Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has said it was not
desperate to have a Yoruba man as Nigeria’s president in
2023.
The group said it would rather favour a president that
emerges from any part of the South.
The group’s position was in contrast with that of Yoruba
Council of Elders, which said it supported a president of
Yoruba extraction.
The two leading Yoruba groups made their positions
known during separate interviews on Friday with The Sun
following consultations being made by some All
Progressives Congress governors.
Some power brokers in the South-West under the
Development Agenda for Western Nigeria had met in
Ibadan, Oyo State, recently under the aegis of Next Level
Consolidation Forum to ensure that South-West produced
Nigeria’s next president in 2023.
They had insisted that presidential power must come to
the South-West in 2023, and the acceptable person that
the Yoruba would present for the office would be decided
as time went on.
But in an interview, the National Publicity Secretary of
Afenifere, Mr Jare Ajayi, said, “First of all, the presidency
in 2023 must shift to the Southern part of the country. We
insist on that. For whether it should be South-East, South-
South or South-West, we want the best person, who will
do the job, correct all the anomalies that the country is
going through, and ensure that Nigeria move forward to
where other countries are in the 21st Century and
beyond.
“That is the kind of candidate that we are looking forward
to. To be specific, when we get close to that time, we will
decide. As far as we are concerned in Afenifere, whoever
that emerges as president in 2023, will have problem in
running the country if Nigeria is not restructured. There
must be serious tinkering with the present structure in
such a way that it will be pro-people, rather than how it is
now.
“There must be restructuring before 2023. The question of
where the president will come from is secondary. But the
president must come from the Southern part of this
country. What we are running on the country today is more
or less a unitary government, which concentrates too
much power at the centre. So, we are calling for
decentralisation and genuine commitment to the rule of
law and federalism. We are insisting that these must take
place before the 2023 elections.”
Secretary-General, YCE, Dr Kunle Olajide, stated that he
would be “very delighted if Nigerians decide to elect our
kinsman as president in 2023 for a number of reasons”.
He said, “If you look at the landscape of Nigeria, without
being immodest, Yoruba people appear to be the most
liberal and most accommodating in Nigeria. Traditionally,
Yoruba culture is that at all times, we must do what is right
and you must insist on fairness and equity for all.”
