Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo has rejected purported moves to make a Yoruba man president in 2023, noting that an Igbo man should emerge president for the sake of peace, unity and equity.
The 91-year-old said it was dishonest of Nigerian politicians to expect lasting peace while denying a major geopolitical zone like the Southeast the presidency.
Asked if he would consider either Vice President Yemi Osinbajo or APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for the presidency in 2023, Adebanjo told Saturday Sun:
I don’t buy into this propaganda. It is dishonest and invidious for anybody to be talking of the presidency coming to the Southwest, then you are not serious about keeping the country together. For unity, for peace and equity how would you exclude, Southeast, a part of the country from the highest position of the country, as if it is not a part of the country?
Are we dominating or overruling them? We have to be together in peace and in unity. All those who are gathering because they want to be president in 2023 are cheats and dishonest people, and they are deceiv- ing themselves by trying to keep us to be disunited, so that they come to rule again, and say because we don’t agree. I don’t beg anybody to give me presidency, but give me the right constitution.
It will be stupid of any Easterner to be thinking of joining Buhari or APC so that they can be president, or any Westerner for that matter to be stupid and foolish enough to be welcoming the idea he can be president in 2023. Arrant nonsense. That won’t be fair. How can you deny the presidency to a unit of the federation when we are equal partners? Is there sense in that? That is the question we should ask ourselves if we are honest in this country.
That is why I say, let us have a constitution, which will guide us. We don’t want to be ruled by the favour of a section of the country, that is, you are my friend, and I give you your right. It will not happen, but if it comes to that, everybody will go to his father’s land. There is no doubt about that. We can’t be forced together and be ruling the units of the horse as the rider; they are the rider and we are the horse. No unit will accept it.
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