A chieftain of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu has flayed Senator Ayo Fasanmi who claims the leadership of a Yoruba group that recently endorsed the second term ambition of President Muhammadu Buhari using the name of Afenifere.
In an open letter which he released on Friday, Senator Okunrounmu said Senator Fasanmi ought to be “highly embarrassed” with the claim by the “fake group that it represented Afenifere, as enunciated by Chief Obafemi Awolowo.”
The open letter reads: “I felt a great pity for you, my dear brother, as I read on page 3 of The Nigerian Tribune of December 21, 2018, the exultant proclamation by a fake group calling itself Afenifere, supposedly led by you, that it would endorse the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.
“Surely, you know that there is only one Afenifere, led by Pa Reuben Fasoranti; and that the group masquerading as Afenifere under your supposed leadership is merely a renegade group, led by Tinubu, consequent upon his selfishly motivated rebellion against the leadership of Pa Abraham Adesanya, almost immediately after he was sworn into office as the Lagos State governor in 1999.
“This renegade group has brought untold harm upon the Yoruba people and ruptured the peace and unity of Yorubaland. Falsely presenting themselves as Awoists, and relying on Tinubu’s questionably acquired wealth from the resources of Lagos State and her peoples, they have stolen the mandates of our peoples in the South West and destroyed all the precious legacies of Awolowo and the Yoruba people. They have in particular, by their selfishly driven policies, truncated the flagship of Awolowo’s governance of the Western Region, free education.
“In the pursuit of their selfish interests, they conned the Yoruba people into entering a ‘one chance’ political vehicle that is driving Nigeria relentlessly towards being a conquered nation by those daily killing our peoples expropriating their lands and resettling those lands with their own peoples. To all these atrocities, they turn a blind eye.
“In particular, these renegade Afenifere pretenders could not find their voice when Yoruba people were being repeatedly attacked and killed by herdsmen in Akure, and parts of Ekiti, Oyo, Osun, and Ogun states. When an Ife indigene was beheaded by the same miscreants and his body mockingly carted around the town in a wheelbarrow, they did not raise a whimper.
“When the police chose to arrest the victims rather than the culprits of the Ife incident and moved them to Abuja for what would have been a predictable trial, they still could not mutter a word of protest. Nothing was heard even from the governor supposedly holding the mandate of Osun people. In all these cases, it was the genuine Afenifere, under Pa Fasoranti’s leadership, that rose to the defence of our people.
“My dear Senator Fasanmi, I am sure you will feel highly embarrassed when they claim that this fake group, which they say you lead, represents the Afenifere as enunciated by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That is no doubt a great heresy. Would Obafemi Awolowo, as you knew him, endorse a man for president of Nigeria who looks the other way as Nigerians are slaughtered by his cow-herding people, from Zamfara to Lagos? Would he endorse the re-election of a man who has run the economy of the nation aground, made tens of millions jobless and made corruption worse than the admittedly bad state in which he met it? Would Awolowo endorse for president a man who stands resolutely opposed to one of his greatest legacies – a truly federal structure for Nigeria? Please, search your conscience.
“The Yoruba people know their leaders. Very soon, we the authentic Afenifere, under Chief Reuben Fasoranti, will, in conjunction with our pro-restructuring allies nationwide, let our people know what we believe is in their best interests.” (Nigerian Tribune)