Ayo Adebanjo, the esteemed figure and leader of the Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere, expressed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not his adversary but rather like a son to him. He highlighted their disagreement in political perspectives as the sole distinction between them. Adebanjo emphasized that despite this divergence, President Tinubu has consistently shown him affection and has never denied any request for assistance.
Speaking at the public launch of Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark’s autobiography, “Brutally Frank,” held at MUSON Centre Onikan, Lagos, on November 21, 2023, Adebanjo stressed the importance of national unity and genuine federalism. He underscored the significance of the 2014 National Conference organized during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, asserting that revisiting and implementing its resolutions are crucial for Nigeria’s progress.
“Those of you who are younger , who are likely to implement what Nigeria should be, don’t play with the 2014 national conference. Whether you like it or not, Jonathan will go down in history as the best, for setting up that conference. And I say publicly again without any fear of contradiction, you can never get the composition of a conference as composed as that conference again in Nigeria. It cuts across everybody in intelligence, the judiciary, the youths, all sorts, no matter. Muslims, Christians, ideologues and all status. And we were lucky to have a Chairman who managed delegates issue and assisted by the professor.
“You can never get anything better. And until you go back to it. The job for us in this country today is to insist that right now this constitution must be changed to federalism in accordance with 2014 National Conference. Don’t waste our money again by setting up any other conference Take that report. Take El Rufai’s report, set up a committee to reconcile and we go where we are going. Any other thing is pretense,” Adebanjo added.