Interview

Yoruba has endorsed Atiku, not Buhari

A few days ago there was a colloquium you organised where the Afenifere and others endorsed the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for the 2019 presidential election. But another group of Afenifere led by Senator Ayo Fasanmi rose to say it is President Muhammadu Buhari the Yoruba is supporting. What is your reaction? Has Afenifere now split into two?

You know, the real Afenifere with the founders were the one that joined with us. Can you mention Afenifere without Baba Ayo Adebanjo? Can you mention Afenifere without Baba Reuben Fasoranti in Akure? These were the people after Baba Awolowo and Baba Olaniwun Ajayi, Baba Abraham Adesanya had found the group; these are household names.

Yes, you could find some other names. Senator Bode Durojaiye was also part of the names; he joined them later. Then you have Senator Ayo Fasanmi from Osogbo. He is based in Osogbo but he came from Ekiti. When you talk about Afenifere, this other one that calls itself the Renewal Group, the real stems are the people we spoke with and they believe in our cause. The Renewal Group is different from the real group, ‘igi imu jina sori,’ that is what the Yoruba say and then of course, you cannot write the history of Yorubas without those names being there and those are the people that we have since known when the struggle was heavy, and they would forever be on the pages of history. When you say breakaway, and that is what the other group is, that is like what you call peeling off the overused cover of the unions, the real onion would still remain there.

The colloquium you talked about, it was not only the Afenifere that came there; so many other people were there. You could talk about Professor Banji Akintoye, who was a UPN senator; he was an irredentist Action Group member. He carried that to the diaspora in America. They invited me to the Afenifere and I spoke with them. He was the chairman on the occasion and you heard what he said. You know, the Yoruba say we cannot all be sleeping and facing one direction; it is not possible. Those who are with us are the core Afenifere. I have a lot of respect for Baba Fasanmi, but when you talk of the real leaders of Afenifere, Baba Fasanmi would come a little bit lower.

So, when Bola Tinubu and co are trying now to do exactly what we did, then we are saying for me, let’s leave it to the Yoruba people to decide and it’s coming soon. They would decide; they would know who is truly their leader and not the fellow who has been the emperor and has acquired all the resources of governance to himself.

Who is this emperor?

Bola Tinubu, I am not shy to say it, the emperor of Bourdillon. It is him. He is now the one who is deciding this governor must go, that one must not. Look at what has happened in Lagos State, because of culture of Lagos, we normally accommodate people, but it has gotten to a disgraceful level that is very disturbing. The governorship candidate Bola Tinubu nominated is from Ijebu; he is from Ogun State. The deputy governorship candidate, Hamzat, his father, today, is the Oba of Ewekoro in Ogun State. So, he is also from Ogun State, from Egba side.

Now, the three senatorial candidates, Olamilekan Adeola Yayi is from Yewa in Ogun State; Senator Oluremi Tinubu is from either Edo or Delta State; Hon. Pepper is from Ijebu in Ogun State, so there are no indigenous Lagosians anymore. Enough is enough. This insult is getting too much. He himself is from Iragbiji in Osun State; I went to his village in Osun State. The fact that Lagos is so accommodating doesn’t make us a fool. How much will they be that committed to serving the people of this state? How much?

The reason they gave for adopting Buhari is that he has related well with the Yoruba and the race is occupying key positions in his government.

Have they forgotten history? Why are they trying to rewrite history? Why are they trying to distort history? If you are saying Buhari has done this and that and he is the closest to Yoruba because he put Yemi Osinbajo in office, what has been Osinbajo’s impact in Yorubaland? So the only thing I saw Osinbajo that he has done was to go to the markets in Lagos to be distributing N10, 000. Is that governance?

First of all, I challenge and I ask; was the money budgeted for? Where did he get the money? How would a whole vice-president, a professor of Law, descend so low as to be distributing N10,000 to market women now trying to woo them? That is politics of the primitive age. Show them how to fish and you will feed them forever. Where is the skill acquisition? Lagos is in state of reject. I went to my local government, I saw these people, they were eager looking for something to do, but no jobs. They are able-bodied boys. You can train in whatever trade, so what has happened? Go to anywhere in any part of Lagos and you can see the number of people who have no jobs, these young men. I am not even talking about graduates who are wasting away. He wants votes; this is not the way to acquire votes. And so if Baba Fasanmi and co are saying Buhari did this and that, haba! Let them wait and they would see what people would do.

First of all, Atiku would be one unique Nigerian whose home, his own family home is a thoroughbred Nigerian. His first wife is a Yoruba from Ilesa in Osun State; he has a wife who is of Igbo extraction, he has other two wives who are Northerners. So, his children who are running round his house, the Nigerian blood is flowing in their veins, would he discountenance any zone? He cannot be hijacked by anybody, by any two men as we are being told that my oga (Buhari) is hijacked. Even if anybody hijacks him, the wife from South-West would wake him up in the night and say this man wake up, my people are demanding for A, B, C, D. The Igbo wife too would do same and say my people are demanding for A, B, C, D. So even in household, his children have the blood of Yoruba flowing in them. I am not a young man, that’s what I am saying, let our people see it. In each zone, he has the family blood inside his house, what could be more asserting than that?

What do think must have led the Fasanmi group to take the decision?

Look, it is not far-fetched; you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that. They went to Osun, who is now the governor in Osun? Bola Tinubu’s cousin. Tinubu saw that it would be too hot for him to do it in Lagos, he went to his state of origin and brought Baba Fasanmi of over 90 years. We haven’t heard Baba Fasanmi for a long period, suddenly from nowhere he brought him to the Government House and that was where they conceptualised the idea and now decided this is the Afenifere Renewal’s position. Who told them the other one is defunct? What are they renewing?

Are you saying that what they have done is a joke?

It’s a huge joke; it’s a huge joke. But let our people decide. I am not a tribalist; my best friend today is still a Fulani man that I met in the Navy, I have absolutely no objection about our being brothers. But when we come to talk facts, let us be real. You cannot continue to only enrich your family members.

The people of Lagos must be ready, people of South-West zone must open their minds; they know what they want. They know what is real from something that is unreal. Who has impacted more on the people? My last question to our people, are you better today than before? Let them ask themselves as they go to the poll; are they better off today than before?

You know what the APC did in the Osun election. I must congratulate the Osun people, because in 1963 when it happened, the Wild Wild West was not in Ibadan, it was Osun. I must thank them that they were able to calm the nerves of the people, because eventually you’ll realise that you will just kill for nothing, let’s go to the court for adjudication. We are waiting.

We saw the international community report that Ademola Adeleke won that election neat and clean; let’s wait. No fighting, no violence, let the judiciary take its decision; our people have waited, they are still waiting. It is the same thing in Ekiti, go and read the international community’s report on it, it’s damning: the EU report and the American’s report. What they all saw in those elections was disgraceful; we pray that barbaric thing would never happen in next year general elections.