Afenifere: There Is No Killing The Beetle

 By Alade Rotimi-John

Perhaps, no socio-political plank in Nigeria has impinged on our consciousness or has excited our admiration for the values of dedication to cherished ideals and goals more than Afenifere – the pan-Yoruba socio-political platform. In a society where shifting compromises and mutually-conflicting philosophies are lumped together just to score some cheap debating or political point, Afenifere has stood out as a genuine re-creation of a sincere search for solution to the myriad of problems besetting Nigeria. 

*Pa Adebanjo 

Founded in 1951 as an open window for brandishing the proud bearing and venting the considered expression of the people of its constituency, its enduring nature contrasts starkly with a general foreground of aborted, still-born or short-lived organisations.

For 70 years on, Afenifere has adhered firmly to her foundational strategy in precise observation, discipline and clarity of vision. She has thereby positioned herself as the ruling socio-political ethic in Yorubaland – its primary constituency. Other groups espousing similar or identical values like her are dimly outlined against the towering stature of Afenifere.

Stripped bare even of all the trappings of political brinkmanship, she stands out like a statue in an attitude that is brimming with hope and, as the occasion calls for it, foretelling of harm, danger or difficulty as things are not done right. One is left wondering if Afenifere’s founding fathers are of the same stock with us given today’s general repudiation of the values of forthrightness, sincerity, doggedness, valour and integrity.

Afenifere is the Yoruba rendition in crisp and memorable catch-call phrase of the social welfare policy programmes of the defunct Action Group. “Afenifere” loosely translated as those who seek goodness and welfare for all is the other name for people who are in the vanguard of progressive development in all its social welfare dimensions. In the early days, Afenifere was the propelling movement of the people behind the Action Group. 

The philosophy of the Action Group has been the fundamental objective and the directive principles of Afenifere policy. Afenifere draws deeply from the sublime character traits of its founders – accountability, work and efforts, merit, faith, human sympathy, etc. A product of the required apt responses by the people of the Western Region to the contentious provisions of the Richards Constitution, Afenifere was an effective, efficient vehicle.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s effort in this regard is notable. He had envisioned a virile political platform as an all-purpose vehicle for confronting the challenges of agriculture, health, education, the economy, employment, social insecurity, etc. He encapsulated the envisaged achievement of all these goals in what he insightfully referred to as progressive democracy and responsible leadership.

Awo characteristically did a critical analysis of the issues and resolved that the conditions for peace are a sine qua non for progress. He intoned: “No progress of any kind can be made in an atmosphere of strife, disorder or violence. And as nature does not favour standing-still, it follows that in a period of turmoil, society must retrogress.”

The Afenifere ideology has become household in South-West Nigeria such that every political party, no matter its colouration, has laid claim to and promised the pursuit and performance of the Afenifere programmes if voted into power. This has expectedly occasioned, for most times, the unfortunate emergence of all manner of political merchandising masquerading as belonging to the Awo creed or school of thought.

They have, in many cases, taken over the stage – manifesting revisionism, charlatanism, turncoat-ism, nihilism, etc. The people are however not deceived for long. They soon identify the con-men for who they are. Having lived through a glorious period in history, the people are apt to recognise signs, symptoms and symbols that are inconsistent with what they know or had experienced.

Afenifere, as an unyielding advocate of a truly federal constitution for Nigeria, has been a very active and constructive participant in all the patriotic efforts, gestures, conferences, etc. which have taken place since 1953 and which efforts along with those of others with identical clarity of mind and single-minded purpose, have culminated not only in the attainment of independence but in the production of the 1960/63 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That self-same constitution has been self-gratifyingly violated and replaced with a fraudulent copy thereof by the military.

Afenifere has valiantly been in the patriotic vanguard for a return to the provisions of a truly federal constitution. Her calls for restructuring must be noted as co-terminously linked to the body’s ceaseless battles for the emergence of a constitution in the mould of the 1960/63 constitution with all the incidents of classical federalism.

It is the case that the mystique of Afenifere is also her Achilles heels. Loved by many as the vanguard of the people’s cherished hopes and aspiration, Afenifere’s mores are popularly jealously guarded and sustained. Notable vicious assaults have however been directed at her by her detractors to destroy her foundational ethos. To the eternal glory of her truthful or sincere thrust, all the attempts against her soul have been futile.

The latest in the series of vile attempts to undermine the Afenifere worldview is the ill-fated palace coup attempt staged the other week in Akure. Certain political dramatis personae, intent on beefing up their support base, sought and glibly obtained entry into the otherwise impenetrable fortress of the Afenifere bastion just to weaken and eventually crumble her walls. Afeneifere has travelled this route a number of times in the past.

A most notable insidious threat to the Afenifere legacy of unanimity of purpose and action came in the wake of the tussle for the nomination of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) – a political party put together by Afenifere – Olu Falae surprisingly trounced redoubtable Chief Bola Ige to emerge the party’s flagbearer.

Ige could not hide his disdain for the party’s choice. He plotted the seething leadership crises that have been the bane of Afenifere post-Awo. Ige’s fallback position even as he held on to his position as Deputy Leader of Afenifere, was to form the rival Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) thereby fictionalising Afenifere.

Many well-heeled or sincere interventions to resolve the crises in the House of Awolowo did not yield desired fruits as Ige would not be pacified regarding what he considered a slight to his persona. Afenifere was split down the middle into two factions as Ige promoted the Ayo Fasanmi splinter group and continued to pay lip service to the headship of the Fasoranti (or authentic) wing.

The present or current threat to the Afenifere vision is an off-shoot of the Bola Ige “gaudily joyful” mirth at Falae’s emergence as AD flagbearer. Before his death, Ige had surrounded himself with persons who he shared his angst with. Bola Ahmed Tinubu rallied the romp of this group in aid of his own vaulting ambition of leading what appears on the surface as the desired re-unification of Yoruba sociology and politics.

Unknown to many who fell for his thinly-veiled posturing, Tinubu’s effort has been a smokescreen for his presidential and general political patronage. Tinubu has consistently battled the Afenifere leadership hegemony by creating a counterpoise to it each time. He has propped up and used otherwise unambitious gentlemen for his proxy battles.

Deploying an unfathomable war chest of resources, very few persons have been able to ignore Tinubu’s overtures to help upturn Yorubaland’s political applecart. Ayo Fasanmi, Biyi Durojaye and others like them have fallen prey to Tinubu’s veneer.

The camouflaged visit of a coterie of Tinubu sympathisers last week is in line with the fox’s trajectory. Fasoranti who about two years ago had ceded the headship of Afenifere to Ayo Adebanjo was the next target of Tinubu for derailing the cohesion in the group. This same Fasoranti was derided or sneered at by the Tinubu group at his ascension to the leadership of Afenifere. This delegitimisation continued unabated until Tinubu suddenly found value in an endorsement of his presidential bid by Afenifere.

Fasoranti’s advanced age was exploited to exact an endorsement of the Tinubu presidency. Gathering in Akure under a Conscience of Yoruba Nation (COYN) banner, the group disingenuously metamorphosed into Afenifere when, without conscience, it issued a communique, not under its advertised banner with which it had convoked a conference and invited “essentially a gathering of chieftains of APC of the South-west”. COYN deviously appended the Afenifere imprimatur to its rascality.

The attempt to kidnap or abduct Afenifere leadership has again floundered. All those whose names have been associated with this infamy have inexorably gone down in the records as participants in the catalogue of assaults against the soul of the Yoruba persona of Omoluabi or the practitioners of the ethic of noblese oblige.

Historically, it is noteworthy that in a sweeping abrogation of all political parties and socio-political formations, etc. by the military when it seized power in 1966 and was bent on legitimising its stranglehold on the polity, Afenifere was providentially spared. She was not mentioned in the long list of banned bodies in spite of her visibility and immanent in-dwelling.

This seeming omission is not ordinary and must be understood only in the context of a spiritual acknowledgement and approval of the centrality of her being and offerings. Afenifere’s ordained place in intellectual theorising and in the jigsaw mechanics of making Nigeria a peaceful, prosperous and self-reliant community is notable.

Regarding the truthful thrust of Afenifere, we conclude with the immortal words of Winston Churchill: “The truth is incontrovertible; panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.”

A leading advertising agency once ran a campaign by-line exemplifying the durability, resilience and utility of a brand of a motor vehicle in the 1970s and concluded by submitting that “There is no killing the Beetle”. So it is with Afenifere.

*Rotimi-John, a lawyer and commentator on public affairs wrote vide lawgravitas@gmail.com