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Tag: ayo adebanjo

  • 2023: South-East presidency is a right, not a favour – Afenifere leader

    2023: South-East presidency is a right, not a favour – Afenifere leader

    The leader of Afenifere, the socio-cultural group of the Yoruba people Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has stated that clamor for Nigeria next president to emerge from the Southeastern part of the country was not up for negotiation.

    It would be recalled that weeks ago, a factional leader of the group Reuben Fasoranti, hosted the APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu at his house and offered prayers for him, which many interpreted as an endorsement.

    But speaking on Monday in Lagos on the sidelines of a public lecture organized by the Ohnaneze Ndigbo socio-cultural group tagged: “Nationalism and Nation Building in Nigerian History”, Adebanjo stated that the principle of Afenifere is founded on ideological basis, on rightness, on inclusiveness not on any sentiments.

    He accused the Northern Elder’s Forum (NEF) of insincerity and slammed them for creating an impression that nobody can become President of Nigeria, unless they are endorsed by the north, noting too that some individuals in the South have now accepted this position.

    “What right has the north to dictate who will be our president? The case of the east is not a favour, it is their right. Each time I hear people say they should come and negotiate with the north because they have the population, what population? It is a fraudulent population. You can’t sell that to me.

    Chief Ayo Adebanjo making his remarks during the public lecture held in Lagos on Monday.

    “The APC (All Progressives Congress) that chose my countryman, haven’t they got Igbos in their party? Why did they neglect the Igbos among them who have been supporting them the most if they are fair and sincere; if it’s not lip service to the country.

    “If a prodigal son has a property, you can’t deprive him and say because he is a prodigal son he does not have right to his property,” Adebanjo said, alluding that Peter Obi has by a right to the President, not because he is Igbo, but because he is a Nigerian.

    On his part, the spokesman of the NEF Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, stressed that the north had not endorsed any candidate, and would keep an open mind in supporting a credible candidate for the 2023 presidential election taking place in February.

    He however, expressed worry about the division among elites from the Southeast in supporting the ambition of the Labour Party’s presidential flag bearer Peter Obi and challenged leaders from the region to organize themselves if they must get the support of other regions.

    A group photograph of attendees at the public lecture on Nationalism and Nation Building in Nigerian History, held in Lagos State on Monday.

    “In the north, we have long given up the idea that the elites can play a role. We got our fingers burnt in 2015 and that’s why we are being very careful now. We are saying allow people to see the best of these candidates and let them choose. That’s why we created the joint Arewa forum,” the NEF spokesperson said.

    However, Baba-Ahmed added: “We worry about the Southeast. From the little we see, we see a divided elite. We don’t know whether all of you are in support of Peter Obi, or whether some of you are not in support. You need to put your house in order because the nation can see and if you can’t line up behind someone, don’t expect somebody else somewhere to line up behind him.”

    Earlier, former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany Professor Akintola Osuntokun, advised that for Nigeria to succeed, it must discover a collective and equitable solution to the way it decides it government and open the administration of the country to talents through a merit-based system.

    He added that Nigeria was running out of time to find an appropriate constitutional architecture to administer its affairs and called to the leadership of the country to give consideration to the various demands for restructuring the country and “control events from above rather than leaving the people to demand by force of numbers from below”.

     

    Restructuring: Nigeria must urgently adopt an appropriate constitutional architecture – former Nigerian Envoy

    Oghenekevwe Uchechukwu BY OGHENEKEVWE UCHECHUKWU
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    A former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany Professor Akintola Osuntokun, has advised that for Nigeria to succeed, it must discover a collective and equitable solution to the way it decides it government and open the administration of the country to talents through a merit-based system.

    Osuntokun gave the advice on Monday in Lagos state, while delivering a public lecture on ‘Nationalism and Nation Building in Nigeria History’, organized by Ohnaneze Ndigbo, a socio-cultural organization in Nigeria.

    “Since 1966, Nigeria has struggled to find a modus operandi of ruling a multinational state balancing regional desire for autonomy under an overarching national structure.

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    “As a former Ambassador of Nigeria, I am in favour of finding a solution to our constitutional and structural problems. As late President Nelson Mandela said until Nigeria is successful, no one will have respect for the black man,” he reiterated.

    Taking his audience through the lanes of history, Osuntokun recalled that a former Nigeria military leader Ibrahim Babangida had set up a committee of Scholars from various universities in the North and South regions of the country, including himself, to design a formula for solving what was then called the “national question”.

    The committee, he said, worked under the Ministry of Special Duties in the presidency to come up with a the recommendation of a collective presidency where if someone from one geo-political zone became president, the remaining five zones would produce five vice-presidents, each of them heading the Ministries of Finance, Defence, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Education.

    Based on the committee’s recommendation, the presidency would be rotated every five years so that each zone will have the chance to head the country and no zone would be kept out of power.

    “Political parties will contest for power on this basis and whoever wins must locate people representing all the six zones within their parties…some members of the PDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) later claimed zoning was their contribution to political engineering in Nigeria. This is not true, ” the former envoy stated.

    He added that Nigeria was running out of time to find an appropriate constitutional architecture to administer its affairs and called to the leadership of the country to give consideration to the various demands for restructuring the country and “control events from above rather than leaving the people to demand by force of numbers from below”.

    In his opening remarks, the President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and chief host of the event Ambassador George Obiozor, CON, noted that contrary to a popular statement by some members of the political class that the unity of Nigeria was non-negotiable, the unity of the country must be re-negotiated for it to stand the test of time.

    “Our national unity must interfere seriously with our freedom and liberty or it will be interpreted as tyranny of the majority or minority, none of which is acceptable,” he added.

     

  • Ayo Adebanjo’s musings on power shift – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Ayo Adebanjo’s musings on power shift – By Azu Ishiekwene

    The statement by the leader of the Yoruba Cultural Group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, that the South East should get the next turn at the presidency has ruffled quite some feathers.

    This comes at a time when nearly half a dozen of his kinsmen have shown interest and almost nothing seems certain anymore because the two major political parties, having just discovered the virtue in merit, are now disposed to an open race.

    The only thing that is certain is where the presidency may not go: the South East. When you hear top politicians talking about power shift, and insisting that the president after Muhammadu Buhari should come from the South for the sake of “fairness and equity”, they are not talking about the country’s most excluded region – the South East.

    They are not talking about the region with the least federal presence, the least representation in federal establishments and the least number of states, all of which are a price for a war fought over 50 years ago.

    The advocates of power shift have managed to define a geopolitical South that excludes the South East. They speak only of equity in power shift insofar as it means power going to the South West or ‘South South’. Adebanjo bucked the trend, and Edwin Clark has also lent his voice.

    In a country where hypocrisy is a political virtue, the mindset of those who preach fairness and equity is governed by the Matthean principle: those who have will have more added to them, so that they can have even more at the expense of the disadvantaged.

    That’s why the South West, which in the last 23 years has had 15 years of the first two top positions, currently has six candidates aspiring for another eight years, while the ‘South South’ which has had four years at the top job, has lined up six aspirants as of the time of writing.

    And the North, which never fails to disappoint in the politics of benevolence is saying on the one hand that power should shift to the South, and on the other propping up its own candidates to join the race, after about ten and a half years of being at the helm since 1999.

    In the All Progressives Congress (APC), for example, the first sign from the North that all the talk about a Southern candidate meant nothing was when the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, shelved the idea of being a running mate potentially to a ‘South South’ candidate, fancied at the time to be former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Insiders confided to me this week that, “It was after the Jonathan idea met the brick wall that Malami revived the idea of running for Kebbi governorship. The dead Jonathan project was a clear signal to Malami that given the large crowd of aspirants from the South a northerner might do better at the APC primaries and doom his vice-presidential ambition.”

    Let us return to the South East. What is it about the region that makes it so convenient to treat it with spite and malicious negligence?

    Some say that the region has to grow up and earn its place: no one hands over power on a platter. That sounds sensible and logical – that is, until we remind ourselves that the whole business of Federal Character, enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution today, was power redistribution served on a platter.

    The Federal Character Commission (an elevation of quota system) is a useless bureaucracy costing the country billions of naira. It was improvised by General Sani Abacha in 1996 to help disadvantaged states catch up with the others and to create a sense of belonging. I wonder why the beneficiaries, mostly Northern states, did not think it prudent to earn the privileges bestowed by this crooked system.

    How about the argument that the South East does not deserve a shot at presidency at this time because of the inability of Ndigbo to unite around one candidate and pursue a common agenda – that they are masters at the game of group betrayal and disassembling politics?

    Those who make this argument cite Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, who appear to be inclined to candidates outside the zone, as examples of Ndigbo’s penchant for betrayal and backstabbing. Why can’t they rally around any of the 16 Igbo candidates in the race?

    If the South East is Nigeria’s capital of disunity, how do the proponents of this argument explain the ambitions of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Governor Kayode Fayemi, and potentially, Pastor Tunde Bakare, who are not only from the South West, but are all members of the same political party?

    How do critics of the Igbo quest explain the fact that even though the South West has enjoyed the lion’s share of power in two decades, it is still in the race with a bigger sense of entitlement than any other region? Or why did three other Northern aspirants contest for APC’s ticket against Buhari in the party’s presidential primaries, despite the push for a consensus candidate at the time?

    Not done, there are others who would argue that politics is a game of numbers. If the South East does not have the numbers and cannot negotiate with others to its advantage as it did in 1959, why should it – or anyone – blame others for its current misfortune?

    That sounds logical, until you cross to other zones, like the ‘South South’, for example, that apart from producing a president, has reaped financial rewards and political benefits, from derivation to special commissions and an amnesty programme, far in excess of its numerical strength.

    In the mathematics of a federation, the cold abstraction of numbers sometimes deserves to have a human face. That was why Jonathan became president; that is why Quebec retains its distinct cultural and political identity, despite its union with Canada.

    Then, of course, there are those who argue that rotation is pointless because it is simply the crutch of the thieving political elite. Ordinary people up and down the country, North and South, hardly benefit. And when the elite are conspiring to steal, they hardly discuss tribe, religion or region. We should be concerned about what the candidate can – or has done – rather than where he or she is coming from.

    That is true. But that truism applies to all six zones in the country. I completely agree that there should be a broader definition of who benefits from power beyond zoning; a need to make power more inclusive, accessible and accountable. But why didn’t that begin in 2013 when Northern elders, determined to remove Jonathan, said, “power rotation was a mark of equity and justice”?

    If it’s not good enough to stop former President Olusegun Obasanjo returning to govern as civilian president for eight years after three years as military president, and it’s not strong enough to stop Buhari copying Obasanjo’s example, why should it be the albatross of the South East? In fact, the last time the Southern Forum led by Governors Peter Odili, Chimaroke Nnamani and Victor Attah pressed for power shift in 2007, they capitulated and allowed Obasanjo to hand over to Umaru Shehu Yar’Adua!

    In the current calculations about where the next president should come from, perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is the spectre of the separatist agenda in the South East, largely promoted by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). Separatist-related violence in the South East has claimed hundreds of lives, ruined lives and left the region devastated.

    Those who oppose power shift to the region argue that an Igbo president after years of violent confrontations in the South East, with the political leaders looking the other way most of the time, would amount to rewarding rebellion, and who knows how or where it would end?

    That is frighteningly seductive. Anyone who has the faintest idea of what has been going on in the South East, especially in the last four or five years, should be worried. But perhaps we should pause and examine the conditions under which three Nigerian presidents – Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari – emerged in the last three decades.

    Obasanjo emerged on the back of widespread violent disturbances, especially in the South West, after the annulment of the 1993 election and the death of MKO Abiola. Obasanjo, a Yoruba president, was the North’s peace offering to the South West, as Jonathan was to the implacable ‘South South’ and Buhari to the North – all of this regardless of the near ungovernable state of these regions when these presidents emerged and allegations of complicity against one of the candidates.

    We can argue all day about being strategic, about optics or the need to avoid sending the message that violent rebellion pays and we would be right. But if “justice and equity” are the reasons why other regions have had their turn as tokens of good faith and reconciliation, then we cannot justify a different treatment for the South East. And I don’t have to have a dog in the fight to say so.

    It’s time to end the obfuscation and pussyfooting and to call this spade by its name: Nigeria must stop treating the South East as if it does not matter and still hope to find peace.

     

    Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • Nigeria is on its death throes under Buhari’s watch – Pa Adebanjo

    Nigeria is on its death throes under Buhari’s watch – Pa Adebanjo

    …says national sovereign conference inevitable

    … PIA will evoke a volcano in Niger Delta

    … insisting the Nigerian state must be clearly negotiated

    Frontline elder statesman and leader of the pan Yoruba group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has raised alarm that Nigeria is on its death throes under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    The 93 years old Adebanjo made this assertion in a press conference on Thursday where he outlined all the maladies engulfing Nigeria and the way forward to a better Nigeria.

    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports the Afenifere leader in his address insisted that it has become imperative to convoke a national sovereign conference to adequately address all the maladies confronting Nigeria under the Buhari led administration.

    Adebanjo in the briefing touched virtually all the facets of the Nigerian state and pointedly declared that the Petroleum Industry Act, otherwise known as PIA will soon evoke a volcano in the Niger Delta.

    Read full text below:

    FIXING NIGERIA, BEFORE THE FALL..
    BEING THE TEXT OF A PRESS CONFERENCE STATEMENT BY CHIEF AYO ADEBANJO,THE LEADER OF THE AFENIFERE AT WHEAT BAKER HOTEL,IKOYI, LAGOS STATE, *ON THURSDAY 11TH NOVEMBER*, *2021*

    Gentlemen of the Press,

    *In the 93 years of God’s special Grace of my life, over 70 of which*
    *I have relentlessly spent in the*
    *struggle for a united*, *civilised, prosperous and federal Republic of Nigeria, and I have waited for some time in the departure lounge of life, and I owe it to posterity, to speak unalloyed truth to unconscionable powers, and to clarify the position of my people, the Yoruba of the Nigerian state, so that whenever I might be recalled home, it shall be said of me, that I not only did my bit*, *I indeed said my bit, and the position of the Yoruba people and Afenifere, were clearly and succinctly enunciated*.

    In spite of deepening disappointments, the Nigerian Press has stood as, perhaps, the last and only beacon of hope in that
    realisation. I have invited you here today, therefore, as partners in that shared vision so that, through you, President Muhammadu Buhari and other political actors, blinded by ambition, may see the need to fix Nigeria before the imminent eclipse of her horizon.

    Nigeria is dying.

    *To be sure, the Nigerian state that was negotiated before independence in 1960, the one that was birthed and named on the 1st of October 1960, is long dead*.

    It was mortally wounded in January 1966, and was then slaughtered in July of 1966. Its funereal obsequies were held between 1966-1970.

    The Frankenstein that was cobbled together in place of the dead nation that was agreed, has survived this long on the back of repression, lies, illusions, and outright delusions. But Buhari has finally killed it by his endless arrogance, the manifest incompetence, and the vile ethnoreligious agenda, with which he is dangerously strangle the insufferable Frankenstein.

    The Nigeria that was agreed, is one that was deliberately FEDERAL in structure. The Nigeria that was AGREED, was by design, based on a parliamentary system of governance.

    *The Nigeria that was agreed, was one that recognized the rights of the federating regions, to nationhood within the ambit of the FEDERATION that was birthed*

    . The Nigeria that was agreed was not a perfect place, but neither is anything constructed by men, and the proof of its imperfections are embedded in the tragedies of the civil war that buried it.

    I am constrained by the limitations of time to adumbrate, and I shall fast forward to the emergence of Abdusalami and the transition to civilian rule in 1999.

    *It was the position of Afenifere and NADECO, that there existed an urgent need to convene a Sovereign National Conference of the ethnic nationalities that have become known as Nigerians*

    Afenifere’s position has not evolved.

    *We remain convinced that the need for a sovereign national conference is imperative*.

    *THE BASIS OF THE NIGERIAN STATE MUST BE CLEARLY NEGOTIATED*.

    We have heard and read countless ripostes to our considered position, many have pointed to Decree 24 of 1999, the same fraudulent document that is infamously known as the 1999 Constitution, and asserted that there is no need for an SNC, as the country already has a constitution. We disagree most vehemently, and INSIST, that Nigeria is not possessed of any expression of the WILL of the peoples, whose will it presumes to fraudulently appropriate.

    It is instructive to note, that when the Midwestern Region was to be created out of the Western Region, a rigorous process was embarked upon.

    The motion for its creation went through the Western Regional Assembly, and the Federal House of Representatives in Lagos, and the peoples of the proposed region voted for its creation in a plebiscite.

    This only after the fact of its economic viability had been scientifically established.

    This rigorous process birthed the additional region that was created in 1962, and duly established under the 1963 Republican constitution.
    Nigeria is today a Frankenstein with 36 states.

    *How many of these states are viable entities that would have passed the 1962-1963 means testing of the Midwestern Region?*

    By whose will were they created? Whose interests are they serving?

    The Nigeria that has been set up for failure by these evil restructuring is visibly bleeding to death and is in its death throes on Buhari’s watch.

    *The entire country is burning*.

    The Northeast was already aflame before the coming of Buhari, its peoples rendered as pawns in the power games of the northern elite, who allowed Boko haram to fester as the evil powers of the federal government was lost to them, and the insurgents were seen as ethnic champions, indeed, Buhari protested about the onslaught on Boko haram, and for those who might have paid attention, Gumi’s interventions are merely aping what Buhari used to say, before he gained office in 2015.

    But what used to be confined to the northeast, has today become a pan Nigerian problem.

    The terrorists have crossed into the northwest and as they have ravaged the entire region including the president’s home state, kidnapping hundreds of schoolchildren and their teachers, raping and pillaging the land, the Buhari regime has treated them with kids gloves, and have blithely labeled them as bandits, businessmen, vandals, and even recently as Area Boys.

    Train track bombers, who were clearly intent on the derailment of a passenger train, are labeled as vandals in a clear advertisement of the complicity of the Buhari regime in the terrorist led insurgency, ravaging Nigeria.
    In the Middle belt, what were once episodic outbursts of Fulani herdsmen and farmers conflicts, a conflict as old as man, has acquired a most evil dimension.

    The Buhari that stormed the Government House in Ibadan during the administration of Late Alhaji Lam Adesina, is the one established inside Aso Rock, and the extreme nepotism of the man, his unbridled Islamist irredentism, are not only intact, they are unfettered by any pretense at presidential leadership.

    *“Be your brother’s keepers” was Buhari’s response to the slaughter in the Benue debacle, and “give up your land in order to live” was the spokesman’s recommendation to the victims*.

    In the southeast, in the lands of the Igbo people, Gen. Buhari has been most indecorous with his words, but his actions are even worse than his words, and he has effectively lost control of the East.

    The Anambra elections are instructive on several fronts, and I shall return to the subject soon enough, but the facts of the restiveness of the East, is not a fact that might be said to be either in issue, or in dispute, and yes, this is without having factored in the existence of pockets of Fulani terrorists, in parts of Igboland.

    The South-South has been up in arms for a while, and the Niger Delta is essentially a war zone.

    These are the realities of the Niger Delta, where the wealth being evilly dissipated around the length of Nigeria originates, but where all of the Nigerian deprivations are curated.

    The environment is even more violent, rendered so by decades of criminal exploitation of its land and peoples by the Nigerian state, and just as volatile as the hydrocarbons that are being taken from its bowels.

    The Niger Delta is a volcano waiting to erupt, and the PIA is poised to ignite it.

    *The southwest, home to the Yoruba people and all men and women of goodwill, whom we have always welcomed, and who have made our lands their homes, have never had it so bad*

    . Our hospitality has been violently abused, our generosity of spirit, taken for granted, and the security of lives and properties wickedly undermined.

    Bands of Fulani terrorists are in our forests and farms, they rape, rob, kidnap, and TERRORIZE the people.

    They bear arms brazenly and they act above the law, and when our people respond in self protection, they are victimized by the Nigerian police and the army, which have acted to establish presidential complicity.

    I have pondered Chief Awolowo’s words in his 1981 public letter to Alhaji Shagari, and I have found a part to be metaphysically intriguing, even though it has only served to deepen my alarm, such that I believe that I owe it to posterity to place my fears on the record; “the ship of state is fast approaching a huge rock and, unless you, as the chief helmsman, quickly rise to the occasion and courageously steer the ship away from its present course, it shall hit the rock, and the inescapable consequence will be an unspeakable disaster such as is rare in the annals of man”.

    Buhari was to be that disastrous rock a few months after the warning.

    The problem with the rock this time, is that the rock is the helmsman of the ship, and he would appear to be DELIBERATELY AND INTENTIONALLY steering the ship to its END.

    The Nigeria cobbled together by Decree 24, of 1999, yes, you get it.

    *FRAUDULENTLY known as 1999 Constitution*, is built on several lies, and the preservation of these lies, are predicated on several more lies. Buhari, is unilaterally imposing another lie, on top of the original lies, and these lies, are what have assured the death of Nigeria.

    *The Fulani Islamist agenda of the Buhari regime has found accommodation for each and every one of the public rebuttals of the lies of Nigeria*.

    Confronted with repeated questions about the identity of the sponsors of terrorism, that were discovered by the intelligence services of one of the Gulf Arab countries, and the fact of the convictions of several Nigerian citizens by that country, the Buhari regime, was unequivocal in showing where its preferences and loyalties are;

    “Naming and shaming of suspects is not embarked upon as a policy by the federal Government out of sheer respect for the constitutional rights of Nigerians relating to presumption of innocence.” Abubakar Malami SAN, AGF.

    But it is curious to note, that the same government, is quick to rush to the media, to declare the identities of those that it has declared to be the sponsors of Sunday Igboho, and Nnamdi Kanu., and the greatest victories of the Buhari regime, in its incestuous relationship with corruption, has been won in the media.

    The speed with which it labels voices of dissent as terrorists, whilst ignoring and outrightly colluding with self declared terrorists, renders the Buharist regime a proven accomplice to the terrorist network that is destroying the country.
    Commodore Olawunmi is on record as saying that the security services had submitted a report to General Buhari since 2017, and that a list of the names of the major sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria is one of the several pieces of information in that file.

    He went further to affirm, that several of these positively identified terrorists and terrorist sponsors, are today sitting in the Buharist government at the highest level, and many more are serving senators and governors.

    The fact of Buhari’s terrorists sympathies are too glaring to require any proof beyond the demand that a man should believe the evidence of his own senses.

    The Wall Street Journal in an exclusive piece, REVEALED THAT THE NIGERIAN MILITARY HAS been dealing with terrorists, and in the particular instance, BOUGHT BACK from the terrorists, an ANTI AIRCRAFT GUN, that the terrorists had captured from a unit of the army, because the presence of the piece in the hands of the terrorists, was a direct risk to Buhari himself, who was apparently scheduled for an appointment in his hometown.

    If they knew the location of the terrorists to exchange guns for cash, they most definitely could have bombed the terrorists, instead of paying them off, but how do you bomb “businessmen” “bandits” “vandals”?

    The terrorists are called several names but are rarely called what they are.

    Welcome to the land of REPENTANT BANDITS AND VANDALS.

    THE COUNTRY WITH THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DERADICALIZATION in the world.

    I shall not waste any more time to establish the facts of Buhari’s ethnoreligious bigotry, he has saved everyone the task of doing that, he happily wears his ethnic and religious supremacist uniforms, and has never pretended to be anything else, but the time has come to state to the whole world as follows.

    *We shall be seeking to persuade our people to avoid being lured into a legitimization of Buhari’s ethnoreligious agenda by engaging with the patently fraudulent lies of any elections in 2023, in the absence of a restoration of peace, and a substantial restructuring of a NEGOTIATED Nigeria*.

    *WE ARE NOT ANARCHISTS, WE ARE NOT SESSIONISTS, we are DEMOCRATS*

    . We recognize that there is a democratically elected president in Aso Rock.

    We are not asking for Buhari’s resignation, and since the National Assembly has not seen fit to impeach him, he remains the president of Nigeria until the 27th of May, 2023.

    But it is the considered position of Afenifere that he urgently constitutes a Government Of National Unity, charged with the sole task of seeing to the restructuring of Nigeria, in consultation with the Nigerian peoples.

    The Buhari regime has no plans for any elections in 2023, and this statement is not a difficult proposition to establish, once the parties to the debate, are fully seized, of their faculties.

    Anambra should be useful in ESTABLISHING this obvious fact.
    AS BAD AS THE SECURITY SITUATION IN ANAMBRA MIGHT BE, it is nowhere near as bad as the situation in the NORTHWEST, NORTHEAST, or the MIDDLE-BELT, and the rest of Nigeria is hardly at peace.

    By official accounts, outside of the ones that might be deployed to carry their Oga’s briefcases or to hold umbrellas, the Nigerian Police deployed 34K officers to Anambra for the November 6 elections.

    I am not sure if these are in addition to the ones that were already under the state police command, or if these 34K is the totality of the men.

    But it is important to note that these 34K represents approximately 10% of the entire capacity of the Nigerian police, if we are to accept the official numbers without considering the inherent lies that have been told to accommodate the ghosts.

    It is interesting to note, that for every three persons that voted in the Anambra mockery of democracy, there was a policeman, Civil Defence, or military personnel. THE ELECTION HELD, ONLY BECAUSE IT PLEASED IPOB TO CALL A TRUCE.

    In the face of the facts and realities, the Buhari regime has labeled self determination groups as terrorists, gone to extraordinary lengths to abduct MNK, invaded the home of Sunday Igboho and murdered two innocent men in cold blood, chased the same Igboho into Benin Republic, but rolls out the red carpets for terrorists.

    The same Buhari regime had labeled the just and peaceful demands of Omoyele Sowore’s RevolutionNow Movement as terrorist, and judicially curtailed his freedom.

    It is easy to see through the multiple lies of General Buhari if one is minded to look, but the question is, IS ANYONE LOOKING AT US AGAIN?

    The world would appear to be tired of Nigeria, and the preoccupation of the world is fixed on a containment of the nuisance that we have become, because if the world has any care left for us, how has it found the grace of condonement, acquiescence, and obvious complicity?

    How has the cause of liberty been promoted in Nigeria by the British and the Americans? With ALL of their eyes in the Nigerian skies, what did they see on the 20th of October at Lekki.

    The Western world has found accommodation for evil in Nigeria. But if Harold Smith is to be believed, the ruination of Nigeria by the British is not an accident, it is by design.

    *Let it be heard loud and clear; Afenifere shall be leading the Yoruba nation to demand substantial restructuring, before any FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS might be held in 2023*, and the response of the Buharist regime to these equitable demands for restructuring the country along federalist lines, in order to restore it to its roots and original agreements, shall go a long way in shaping the position of the Yoruba people in the future, but let it be heard loud and clear;

    *NIGERIA IS NOT ONLY NEGOTIABLE, IT IS EVIDENTLY DYING*

    Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd) to keep Nigeria one, is it for the Fulani to dominate other ethnic nationalities?

    Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (rtd), Nigeria unity is non-negotiable, for the Yorubas to be under Fulani domination?

    *Your Eminence Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto, Gen. Abdusulami Abubakar (rtd), Bishop Kukah, can we have peace without equity and justice?*

    GOD SAVE NIGERIA
    CHIEF AYO ADEBANJO
    Leader of Afenifere
    Lagos
    11/11/2021

  • Buhari’s three years in office bad all through, nothing to celebrate – Ayo Adebanjo

    As Nigerians mark Democracy Day today, elder statesman and Afenifere chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo takes a look at President Muhammadu Buhari’s three years in the saddle and says, contrary to the change he [Buhari] and the All Progressives Congress promised, the administration has brought more woes to the nation.

    By OLAWUNMI OJO

    Looking at President Muhammadu Buhari’s three years in the saddle, what achievements can Nigerians celebrate under his administration?

    Nigerians have nothing to celebrate because President Buhari has failed and disappointed them on virtually all fronts. I am, however, not surprised because I cried out before his election that the man has nothing to offer the nation.

    All those who saw my action in bad faith at that time, including former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, now know better. President Buhari has exhibited all the traits I highlighted when I openly opposed his election. He had never been a democrat and so could never have been able to achieve most of what he promised; you cannot give what you do not have.

    Obeying the rule of law was a cardinal tenet President Buhari promised to uphold. But there have been quite a number of court pronouncements which the administration has failed to obey. Does this disturb you?

    This administration’s disrespect for the rule of law is alarming and must be disturbing to those who believed in him and elected him or pushed for his election. I am not disturbed. When I was saying it, people like Obasanjo said ‘no.’ What Obasanjo is crying to the people now is what we had seen long before Buhari’s election.

    Are you saying categorically that you knew President Buhari was going to fail before he was elected?

    I said it openly; I even granted an interview to a national newspaper, saying that the greatest mistake Nigerians were going to make was to vote for Buhari. It is on record. Those who elected him should look at all the fears I expressed at that time and allegations I raised against the President that I have not been vindicated on.

    But the administration claims to have done pretty well in the area of security, especially with regards to the decimation of the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Don’t you agree?

    They can only say that to the marines. While they are making this frivolous claim, there are killings and bombings across states, there are kidnappings, supposed herdsmen are having a field day; who are they fooling?

    In certain parts of the country, because of mindless killings people can no longer go to their farms for fear of herdsmen. There have been talks of these acts been ethnic cleansing. The administration suggests that the killers are mere criminals. But if they are criminals, are they impossible to be arrested?

    Besides, how many of those that have been arrested have the administration prosecuted to show Nigerians that, indeed, they were not herdsmen but criminals as being suggested. Who are they fooling; we are not morons in this country. Today, these Fulani men that we are talking about go to places raping and assassinating innocent citizens. How many have been brought to prosecution to show that you are not privy to their actions?

    Are you insinuating that government’s action with regards to how it has handled the Fulani herdsmen killings across the country suggests complicity?

    That is what I have been alleging and I want to be proved wrong. If you are not privy to it, in 2016, 800 people were murdered in Southern Kaduna. The military was ordered to go there and intervene. Thereafter, there were killings in Agatu, Enugu, Makurdi, Adamawa, and so on. Up till today, these killings are ongoing. Does this trend show somebody who is in charge? And the President keeps fooling us with some supposed achievements in the area of security.

    The Commander-in-Chief told us that he gave an order to the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris in January. And in March or April, he realised that the order was not carried out. Yet, that Inspector General is still in office. Can you see how effective that Commander-in-Chief is?

    This particular IG, Idris is the same man who rigged election for President Buhari in Kano where all the registered voters voted for one party and an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) official in that state was burnt with his family. Till today, nobody has been arrested or prosecuted for that incident.

    How do you score the administration’s anti-corruption fight?

    Let us not even talk about that at all; it’s all to rubbish the opposition. Where we you start from. Take for instance, all the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members being accused of corruption, the moment they join the All Progressives Congress (APC), they become saints. These are all known names and they are still in this country.

    Your former Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF), Babachir Lawal was found to be guilty of corruption, a panel found him to be guilty and you just removed him and put him away somewhere; there has been no prosecution till today. The man is still walking about and I understand he is one of the campaign managers of APC. And this is happening under the nose of a president who claims to have zero tolerance for corruption

    So, are there no positives you can point at in this administration’s three years in office?

    Buhari’s government is black record all through, no positives; nothing to celebrate. Even on the corruption one that it could have stood out, it has been so partisan. How could officers of your government be accused of corruption and you just rub them on the head to continue.

    In the Ministry of Health, the Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole sacked somebody for corruption, Buhari sent him back. There was another Mohammed Maina who was guilty of corruption involving a lot of pension money. Former President Jonathan’s administration sacked him, he left the country and Buhari’s Attorney General, with the support of some security people, went to interview that man outside the country, brought him back, reinstated him and promoted him. We are no longer hearing anything about that case till today. And this is a president with zero-tolerance for corruption. These are facts that cannot be disputed

    What can Nigerians look forward to in the last year of President Buhari’s administration?

    Nothing. I say it with all sense of responsibility. If any Nigerian still expects any good thing from this administration, I want to know it. What has this administration done well? Is it the power sector, is it the construction of roads, is it the value of Naira or is it our standard of life? Economically, it is zero. Politically, it is nothing to write home about. The education sector is in shambles. We are only praying to God to save us from the regime of Buhari and the APC.

  • Photos: Aregbesola, Ajimobi, Mimiko, others join Pa Adebanjo in commeroration of his 90th birthday

    Governor Rauf Aregbesola, his counterparts in Oyo, Ajimobi and former Governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko among other influential Nigerians all converged on Ijebu-Igbo Ogun State to mark the 90th birthday of Chief Ayo Adebanjo.
    Other eminent Nigerians at the occasion include former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku; former governor of Ogun state Aremo Olusegun Osoba; Pastor Tunde Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly; the daughter of late Premier of Western Region, Dr Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo.
    See photos: