A chieftain of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Gboyega Adejumu, has said that presenting a Yoruba in the 2023 presidential race won’t be fair.
Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, had on Monday justified the group’s decision to back the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, for the 2023 elections.
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Gboyega in an interview with Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily said the 2023 election is about unity.
He said, “What we are doing is self-evident. We are talking about federal character and the only interest we have is to serve the common man and to bring unity.
“Otherwise, we would have made it a Yoruba thing. There are at least three Yoruba presidential candidates.
“For example SDP has Adebayo Adewale who happened to be first secretary of the OPC and everybody knows the relationship between OPC and Afenifere.
“This is not about ethnicity, not about where we come from. It’s not about presenting Yoruba because that won’t be fair.
“In 1999 we had Obasanjo a Yoruba and now we have 8 years of Yoruba vice president and still you expect Afenifere to justify this, we won’t shift our stance.”
Aside from Adewale, other presidential candidates of Yoruba extraction are former Lagos State Governor, Aswiaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Kola Abiola of Peoples Redemption Party.
However, President, Yoruba Council Worldwide, Oladotun Hassan, faulted Obi’s endorsement by Afenifere, saying the decision was wrong.
“What Afenifere did is absolutely wrong,” he added.
