Afenifere needs little or no introduction. Their nuisance value is legion and charasteristically combative and self-serving. Their pretensive innuendo which they have sold to the whole world is that they are the leaders of the Yorubas, hence their thinking that, when they sneeze, the whole Yoruba race must catch cold.
It is laughable and a great critical opprobrium because they are fraudulent and irascible. They have been divided into many factions to which the authentic one is shrouded in a game of guess work. Even the origin is an issue in dispute. While some claim it was established by Chief Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory in 1950, others claim it was created through the tribal chauvinism of Chief Abraham Adesanya and the Cicero himself, Chief Bola Ige, the irrepressible and indisputable orator and courageous Governor of Oyo State, during his time in the political space.
Bola Ige, to achieve his ambition to rule Nigeria, formed a break away faction called Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), which was a protestation against the generallisimos of the Afenifere. Their opinion of Bola Ige as being too crude and cantankerous made them pitch their tent with Chief Olu Falae against Bola Ige as the Presidential candidate of Alliance for Democracy (AD).
It is on record that we equally have Yoruba Council of Elders and lately, Ilana Omo Yoruba, that emerged because Professor Banji Akintoye, the only intellectual backer of the fetish and lowly-educated, so-called Yoruba secessionist activist, Sunday Igboho, found it impossible to bring on board the leadership of Afenifere, now led by Pa Ayo Adebanjo, a 93-year old Yoruba irredentist, to support their secessionist pretensions . We wonder how Professor Akintoye, who for more than one decade had no home, since divorcing his wife, could superintend over the whole Yoruba race.
The Afenifere leaders are not good students of history. They have developed group or collective amnesia to remember that they were founded by a political group in Yorubaland, ACTION GROUP, which was the most outstanding political party in the Western Region at that time (though there were other political groups, including the NNDP, an opposition party led by Chief Ladoke Akintola).
At what point were Afenifere leaders made the leaders of the Yorubas, that they would always come out to make proclamations on behalf of the Yorubas ?
Instead of burying their heads in shame each time they made attempts to mobilise Yorubas to vote a particular candidate and failed, they would not. Remember when they asked Yorubas to throw Buhari into political irrelevance in 2015, Yorubas said NO. Buhari won landslide in 2015. They were equally dusted by Buhari’s APC led by the most popular political strategist in Nigeria today, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2019, yet they remained adamant and loquacious.
Their dissimulation of being a protection group of the Yorubas has been exposed with their open support for the liar Presidential desperado, Peter Obi-tuary.
These old men condescended so low that they went to Awka to pledge allegiance to Obi-tuary against the interest of a Yoruba genius, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
So which Yoruba interest are they protecting? In fact they are better described as AFENIFEBI, not AFENIFERE.
They have a partner in this dastardly adventurism, the Ebora of Owu (Demon Of Owu), Aburumaku, Afibisuolore, Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, who is the greatest enemy of the Yoruba race.
We cannot forget quickly his infamous and shameless statement when Babangida annulled the June 12, 1993 Presidential election and instead of keeping quiet said: ‘Abiola is not the messiah Nigeria is looking for’
The question we need to ask Professor Akintoye is : Why is it now that a Yoruba genius is near to becoming Nigeria’s President that they are writing a stupid demand for Yoruba self-determination?
When did we conduct a referendum or plebiscite in Yorubaland that we like to secede from Nigeria?
What did Professor Stephen Adebanji Akintoye do when Sunday Igboho was arrested in Cotonou? A radically inclined supporter of an illiterate secessionist should have organised in Nigeria, a mass rally for his release. Is going on self-exile the explication to being at home to fight for the interest of the Yorubas?
Yorubas cannot he stampeded out of Nigeria at the instance of some disgruntled, expired intellectuals who have no mandate from the Yorubas whom they want to emancipate from the oppression of Hausa/Fulani oligarchy.
Professor Stephen Banji Akintoye is from Ekiti State. Does he have the mandate of the nearest State of Ekiti People or Ondo State, which is nearest in terms of proximity, to secede from Nigeria?
MKO Abiola, of blessed memory and an epitome of Yoruba literacy and linguistics used to say ‘You cannot scrape a man’s hairs in his absence’ In which Yoruba sub-ethnic conference was Pa Ayo Adebanjo of Afenifere or Prof. Banji Akintoye, endorsed, directed, or given the matching order to negotiate the Yorubas’ exit from Nigeria ?
We are all old and holding our passport to the great beyond and awaiting boarding our aircraft. Should we leave our children,
grand-children and great-grand- children to fight a tribal war?
We were all witness to many racial, ethnically tribal wars, where millions were exterminated all over the world. Biafra war, a clear case that all wars eventually end at the negotiation table. To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war. If these old men are serious and not acting the script of the Western world, whose prognostication of the disintegration of Nigeria by 2015 went haywire, the Ijebus, the Egbas, the Oyos, the Ekitis, the Ijeshas, the Ondos, the Ilajes, the Aworis, the Ekos, to mention but a few, should hold a meeting and feel the pulse of their people as to whether Nigeria should disintegrate or operate as a true federalism. If the Yorubas want a separate Nation, they should send this demand to the National Assembly for legitimisation.
This idea of writing frivolous letters to Mr President that the Yorubas want to secede is childish, pedestrian and irresponsible. To most reasonable and discerning Nigerians, it is like being used by enemies of Nigeria, to unnecessarily heat up the polity for no just cause, other than destabilization.
We at YES condemn in absolutism, the letter signed by Professor Banji Akintoye, the self-made ‘President’ of the Yoruba Nation (if Sunday Ighoho would not contest it with him). That was most audacious and irresponsible. It is not that we at YES are not concerned about the nepotism and marginalisation of the Yorubas going on at the National level, but we don’t believe any individual or group can constitute itself into a nuisance when a Yoruba man is coasting to victory in the forthcoming 2023 Presidential election.
We should be optimistic that a Tinubu Presidency would be a far cry from the Obasanjo one that refused to be of benefit to the Yoruba race. In his 8-year tenure as President, he could not fix the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the major South-Western link Road that continued to claim many lives. Also, Igbos were surreptitiously alloted strategic positions when he was in power, lending credence to the rumor that Obasanjo is Igbo. People went to the achives to the effect that one Onyejekwue is his father and that, only his mother is of Egba extraction. Who knows if Pa Ayo Adebanjo has any tribal linkage with the Igbos, as his aggressive and undisguised support for Obi-tuary speaks volumes ?
All authentic Yorubas should forget whatever differences or inhibitions and give Tinubu total support to salvage this country from political doldrum and imminent economic collapse. He is not a Saint, neither are his political opponents. But his pedigree, antecedents and political sagacity push him above his contemporaries in the race.
Let us, in unison, codemn Afenifere’s suicidal support for Obi-tuary towards political mortuary with all the arsenals at our disposal and shout at the top of our voices against Professor Banji Akintoye’s unilateral and irresponsible call for a Yoruba Nation, because it is ill-timed.
Agba ki iwa l’oja kori omo tuntun o wo o;
Iwaju, iwaju ni iran Yoruba yo o maa lo.
Long Live a United Yorubaland, Long Live, the Federal Republic of Nigeria
(Sgd)
David Adeleke
Chairman
(Sgd)
Adekunle Ogundeji
Secretary
(Sgd)
Abdul-Azeez Ayodeji
P.R.O
