A total of 121 Yoruba organisations have gathered in Lagos under the banner of “The 2023 Declaration” to choose which presidential candidate to support.
According to Anaedoonline.ng, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are the leading candidates for the general elections of 2023.
Afenifere, a significant group from the southwest, has vowed their support for the LP’s flag bearer on the grounds that the South-West has previously produced the president and currently has a representative from the region holding the vice presidency, whereas the South-East has not produced the president since 1999, when Nigeria’s fourth republic was inaugurated.
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Despite their misgivings about the APC, the 121 Yoruba faction, led by the Alliance of Yoruba Democratic Movement (AYDM), supported Tinubu.
The AYDM said it had appointed no fewer than 150 000 persons as campaign volunteers in the South-West region, describing the election as a second “Kiriji War.”
Ibadan and Ekiti engaged in the so-called “Kiriji war” as a result of what the Ekitis perceived as Ibadanese persecution.
The group stated in the declaration, titled “Historic Declaration of Social, Cultural, Civil Society Groups in the South-West,” which was unveiled in Lagos on Thursday when they gathered at St. Leo Catholic Church in Ikeja, Lagos, that presidential candidates have always been imposed on the electorate in Nigeria since the beginning of political history.
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They said that the 1993 election forced Nigerians to vote for the late Chief MKO Abiola and the late Alhaji Bashir Tofa, both of whom ran for president on June 12, 1999.
They claimed that while APC might not be the ideal party, they were still superior to the alternatives.
The alliance words: “The APC has immense contradictions and should not be seen as an end in itself. Within the context of the Nigerian political framework and, given the options available to the people, the APC is better but not the best”.
A previous guest speaker, Chief Segun Ajibulu, said that Yoruba leaders frequently experienced betrayal from their kinsmen.
He said that several Yoruba leaders, including the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late Chief MKO Abiola, and the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, had experienced treachery by fellow Yoruba.
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Ajibulu applauded Tinubu’s political perseverance but questioned why the people the former governor supported were now opposed to his political aspirations within the APC.
The guest speaker warned that Tinubu’s bid for the presidency could spark a new “Kiriji War,” but emphasized that this one will be waged peacefully and politically.
His words: “Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the reason for another ‘Kiriji War’ in 2023, but it will be a political war, without bloodshed”
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