The Pan Yoruba apex sociocultural group, Afenifere has described as “mischievous” statements made by the Ekiti state governor, Kayode Fayemi that restructuring idea will remain a mirage.
In a statement issued on Sunday by the Group’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said the APC which the governor is a member of have rather made the restructuring idea a mirage.
See full statement.
Press Statement
On Gov Fayemi’s Mischief on Restructuring
The attention of Afenifere has been drawn to the statement credited to Governor Kayode Fayemi at the weekend that restructuring idea will remain a mirage except proponents of it in Yorubaland reach out to other regions.
We would ordinarily have ignored such unkind cut if it had come from any ignorant fellow.
But His Excellency cannot be counted among the ignorant and could only have been mischievous in making such revisionism.
For the generations under 60 in Yorubaland, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was criss-crossing the length and breadth of Nigeria before they were born on the issue of federalism that would benefit the whole country and not only the Yoruba.
Chief Awolowo’s extensive works among the minorities of the South and the North to the point of placing a lot of their leaders on same level of allowances with Ministers in Western Region was part of his efforts to galvanize national consensus around federalism.
Since the exit of the great Leader, his disciples have never neglected the path of reaching out to all sections of the country at every point in time to build a national consensus.
At the 2014 National Conference for instance,Yoruba delegates worked nights and days with Leaders across Nigeria to build consensus which led to over three hundred resolutions that would have moved Nigeria forward if implemented, without the use of ballot once.
In the last four years that the APC government, which Fayemi is part of, has made the idea of restructuring a ‘mirage’ in spite of deceiving Nigerians with Federalism on their manifesto in 2015, proponents of restructuring in the South West have worked with other regions in the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum and the Nigerian Leaders and Elders Forum which included Northern Elders Forum to promote the idea of federalism.
The map of the last presidential elections with all the manipulations still showed the result of what have been achieved in this regard.
Instead of shifting the blame on proponents of restructuring, a governor with testicular fortitude should have found the courage to reach to the only ‘region’ stonewalling the restructuring of Nigeria -the Buhari presidency, in spite of the El-Rufai Committee report which now appears a mere attempt to hoodwink the unwary.
If some politicians from the region are enslaved to an anti-progress leadership and have lost their voices for self -preservation, they should be careful in insulting leaders from their region to impress their masters .
Yinka Odumakin
National Publicity Secretary.