The National leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s unyielding opposition to the widespread yearning of Nigerians for the restructuring of the country is swelling the ranks self-determination agitators and fueling the demands for secession.
Speaking at the Service of Songs in
honour of the late Publicity Secretary of Afenifere,
Mr. Yinka Odumakin, at the Police College Ikeja on Thursday, April 22, Adebanjo
stated that if Buhari claims to be a democrat, he would not have refused to gratify
the yearning of the people to have the country restructured:
“It’s Buhari that encourages secession. Those of us calling for restructuring are the people who want Nigeria to stay. They mention Igboho, they mention Nnamdi Kanu. These people represent the youths here, because the suffering is much; the suffering is bad. And if they don’t restructure Nigeria, we’ll have more Igbohos, we’ll have more Nnamdi Kanus. I don’t support secession and don’t oppose it,” he said.
He advised Nigerians not to “buy the campaign of the people
telling” them “that to restructure is to separate Nigeria.”
In fact, it is structuring that will ensure that Nigeria
does not disintegrate, he maintained.
“Buhari is not the man to come and tell me about a united Nigeria. I’ve been preaching a united Nigeria since Buhari was in primary school,” he said.
Earlier during an appearance on Arise TV on Wednesday, Adebanjo had explained that if Buhari had accepted and implemented the 2014 Constitutional Conference recommendations, the agitations increasing across the country could have been avoided.
“It’s that sovereign national
conference, which was attempted in 2014, that Buhari has refused to do — that
is the cause of the problem. If he doesn’t do it, he wants to impose this
military constitution on us. And that what’s causing people who feel cheated to
say they want to get out of Nigeria,” he said.
On the
insistence by Presidential Spokesman, Garba Shehu, that President Buhari would
not bullied by anyone with growing agitations for secession, Adebanjo
said:
“How can Garba Shehu say the president
is not interested in anything when the people have said [that] this what they
want? He is not a democrat? Did he not claim to be a born-again democrat? All
the things that we see and have been accusing APC and Buhari, in particular,
that they have a hidden agenda.”
Adebanjo lamented the refusal of the
Federal Government to heed the demands of the people.
“We’re saying that this is what will keep us together, but you’re not attending to it and you’re not giving us alternatives”, he said.
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