2023: You can’t stop Tinubu from becoming president – Salvador warns Afenifere

POLITICS

2023: You can’t stop Tinubu from becoming president – Salvador warns Afenifere

 

A former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Moshood Salvador, has insisted that pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, cannot stop the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, from pursuing his ambition to contest the 2023 presidential election.

Salvador, speaking to journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, stated that those fighting Tinubu and any other Yoruba leader from contesting were fighting a lost battle.

According to him, if it is the wish of God for a Yoruba man to be the next president of Nigeria, Afenifere leaders cannot stop him.

Salvador was reacting to a statement reportedly made by a leader of the Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, that the 2023 presidency should be ceded to the South-East and that Tinubu would be day-dreaming if he thought he would contest or be the president in 2023.

He said the argument of Adebanjo that the South-East has never produced a president was false, as the first President of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was from the region.

The former PDP chairman described the posture of the Yoruba leaders as “rabble-rousing, inciting, offensive, illogical and terrible”.

Salvador reiterated that it is the people and not the Afenifere leaders, that would decide who becomes the President.

“These leaders forget that Nigeria is practicing party politics and in a party politics, any candidate can emerge.

“It is left for the party and the presidential candidate to reach out to other tribes for support. It is the people who now decide who becomes the president not an individual or group of people,” he added.

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Afenifere Calls On National Assembly To Sanction Buhari For Corruption Over $496m Aircraft Purchase

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Afenifere Calls On National Assembly To Sanction Buhari For Corruption Over $496m Aircraft Purchase

The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday tagged the anticipatory approval and payment of $496 million by President Muhammadu Buhari for the purchase of the A29 Super Tucano Aircraft as an act of ‘corruption and misappropriation of public funds.’

It called on the National Assembly to ensure that the full wrath of the law was brought to bear on the issue.

Rising from its monthly meeting at the home of their leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, in Akure, Afenifere also condemned the statement credited to the President in London, where he degraded youths.

Reading the group’s communiqué, its Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin said Afenifere “frowned at the anticipatory approval and payment of $496 million to the US government by President Buhari for the purchase of 12 A29 Super Tucano aircraft.

“It is disturbing that this impetuous act was carried out by the President, who is now asking the National Assembly to include money he already spent in 2018 Appropriation Act under consideration.

“This is against Section 83 of the 1999 constitution. Since there was no act of National Assembly for this money, it is clear that the President’s action is a clear subversion of 1999 constitution.

“It is an act of corruption and misappropriation of public funds and we call on the National Assembly to ensure that the full wrath of the law is brought to bear on this issue because this act of impunity is getting too much.”

                                                  

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2019 Election: Afenifere Speaks On Buhari Re-election Declaration

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2019 Election: Afenifere Speaks On Buhari Re-election Declaration

The Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has said unless President Muhammadu Buhari addressed the restructuring question before the election, he will not be trusted to address it when he secures a second term.

Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, stated this while reacting to the declaration of President Buhari to seek re-election. 

Odumakin told Sun Newspaper: “Do we want to be counting dead bodies everyday, do we want to live in a country where everyone is now a beggar except a few who are in government and who have access to public funds? Restructuring is about making Nigeria productive, to make the country secure.

“So, if we want to have a Buhari for another four years, then we do not need a psychiatrist to know that something is wrong with us. If this government wants support from the vast majority of Nigerians, it should address the issue of restructuring before the elections, if it does not, it cannot be trusted to do it after the elections.”

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Obasanjo Is Anti-Yoruba - Afenifere Chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo

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Obasanjo Is Anti-Yoruba - Afenifere Chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo

Ayo Adebanjo, chieftain of Afenifere, has insisted that former president, Olusegun Obasanjo was anti-Yoruba.

Adebanjo stated this while accusing the former president of humiliating the late nationalist, Obafemi Awolowo.

He said Obasanjo humiliated Awolowo when the latter visited Obasanjo after he became the military Head of State, following the assassination of Maj. Gen. Murtala Mohammed on February 13, 1976,

Adebanjo spoke during the presentation of his autobiography in Lagos, yesterday.

According to Adebanjo, “There are many incidents to show that Obasanjo is anti-Yoruba. He has no interest in, or sympathy for the Yoruba cause, he only has his own interest for everything he does. That is my conclusion, and I have copious evidence to prove it.”

The Afenifere chieftain also blamed the former president for the collapse of the Alliance for Democracy, AD.

He claimed that Obasanjo collapsed AD by appointing the late presidential aspirant, Bola Ige against the wish of the party.

“As far as I am concerned, the moment Bola Ige joined Obasanjo’s government, following his (Bola Ige) loss of AD’s presidential primaries where he polled six votes against Chief Olu Falae’s 17, marked the beginning of the end of the party. In my opinion, these are the scenarios which led to the collapse of the AD,” Adebanjo said.

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2019 Election: Ohanaeze, PANDEF, Afenifere, Middle Belt Forum Set Up A New Movement

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2019 Election: Ohanaeze, PANDEF, Afenifere, Middle Belt Forum Set Up A New Movement

 

Ohaneze Ndigbo, Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, Afenifere,and the Middle Belt Forum has set up a movement known as the Mass Alliance for Inclusive Nigeria, MAIN Front.

The Movement is to deepen the call for Nigeria’s restructuring.

This is contained in a statement by PANDEF leader, Chief E.K. Clark; Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; Ohanaeze Ndigbo President General, Chief John Nwodo and President, Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bala Takaya.

In a statement titled, ‘Nigeria at crossroads: MAIN front to the rescue’, the leaders said, “Nigeria is, at the moment, in a state of inertia, with her people stranded at the juncture of dilemma, pondering as to what path leads to socio-economic emancipation, where the future of our country’s younger generation can be secured, and our women saved from needless anxiety over what fate awaits their children.

”As a country of energetic and hardworking people, we have not always been like this. For long rendered prostrate and made to exist in a state of suspended animation, our country now is on a fast-tracked race to a bleak future for the unborn children.

“Our country has never been in a more dire strait than it is today with the virtual collapse of governance, crass display of insensitivity, the arrogance of power, unquantifiable corruption, and the country fast becoming a laughing stock and butt of practical jokes in enlightened circles.

“Beyond the hyperboles, and given the reality of our existence, the future ended yesterday if the ‘state of anomie’, where lives have become cheap and un-guaranteed, with almost assured deaths of children and women, including the unborn babies, and destruction for family compounds and communities.

”Without sounding pessimistic, under the present social order, the quest for peace and socio-political progress, no matter the sincerity of individual actors, will remain, regrettably, an unfulfilled passion.

“In the circumstances, our major assignment, is to salvage the ship of the Nigerian state tottering in a scarily rudderless manner in the roaring waters of insecurity, economic decline and permanent political tension, is the restoration of stolen Nigeria ‘Article of Faith’, amongst Nigerians.

”The point being made, in no unmistaken terms, is that the dismantled federal architecture must be reconstructed, where each state in Nigeria will be self-accounting with respect to its nature-endowed natural resources, of which no federating unit in Nigeria is denied of God’s numerous gifts to His creatures, and self-securing of lives and property within its constitutionally-defined geopolitical space.

”This is the irreducible minimum item of a social contract that our long-suffering people demand of any group and association that seeks to take control of our country’s political destiny, henceforth. This precisely is what we, the Mass Alliance for Inclusive Nigeria, pledge to affect.”

They demanded the immediate release of the remaining Dapchi school girl, Leah Sharibu, stressing, “While we rejoice with the parents whose daughters have been returned, we strongly demand the immediate release of Leah Sharibu, who remains in the custody of her captors, given her refusal to denounce her Christian faith. The Nigerian state cannot claim to have closed this sordid saga for as long as Leah and outstanding Chibok Girls remain in captivity.”

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Afenifere Reacts To Danjuma's Call For Self Defence, Urges UN To Investigate

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Afenifere Reacts To Danjuma's Call For Self Defence, Urges UN To Investigate

 

Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has urged the United Nations, UN, Special Rapporteur on genocide to investigate what it called the alleged ethnic cleansing by herdsmen in Nigeria.

The call followed that of a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Theophelus Yakubu Danjuma, retd, who had at the weekend told Nigerians to defendthemselves against killings by Fulani herdsmen.

Rising from a meeting held at the country home of their national leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Afenifere said Danjuma’s allegation of ethnic cleansing was weighty and damning.

Addressing reporters, Afenifere’s National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, said, “the meeting noticed the recent comments on ethnic cleansing across the country and the complicity of the armed forces by General Theophilus Danjuma.

“Danjuma should be taken seriously because as former Chief of Army Staff and Defence Minister, he knows and has a deep knowledge of the military and could not have spoken in vain.

“The military, in responding to Danjuma’s allegations, claimed they are neutral in the one sided killing that is going on in Nigeria when those, who should enforce the law and ensure that the killing is stopped and killers are arrested, claimed neutrality when Nigerians are being slaughtered in droves.

“This is the greatest admission of the fact that their state aided genocide going on in Nigeria when the Army begins to claim responsibility.

“We demand, from Nigerian authorities, the immediate disarmament of the exclusive terror machine in the hands of herdsmen and the reorganisation of the architecture of security of Nigeria to reflect federal character.

“We ask the United Nations Special Rapporteur on genocide to investigate what is going on in Nigeria. If this disaster unfolds into full scale war, the international community would have a deep problem on its hands.”

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