Elder statesman and a leader of Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has given reasons why the Southwest won’t support the 2019 reelection bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the octogenarian, said that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), isn’t a performing party and the president has not justified his election, and will be foolhardy for him to expect huge support from the region.
What should Buhari do to get the Southwest support in 2019?
I don’t believe in his government because he has not performed. I’m not a member of APC, and I don’t support or believe in them. It is not a performing government or a preforming party.
The party should be wiped out.
It will be a disaster for the party to come back. What have they done to justify their winning the election? What change have we seen to make us think of their coming back to power?
To me, that question should be for APC members, and not for Southwest people.
I don’t support his coming back in any form; I don’t hide my feeling about that, and the president knows that I don’t support his coming back.
I’m the one leading the campaigns against Tinubu that he led the Southwest to vote for Buhari, and I’m sure Tinubu is regretting it now, after he has been sidelined. I have never supported his election.
But Buhari and Tinubu seem to have mended fences
That is their business. My position is that APC should be wiped out.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu single handedly delivered the Southwest to Buhari in 2015, can he repeat the same feat in 2019?
If Tinubu would be desperate enough to continue to support Buhari, the intelligent people of Southwest will not do that again. I warned him against his going along with Buhari, but what has he got to show that he has a better judgment?
This is not a question of, you are this or that or I love your face, I’m talking about performance.
When I said the greatest mistake the West made was to vote for Buhari, I gave my reasons. Have the reasons not been justified now. What justification if one is not foolish and shortsighted to ask the people now to go and vote for the man again, after he (Tinubu) has been humiliated? What has he achieved that his asking the West to vote Buhari was to their credit; has the President any value for them. What can he show? I know when the time comes I think the West will not vote for him.
He will be living in fool’s paradise to think that the people he was telling that they were going to bring about a change will listen to him again; when all they were carrying about in their change was that Jonathan was corrupt. When the people now see that the people around Buhari are more corrupt than Jonathan people, what would he be telling them?
All the ills they were accusing Jonathan, have they not done far worse. Have they put food on the table of ordinary man in West? Is it the concentration or putting all the heads of the security agencies in the North, is it what Tinubu is banking on or use to campaign in the West?
What did Tinubu say when herdsmen were rampaging the Southwest; what did he say or do when two groups, the Yoruba and the Fulani fought in Ile Ife, a case of two fighting, the IGP arrested and took the Yoruba to Abuja for detention, while nothing was done to the Fulani? This is to show that they are the overlords.
If Buhari thinks that we have forgotten, I’m reminding him. The questions would be asked when Tinubu or any other person would tell the southwest people to vote for Buhari.
When they were oppressing the people of the West you kept quiet; when they were kidnapping in the southwest, you also kept quiet; when they were burning their farms, not a word from you, is that what Tinubu would come and tell us to repeat again?
APC committee on restructuring had released its report, are the recommendations in tandem with your position on restructuring?
Whether it is line with our position is a matter of details. So long as it is restructuring back to federalism, it is ok. They are confusing people with state police, resource control, etc – all these are components of federalism, they are not separate at all. Whatever they want to do let them do it quickly now and let us see.
How will the restructuring be carried out when there is a sitting government?
Where there is the will there is always a way. If we all agree that this is the panacea for our illness, then we do the right thing by making the law subject to man and not man subject to law; the law should be subject to man. You are talking about the constitution, who made the constitution? If we say this is what we want, there is the doctrine of necessity; anything that is an impediment, we remove it and bring in what can give us peace. Whatever that they do to give us back an agreed constitution should be done; we shouldn’t pretend that there is an impediment that it can’t be done.
One curious thing about this APC recommendation on restructuring is the President from his statements doesn’t seem to have belief in the idea
All these things the APC is talking about – state police, resources control, etc, have we not been talking about them for long? It is forward ever backward never, let them go ahead.
Even the letters that Obasanjo and Babangida are writing, what is the difference from what I said before the election? Nothing. It is for the media to bring these things out. People have said these before, and why should we make all these mistakes, commit these murders, all these deaths before we arrive the right way?
For example, they are now shouting that state police is the right thing, but we have been talking about it before the massacre in Southern Kaduna last year, the Agatu and all these attacks across the country.
Even during the Boko Haram era, it was when they involved the local people before they started making progress in fighting the sect.
That only confirms my position that these people have no clue. When we were shouting, it’s restructuring or never, the National Chairman of the party, Oyegun, said, restructuring wasn’t their priority, that it was the economy that was their priority, but he is recommending it now.
Have they fixed the economy now? Time is not in our favour, I hold them on what they say.
Even if we have to postpone the election to achieve restructuring it is a welcome development. What is on the front burner now is to restructure the country before the next election.
The governors and others are saying that state police is necessary, how can you have state police without restructuring? With this, you are reducing the budget of the federal government on police by way of devolution of powers; you are decentralising police to the states. So, when you decentralize, it is not a question of can they afford it, it is a constitutional provision, sine qua non for federalism to regional autonomy under federalism.
How can you have a parliament to pass a law and no instrument of implementing the law? Where have you seen this the whole world?
Talking about Obasanjo’s letter and his proposal for new coalition or third force, is it not going to be the type of arrangement that saw PDP taking over the five Southwest states in 2003, when he was the president?
You people are playing his game. He wants to be relevant now. What is he complaining of that he was not guilty of while in office? Was it the Odi that he killed people, or when he refused to obey court orders? I don’t have time for that now, no word from him that you cannot pick up inconsistency, that is what he is noted for.
However, all the things he said about Buhari I agree into to.
What actually transpired in 2003, when Alliance For Democracy (AD) lost five states to PDP in the Southwest? Late last year, we had an interview with Senator Femi Okorunmu, in which he accused Chief Segun Osoba as being responsible for that?
All these past incidents don’t solve our problems. Anything from Obasanjo forget it. We all have a reason for rejecting him. The time we are using to do something constructive you are referring us to what is destructive.
Anything that will make us move forward is what I stand for, not talking about Obasanjo. We agreed on what is sensible he has said, and the solution we disagreed. He is not reliable. He is deceitful and a cunny fellow. When you come to political gerrymandering, he is there; here is a man who says he is a Nigerian who doesn’t belong to any tribe. The only people who advise Obasanjo are, Matthew Okikiola Aremu.
By the time you are talking about what transpired in 2003, how AD lost five southwest states, you are discussing Obasanjo again just like some people are doing now.
I will not say that because I don’t agree with him that all that he said about Buhari and APC, were not true. What he said about Buhari is fine, what he said about APC fine, and then what is the solution?
He is not part of the solution; instead, he is part of the problem he is talking about. When the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo wanted to be the president, he stopped him, is that not the beginning of his problem?
All these past don’t bother me, what is bothering me is the framing of a new constitution that will allow youth and everybody to come in. The youths are saying they want to come. Can they come in under this constitution, where political parties will expect you to be pouring millions before contesting an election?
We have to clear the Augean stable first, and create an enabling environment. Obasanjo is part of the problem; he is not the solution.