, Alhaji Wahab Sadiq, described the Rivers governor as a “meddlesome interloper.”Wike, who visited Lagos as a special guest at an event organised by the wife of the state’s governor, had described Sanwo-Olu as a performer, who deserved a second term and whose re-election would be a walkover.

Expressing aversion to Wike’s action, a statement issued by the group’s Publicity Secretary, Mr Adeoye Jolaoso, yesterday, said: “What Wike came to do in Lagos was clearly anti-party and a sacrilege. It amounts to an act of gross indiscipline from someone we have always regarded as a strong pillar in PDP.”

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