The new Director-General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun, has disagreed that the Yoruba socio cultural group Afenifere is polarised.
Osuntokun told The PUNCH in an interview that it was incorrect to say and hold that belief.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE recalls that on November 1, a leading figure of Afenifere, Pa Reuben Fasoranti not only declared support for the All Progressives Congress APC presidential candidate Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, but blessed Tinubu on the head inthe Yoruba traditional way. A development which caused outrage in the group.
Twenty four days later, another Afenifere leader with his supporters Ayo Adebanjo came out to announce that they were filing behind the Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi.
Pa Adebanjo was to add later on that the decision to support Obi by his Afenifere group was reached with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
There was a third group led by the Secretary General of the mainstream Yoruba organisation, Chief Sola Ebiseeni who had declared support for the Peoples Democratic Party PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar but switched allegiance to the Rivets State Governor Nyesom Wike group.
The Ebiseeni group was to later justify the presence of Afenifere at the Southwest rally of the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi.
Despite all of these group supports to the three leading parties going in for the 2023 general elections, Osuntokun maintained that “It (Afenifere) has not been polarised or factionalised.
“The crisis that happened was between the former leaders and Chief (Reuben) Fasoranti. He has even given a statement distancing himself from the attempt to factionalise the organisation. So, the alleged factionalisation of the organisation is a non-issue and wouldn’t stay.”
Osuntokun said after being a zonal coordinator of sorts in the South-West and already in the campaign to face Tinubu, he was ready for any challenge that would come his waybeing a Yorubaand working or Igbo candidatePeter Obi.
“Secondly, I belong to the Afenifere group and that is their position. Thirdly, in the perspective of equity, fairness and justice, there is no zone more deserving of producing the Nigerian President than the Igbo people of the South-East.
“nd, of course, as I said, we cannot continue to compare Obi with the two other candidates. There is no basis for comparison at all. He is head and shoulder above the two of them. I have been known by our people in the South-West and, I daresay, Nigeria at large.
“As an upright person, I always take position on the basis of principles. Before I joined this campaign, you have been reading my column in the last few years and you can bear me witness that I have always championed the cause of the presidency being conceded to the South-East. The Yoruba have gone past that.”
