Pa Ayo Adebanjo, elder statesman and leader of Yoruba sociopolitical group, Afenifere, has told Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and presidential hopeful that President Muhammadu Buhari would never support his quest to rule Nigeria in 2023.
Adebanjo who spoke in Abuja during the Greater Nigeria Conference organised by Nzuko Umunna, an Igbo think tank group which held on Monday, said the intention of the president is to divide the south in order to enable the north to retain power.
“I told Bola Tinubu himself, not in the paper, face-to-face. You believe this man (Buhari) will make you President? He said ‘yes’. I said he wanted to make you President, he asked (Yemi) Osinbajo to contest? He asked (Kayode) Fayemi to contest, he asked Ibikunle (Amosun to contest? All in the West, why? He wanted to divide the West first,” Adebanjo said.
“I only like to point to the fact that they are just deceiving you. All that you are hearing that they are supporting the Southwest is an element of deceit to deprive you to be able to rule you. They don’t like anybody!
The Afenifere leader also berated Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s former president, for mulling the idea of contesting the presidency during next year’s election.
“The unfortunate thing is that President Goodluck Jonathan allowed himself to be disgraced by mentioning the fact that, ‘I’m considering whether to be President’; for what? Who are you consulting?” he inquired.
Adebanjo who backed the quest for Southeast president wondered why political leaders from the north were now propounding a lot of theories when they realized it was the turn of the Southeast to produce the President in 2023.
“Now that it is the turn of the Southeast, they are propounding a new theory, it must be based on merit and all that. If it is the question of merit, who in the North? All of them…if it has been based on merit till today, till kingdom comes, the East alone will produce the President”, he said.
The Afenifere leader said that all the talks that the aspirants from the South must go and lobby, campaign and sell themselves was all rigmarole, saying the North knows the truth.
“Although I don’t like all the people that came out from the East. But for the fact that they are saying you have no people, I’m happy you demonstrate that (you have people). But go and unite. A house divided against itself will not stand,” Adebanjo advised.
Among the organisation which supported Igbo presidency at the conference were Afenifere, Pan-Niger Delta Forum and Middle Belt Forum. They reiterated their calls for the presidency to be micro zoned to the Southeast for equity, justice and fairness in 2023.
They were unanimous that if the political class and the retired military generals could concede the presidency to the Southwest in 1999, the same approach could be adopted and micro-zone it to the Southeast.
The MBF, Afenifere, PANDEF and other groups bared their minds during the conference tagged, “Together we can.”
Among Igbo leaders at the event were a former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi; former governor of Imo State, Achike Udenwa; Senator representing Imo West, Rochas Okorocha; former governor of Anambra State, Okwesileze Nwodo; ace Journalist, Chris Anyanwu; and former chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Senator Victor Umeh.