The Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, led by Rueben Fasoranti, has denied the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari by a faction of the group.

In his reaction to the endorsement, the Spokesman of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, said on Wednesday: “We ordinarily would not respond to a gathering of historical renegades, but for the sake of the unwary, who may have been confused by the nefarious action of these impostors.

“We say without equivocation that minus Senator Ayo Fasanmi who had a past connection with Afenifere till 2003 and Senator Olabiyi Durojaye who is presently an employee of Buhari, all the others at the summit including Prof Yemi Osinbajo have never been known in Afenifere.

“If these are Afenifere, they would never have gathered for Buhari’s endorsement in any part of Yorubaland on a day The Nigerian Tribune, the legacy of Awolowo who is the founder of Afenifere, was being relaunched.

“The disdain of this group for Awo legacy is exemplified by the fact that Vice President Osinbajo was in attendance. Here is a man married to Awo’s grand-daughter but has absented himself from Awo’s remembrance activities for over three decades. He has never been at an Afenifere meeting for once in his life. He has busied himself in recent years tearing Awo’s thoughts into pieces to impress his masters that he is married into Awo family but he is not of his school of thought.”

Lambasting the Vice President, Odumakin further said: “That a man who calls himself a Pastor would be found among impersonators for cheap political ends confirms the question mark put on his integrity by Al Jazeera Television in a documentary on his perfidious role in Pfizer's destruction of scores of lives in Kano in an illegal guinea pig operation.

“Osinbajo got a court order to stop the airing of the documentary by AIT in 2015.We now know that character deficit cannot be fixed by any court declaration just as the Pastor’s collar cannot make up for character deficit.”

Tracing the history of Tinubu’s antagonism towards Afenifere, Odunmakin said: “Since Afenifere asked him to bring his certificates to Pa Onasanya’s house in 2000 (he has not done so till date), following the scandals around him, he has worked overtime to ensure that Yoruba land is not settled to get back to authenticating the false claims around every aspect of his life.

“These are the leaders of Buhari’s backers in South West today who are claiming to be Afenifere the way their paymaster claimed schools he never attended from primary to university.

“Afenifere and mainstream Yoruba reject Buhari not only for his humiliation of Awolowo, our founding Leader by the Gestapo invasion of his home as a military tyrant and the locking up of his successor, Pa Adekunle Ajasin even when no corruption was found him; but also because his rule has been unmitigated disaster for the Yoruba who have lost precious lives to Fulani herdsmen who have Buhari as their grand patron and not one of them brought to book.

“Life has become unbearable for Yoruba and all Nigerians under Buhari and his second term (God forbid) will be hell on earth for our people.

“We are committed to the restructuring of Nigeria and we shall be naming the candidate we believe can give us a working Nigeria under Federalism in a few days’ time.

“Finally, we tell the Tinubu followers that we don’t deny them the right to support Buhari. If they call themselves South West Miyetti Allah, it worries us not. They should only stop the fraudulent claim to Afenifere.”

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