The Committee of Afenifere, the Pan Yoruba cultural and political organisation, bequeathed by the late leader of the race, late Pa Obafemi Awolowo to his followers, has never been in  disarray and turmoil as it is presently. There is palpable malcontents at all levels within the group. And the present crisis has all to do with the forthcoming presidential election come February 25, 2023.

Although it has its tap root in the treatment of it’s late Chief Priest, the governor of old Oyo State and it’s Deputy Leader, late Chief Bola Ige, as not a few believed that it was the crisis that created the room for his assassination on the Christmas Eve of 2003 inside his bedroom in his Bodija, Ibadan home. Since his sudden departure from the group, the group has not known peace. 

Now Pa Ayo Adebanjo is enraged. He’s bitter over a series of happenings, particularly his perceived weakening of his hold on the political machine of  the Yoruba people, The Committee of Afenifere. Pa Femi Okunrounmu, erstwhile Secretary of the group, too is angry. Pa Segun Osoba is boiling so to say. Pa Bisi Akande is in the mix. So are several veterans of the group. The young Turks, notably the Wale Oshin-led Afenifere Renewal Group are disillusioned by the happenings within the group. 

The latest crisis has led the Nonagenarian leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, who had earlier announced his stepping down from active participation in the activities of the group, has forced himself out of retirement. 

The house is simply in shambles. The political Soul of the Yoruba people, better espoused by the Committee of Afenifere is in shambles, suffering an internecine political haemorrhage once again. A crisis a former governor who spoke to www focusmagazinesoline.com off camera traced to the former “acting leader’s intransigency and hellbent in imposing his cousin on the Yoruba race”.

The former governor had alleged that Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s mother was an Igbo from Enugu State, hence is maniacal pushing of Mr. Peter Obi’s candidature within the group, thus disregarding the laid down norms of the organization to push, protect and promote the interest of the Yoruba race at all time.

The group that most presented itself as a microscopic soul of the Yoruba people is once again in crisis, another once since the first crisis erupted immediately the D’Rovans debacle. It was at D’Rovans Hotel in Ibadan, Oyo State that twenty-three followers of the late Sage, Obafemi Awolowo gathered to pick a presidential candidate for the group’s political wing, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) late Uncle Bola Ige lost to Chief Olu Falae by thirteen to nine votes. There were shocks and distrusts erupted within the hitherto cohesive organization. All analysts had predicted an easy victory for the late Cicero of Esa Oke and former charismatic governor of old Oyo State. He was the deputy leader of the group. A visible element within the group. The leader, late Senator Abraham Adesanya was not contesting and the unwritten rule of the group is seniority first. But alas, the Electoral College made up of the six newly elected governors on the platform of the party, AD, the eight party chairmen in the six South West States and Kwara and Kogi, joined with “nine wise old men” who were thoroughly versatile with the norms of the group, went into a secret balloting. The result was against Ige, as Falae triumphed thirteen to nine votes. 

Right from the venue of the voting, the foundation of the unending crises within the group was effectively laid.

All efforts to bring back peace to the house has failed. Former Prelate of the Methodist Church, Sunday Makinde tried by challenging the feuding combatants during the twentieth anniversary service for the late Sage, Obafemi Awolowo in Ikenne. 

The Clergyman had thrown the challenge to the Awolowo followers that the man would not be happy at the way his followers had split irreconcilable, which has also affected Yoruba land in general. He said the Awosits should be ashamed of themselves with the situation of things in the group. This episcopal challenge however, did little or nothing to calm the storm. It only aggravated it. The late Obafemi Awolowo’s matriarch, late Chief H. I. D Awolowo once could not resolved the crises, only rally Bishop Ayo Ladigbolu, late Ooni of Ile Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, Chief Dipo Jimilehim and ralkied all the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) governors at the time with others together to form the Yoruba Unity Forum (YUF). The moved failed miserably as the only governor from AD lineage, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos State refused to co-operate with the new group. He propped up another group, The Afenifere Renewal Group led by a young man Mr. Wale Oshin.

Tracing the genesis of the crisis, an erstwhile Secretary of the group, Femi Okunrounmu blamed it all on the ambition of so e of the governors who emerged on the platform of AD in 1999. He was very critical of the roles in the nomination of the presidential candidate for the AD at D’Rovans hotel and subsequent subversive subterfuges to undermine the unity of the group.

However, Okunrounmu is yet to come to terms with the outcome of the balloting at the D’Rovans hotel, some twenty-three years after the debacle.In deep anguish, he tried explain the various shenanigans at D’Rovans Hotel. 

He lamented , “let me start from the beginning. At the D’Rovans Electoral College, where AD was to pick its presidential candidate between the Deputy Leader, Bola Ige and a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SFG), Chief Olu Falae. Incidentally, we had a 23-man Electoral College, which comprised the eight chairmen of AD from all the six Yoruba states and from Kwara and Kogi States. It also consisted of the six newly elected governors of Yoruba States because we didn’t win Kogi and Kwara. We also had nine elders selected across Yoruba land, those that have been part of the party from the days of Action Group (AG). They are Alhaji Hassan Fasinro from Lagos, Chiefs Solanke Onasanya and Jonathan Odebiyi from Ogun States; Papa Emmanuel Alayande from Oyo and Justice Adewale Thompson from Oyo and Professor Bolaji Akinyemi from Osun. From Ondo, we had Alhaji Adekeye. From Ekiti, we had Papa Ayo Fasanmi and the late Dr. Aina, who was the deputy to the late former Governor Adekunle Ajasin of old Ondo State.

“These were the 23 people that constituted the Electoral College. The chairman of the college was Pa Emmanuel Alayande. Justice Adewale Thompson conducted the swearing-in ceremony. We had our voting by secret ballot and to my surprise, Falae won the election. I never expected it. I voted for Ige because I was one of his boys. We were in a group where we named ourselves Bola Ige Boys. We used to meet regularly in his house every month on Sunday afternoons to discuss politics. I voted for Ige, even though I also had a reason to vote for Falae. But my attachment to Ige was stronger and more political because I am one of his political followers. Falae was my classmate at HSC, and secondary school. That is how close we were right from Government College. But in spite of that, I voted for Ige because he was one of my mentors. It came as a surprise that Falae won, because going by every logic; Ige ought to have won the election, given the composition of the Electoral College.

Femi Okunrounmu believed there are “three reasons why Ige should normally have won the election. Although people later talked of conspiracy, that was never the case. When we decided to have the Electoral College, Ige was the deputy leader of Afenifere. He was deputy to Pa Abraham Adesanya, so he definitely took part in appointing the college members. He was party to the decision to appoint members of the Electoral College. Falae was not even present at the meeting, where the decision was taken to have an Electoral College, but Ige as the deputy leader was there and we all agreed on it.

“Secondly, if you look at most of the college members, you would expect them to vote naturally for Ige. But it was the governors that rebelled, claiming that Afenifere leaders didn’t like Bola Ige. One would assume that most of these governors would have voted for Ige and if that had been the case, the former Minister of Justice would have had six votes.

Let’s look at the eight party chairmen. Let’s assume the one from Lagos didn’t vote for Ige and I voted for him, that would have made seven. The chairman from Oyo was Koleosho, and he was Ige’s right hand man. His vote would have made eight for Ige. Chairman from Osun was Akinfemiwa, who was Ige’s Commissioner for Education and would have also voted for him to make it nine. The chairmen from Kwara and Kogi were Ige’s people because Adesanya, Adebanjo and others were not really familiar with Kwara and Kogi politics. So, with the votes from the two states, that would have made it eleven votes for Ige.

“All Ige needed were two more votes because once you get twelve votes out of twenty-three, you have won. So, he only needed two of the nine elders. The elders included Alayande, who was a commissioner under Ige. Another was Adewale Thompson, who was the Attorney General under Ige. So, if he only got those two, he would have won. This is exclusive of people like Odebiyi and Ayo Fasanmi, who were very close to Ige.  This is why I said it was a surprise to me that Ige lost, which also gives the lie to these governors saying they supported Ige. Many of them did not vote for Ige, because from my analysis, if they had voted for him, he wouldn’t have lost”, he concluded.

Now once again, the late Pa Obafemi Awolowo’s political house is simply in turmoil. The politics of Yoruba people in both the pre and post independence was peculiarly robust and dynamic. There was the late Pa Obafemi Awolowo’s tendency in the Action Group (AG). There was the late Chief Gbadamosi Adegoke Adelabu’s tendency in the National Council for Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). The competition was robust and most competitive. 

Political communications and campaign slogans were structured and packaged to reach the largely uneducated voting public of the time. AG’s mantra was “Freedom for All, Life more Abundant’ and to further get the full import of the socio-political philosophy to the grassroots, the name Afenifere suddenly cropped up. Some analysts believed it was late Chief A. M. A. Akinloye who first coined the word, but ever since, it sticks with those who believe in the political philosophy of the late Premier of the Western Region.

Right from those fiesty days of  the First Republic politics, to the heady days of post June 12 presidential election annulment, the pan Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, has always espoused political issues from a deep microcosm of the Yoruba nation’s inner mind. The organization unpretentiously probects the best and beauty of Yoruba culture and socio-political philosophy.

The group, Afenifere, is built on the bipedal principles of gerontocracy and puritanism. These have always been the determination factors in admittance and promotion of members and selection of leadership. 

The group formed in the early days of the defunct Action Group AG led by the late Pa Obafemi Awolowo, 

Visionary leader of the Yoruba people became inactive with the collapsed of the First Republic. Papa did not bother to resucitate it towards the Second Republic. He instead formed The Committee of Friends to prosecute his political aspiration of the Second Republic. 

But largely due to the exigencies of time, the late charismatic former governor of old Oyo State, Uncle Bola Ige championed the resuscitation of the Committee of Afenifere in 1993, as a first weapon to respond to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by the military junta of the self-styled Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida.  

The second coming of the Afenifere was born to respond to crisis. While it lived the role admirably well, crisis seems to have been built into the DNA of the organization; it has been living in crisis from day one. 

The first meeting of the group in Owo, home town of  second Republic governor of old Ondo State, late Pa Adekunle Ajasin was fiesty,  acrimonious and full of drama. It almost ended in a stalemate. 

The meeting held inside the hall of a Primary School directly opposite Pa Ajasin’s house nearly crashed by for the political sagacity of Ajasin and Bola Ige. 

Despite strident calls by the Pa Ayo Adebanjo and few others to make the widow of late Pa Obafemi Awolowo, late Chief H. I. D. Awolowo the leader of the group, Pa Ajasin was eventually selected to lead the nascent cultural and political organisation.

Those who spoke for Pa Ajasin had claimed that the former Ondo State Governor was older than the matriarch of the Awolowo’s dynasty and held a higher political office. Mama lost out. Ayo Adebanjo was never happy.

Ajasin died due to old age on 3 October 1997 and the group enter another crisis mode while selecting the successor. There was the late Adewale Thompson’s group and there was the Ayo Adebanjo’s group. It was a tough battle between the two groups settling for an acceptable leader. The Committee became largely polarised. Eventually late Pa Abraham Adesanya was selected, but a novel idea was introduced to calm voices of dissent who had rightly argued the Uncle Bola Ige was a more deserving and better choice. The post of the Deputy Leader was created and Bola Ige most naturally was selected. 

This move only papered the cracks. Neither group was satisfied, especially the Ayo Adebanjo’s group. The cat and mouse relationship was carried to the AD’s presidential nomination exercise in D’Rivans Hotel, Ibadan. The Committee had picked “nine wise men” to joined the chairmen of the party in the eight Yoruba speaking states and the six newly elected Governors on the platform of the party to form its electoral college to pick a candidate for the Yoruba nation, who will slugged it out with others from the other parts of the country, in the party, and also in the proposed alliance with another party, the All Peoples Party (APP). The voting went against Uncle Bola Ige as a new comer, Chief Olu Falae was selected against the age-long principle of the group. All Hell was let loose and ever since, there has been no peace in the House of Afenifere.

All efforts to politically panel beat, repaint and rebrand the organization have always hit the rocks. The young Turks, Mr. Wale Oshin tried the Afenifere Renewal Group, it failed. The old guard, Pa Emmanuel Alayande and Adewale Thompson tried the Yoruba Council of Elders, it could not work. 

 Afenifere did not only lost it’s influence. It also lost it’s power. And more devastatingly, it lost it’s voice. The group was hardly seen nor heard again by the time the former Commissioner for Education in Ondo State under the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin administration, Chief Reuben Fasoranti took over as the Leader. To make further compound the issue, the nonagenarian spoke sparingly. 

According to an insider who spoke to www.focusmagazinesoline.com, Ayo Adebanjo saw this as an “opportunity to hijack the group. Before the Akure old Action Grouper could realised what was going on, Adebanjo has taken over the group and turned it to his platform to reel out his agenda of vendetta”

The Committee of Afenifere was a  very powerful political machine and influential pan Yoruba socio-cultural organisation in the 90’s. It measured the political heart-beat of the Yoruba Nation.

The group was designed to micro-represent the Soul and Spirit of the Yoruba people, mostly found in South West, Nigeria and splinter groups in Edo, Delta in South South region, and Kwara and Kogi in North Central Zone of the country.

The name Afenifere was allegedly coined from the credo of the defunct Action Group AG of the First Republic, Freedom for All, Life more Abundant. 

But ever since the infamous D’Rovans Hotel presidential nomination debacle of AD, the pan Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, has been oscillating between one crisis to the other.

Now a new twist is emerging within the group now led by a nonagenarian, Pa Ruben Fasoranti. Ayo Adebanjo another nongenerian, and the supposedly acting leader has allegedly fully hijacked  operations and directions of the group.

Pa Adebanjo was said to have allegedly without consulting with Pa Fasoranti, to havr forced the endorsement of the candidature of his preferred presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party’s (LP) down the throats of the remaining young Turks left in the group. Without battling an eyelid, he single-handedly announced the endorsement. 

First, it started as mild grumblings of discontents, then full blown acrimonious condemnations and finally, a forced resuscitation of the docile leadership of Pa Fasoranti, who had earlier announced his stepping aside from the activities of the group, then finally, a repudiation of Adebanjo’s political template and chatting of a drastically different template by the endorsement of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress (APC). Nonagenarian Pa Fasoranti was active in all these drama. He assured all that he was back, active and not senile.

The group is not a stranger to pernicious drama and haemorrhagic  crisis. Before Pa Fasoranti came out fully to displace Adebanjo from the leadership position, he had stylishly dodged the confirmation of Tinubu’s endorsement question. He had told newsmen shortly after the APC’s presidential candidate and his retinue of entourage visited him in his Akure home: “I did not endorse Tinubu. He came with his people for prayers and as a father, I prayed for him. If Obi comes too, I will pray for him. It is not in my place to endorse anyone, that is exclusivity of the Afenifere, which I’m no longer the leader.”

When Adebanjo would not stop heckling the old man, he fired back, stripping the acting leader of all responsibilities within the group.

Pa Fasoranti directed further  meeting of the socio-political organisation will henceforth hold in Akure, capital of Ondo State home and not the Isoya Igbo village in Ijebu Ode country home of Pa Ayo Adebanjo.

Not a few members believed that this move has effectively ended the acting leadership of Ayo Adebanjo.

Fasoranti, frontline educator and Second Republic Commissioner for Finance in Ondo State, was to further reiterated the group’s endorsement of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Pa Fasoranti rejected the insinuations by the Adebanjo’s camp that he was paid to endorse the Jagaban Borgu, saying that he has been a man of principle all his life. 

Fasoranti said those who started meeting at Ogbo, Ijebu Ode after naming Adebanjo as acting leader misunderstood and misinterpreted him.

He lamented that these people shifted the meeting of Afenifere to Adebanjo’s residence because they felt he was becoming senile. 

Fasoranti said some people felt he could not comprehend things, adding that the person who said that has regretted it.

However, Fasoranti said he is not senile, adding that “there is no shaking.” He stressed: “The reason the meeting was shifted was due to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of some people that I was going senile and that I cannot comprehend. When I heard that, I reacted and the person saying that regretted it. “

In a viral video at his Akure residence, the old ‘Action Grouper’ said he will now communicate meeting schedules to Afenifere members after liasoning with the secretary and other leaders on meeting agenda. 

He maintained that most Afenifere chieftains have said they will not go to Ogbo for meetings.

Following the return of meeting venue to Akure, many Afenifere chieftains disclosed that Adebanjo has ceased to be acting leader.

A chieftain, who spoke on phone,  said:”There can’t be two leaders at a time.” Another chieftain said Adebanjo may fight back, but from a very weak position, adding that the group should prepare for crisis management. 

The Afenifere leader said there is no meeting point between Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, pointing out that they are two different ethnic organisations. 

Fasoranti promised to leave a legacy of stability and honesty in Afenifere. 

He said the organisation will continue to pursue restructuring as a cardinal belief. 

Segun Osoba, frontline journalist and a former Governor of Ogun State also castigated the ex-acting leader in clear terms. He is piqued with his description as “an inconsistent leader in the progressive” camp by Adebanjo.

The former Governor of Ogun State and Akinrogun of Egbaland, Chief Olusegun Osoba also berated the Afenifere leader because of his stance against his person and the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“He has always been antagonistic to anybody who rose to governance within the progressives’ family. He was antagonistic to the UPN governors when they reached out to the PRP governors in the Second Republic. He led the crusade against the governors and told Awolowo that the UPN governors had sold out

When Papa (Awolowo) got exasperated he called a meeting of the UPN leaders at Eko Hotel. I recalled Chief Onabanjo speaking on behalf of the governors and telling Chief Awolowo that “all the people shouting are not more loyal to you than we are, that if the party must win at the federal level, the party must relate with others outside Western Region”.

“At the end, Chief Awolowo said the governors should continue with their association but they should report regularly to the National Executive Committee of the party. They then expanded their association to 12 governors. That was the group that led Awolowo into signing an agreement with Dr Azikiwe in Benin ahead of the 1983 presidential election which Awolowo actually won. Their reaching out was very helpful. It was that same progressive association that helped us when we moved to the Third Republic SDP that produced the late Chief MKO Abiola as presidential candidate.

My argument is that Adebanjo has never been comfortable with any governor either in UPN or in AD. That is what is manifesting now in his attack on Asiwaju Tinubu, Chief Akande and Niyi Adebayo who walked out on them in 2003. He bragged that he made us governors.

Who among us did not have political experience before we became governors in 1999? Lam Adesina as Oyo governor was, as far back as 1979, a House of Reps member in the National Assembly dominated by the late Chief Abraham Adesanya and co.The late Chief Adefarati as Ondo governor was a Commissioner under Ajasin. Akande in Osun was deputy to the late Chief Bola Ige as old Oyo governor. So he is making a cheap statement by saying we are not consistent.

The point is that Adebanjo has never contested any election. I challenge him to test his popularity. He should pick anywhere in Ogun, let the two of us walk around. There is no village in Ogun State that I will not call out three or four families.

For example, in his dictatorial way, he says he has now zoned the presidency to the Igbo. Who is he to zone the Yoruba race out of the 2023 presidential race?

Where did we meet as Yoruba people? Awolowo will not behave like that. There will be a meeting where there will be consensus. Of course the Igbo have the right to contest in 2023 just as I as a Yoruba man also have the right to contest.

Only Ayo Adebanjo understands his interpretation of consistency. Here is a man who, when we were rigged out, was the first to jump on the PDP vehicle of Gbenga Daniel in Ogun State. Till tomorrow, he is the godfather of Gbenga Daniel. He moved from Gbenga Daniel to Olusegun Mimiko in Ondo under the Labour Party. And he went to pronounce Mimiko as the greatest of those executing Awolowo’s philosophy, that Mimiko’s free education was the best.

“He moved from there to PDP in Osun to praise Olagunsoye Oyinlola and today he is with PDP’s Seyi Makinde in Oyo.

That is his interpretation of consistency. He said we sold out to Fulani. When he campaigned for former VP,  Alhaji Atiku Abubakar when running for the presidency, he comfortably forgot that Atiku is a Fulani man too.

When they were hobnobbing with the former President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that is consistency. Awolowo will never jump from one party to another. And Awolowo, if alive, would never hobnob with PDP…”

Another sub-group within the group, The Yoruba Ronu spoke through its Chairman, Prince Diran Iyantan: “Pa Fasoranti has proven beyond doubt that the interest and the unity of purpose of the Yorubas comes first before any other thing.

“Accordingly, Baba believes we are Yorubas before we are Nigerians. Therefore, the aspirations and wishes of the people of the Yoruba race should take preeminence at all times. That is what he has demonstrated by endorsing the candidacy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the coming presidential election.

“We thank him very much for throwing his weight behind Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as this is the wish and expectations of all Yorubas worldwide. This is complete radiance in the hearts of all sons and daughters of Oduduwa”.

“Baba, agba yin ad’ale o.” 

Price Iyantan further stressed that, “This singular action of the leadership of the Afenifere group has deepened the sense of the average Yoruba man on the unity of the Yoruba race. Pa Fasoranti’s action has renewed our hope in the existence of the common interest of the Yorubas for a better tomorrow for the Yorubas and for all Nigerians.

While the fresh crisis rages, a senior member of the socio-cultural group, Senator Femi Okunrounmu added a new angle to the crisis rocking the group. He alleged that personal ambitions of some Yoruba individuals had permanently tore the group apart, to the detriment of Southwest zone. 

According to him “I don’t believe there is any spell working against Afenifere. People get whatever they work for. What happened is that we have had some disloyal and dishonest elements that Afenifere propped up, but having been brought up by the group, they developed ambitions larger than their potentials and ability. And in doing this, they sought to more or less supplant Papa Awolowo’s legacy and become what they consider the new Awolowo of Yoruba land.

He alleged that the governors who emerged on the platform of the AD have been trying since early 2000 to destroy Afenifere because of the personal ambition of former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who happens now to be their leader. He took over leadership of AD governors as soon as they were elected in 1999.

According to Okunrounmu all efforts to cement permanent peace within the group have always met with brick walls. He claimed that “in 2007, when we were marking 20 years of Awolowo’s death at a Church service in Ikennne, the former Prelate of the Methodist Church, Sunday Makinde, threw the challenge to us that Awolowo wouldn’t be happy at the way we split and the way Yoruba land is split irreconcilably. He said we should be ashamed of ourselves and we accepted the challenge.

“After the Church service, we went home and decided to do more than we had done in the past. That was why we brought in people outside by setting up and 18-man committee, headed by Justice Kayode Esho. Some of the committee members were Archbishop Ladigbolu, Bishop Gbonigi, Prof. Bolanle Awe, Chief Mrs. Ogunseye, Ayo Fasanmi and myself. I was the secretary, and we also included young men.

“We appealed to them to help us resolve the crisis in the Awolowo group, so that Yoruba nation could move ahead, and they invited us for a meeting. But when it seemed the meeting was going to succeed, the governors frustrated it. They swore they would never meet again with Afenifere leaders. It is on record that they sabotaged the meeting. This was between 2007 and 2010.

“Then in 2010, we went to Chief Mrs. H.I .D Awolowo and she asked us how the reconciliation was going, and we explained how the governors had been frustrating everything. We asked her to make effort to reconcile us and she accepted. She fixed a date to invite the former governors and Afenifere leaders for a meeting at Ikenne.

“However, a day to the meeting, the governors went and told her that they would not come. They said they didn’t want to sit with the elders. When we got there the following day, the woman reported to us what transpired. She told us all her efforts, which later led to the formation of Yoruba Unity Forum (YUF). When she couldn’t reconcile us, I then suggested to her that, if these people wouldn’t reconcile, let us form a forum of people who believe in Awolowo’s legacy, no matter the political party they belong to. That was why we named it YUF.

A member of the group from Osun State however in a most  sarcastic rhetoric retorted: “Is Uncle Bola Ige still the problem of these people, almost twenty years after his death?”

“They have abandoned the basic norms of the group and now look like an appendage of the Igbo group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo”, he snapped angrily.

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