Afenifere is an elite pan-Yoruba socio-political group. It was formed as a socio-cultural organisation for the Yoruba people of Nigeria, with Chief Abraham Adesanya as its leader and Chief Bola Ige as deputy leader. They held so much sway as an ethnic front for the Yoruba people that the Alliance for Democracy (AD) political party took the Afenifere agenda as its official manifesto when the party was formed in 1998.
In light of the 2023 elections, the Afenifere, quite recently, officially adopted and endorsed Peter Obi for the 2023 general elections ahead of their kinsman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
It is surprising that the Afenifere, the Yoruba ethnic mouthpiece, a regional progressive platform, through its leader Ayo Adebanjo has opposed the candidacy of Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba man.
In their words, "Ahmed Tinubu will only give continuity to Buhari's incompetence."
Mr Tinubu and Afenifere have a long history. In 1999, the former contested and won the Lagos State governorship election under the Alliance for Democracy, a political party of Afenifere.
He was re-elected in 2003 under the same party.
Disagreement within the Alliance for Democracy (AD) led Mr Tinubu and his allies to form the Action Congress (AC), which later turned to Action Congress (ACN) and moved to the party. Atiku Abubakar, who is the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was the presidential candidate of the AC in the 2007 election.
Since Mr Tinubu left the AD, it has been no love lost between him and Afenifere.
Due to this internal conflict, the Afenifere split into two (2) factions and as a result, it became fragile and its ratings as a formidable front diminished.
On the subject matter, there are a few questions that are quite important.
At the moment, the Afenifere is apolitical but does it have the weight, followership and goodwill to influence the voting demography of the Yoruba nation?
Another question that begs also, is that being a frontier progressive Yoruba movement, created to cater for and protect Yoruba interest, is it morally right for the Afenifere to support Peter Obi, a candidate from another region over its own Yoruba son?
Whichever the case, the position of the Afenifere is bad for Tinubu as it will definitely influence a number of Yoruba sons and daughters, no matter how few who might have been on the fence as to whether to give their votes to Tinubu on the grounds of ethnicity or to Peter Obi of the Labour Party or Atiku of the PDP.
AFENIFERE, THE YORUBA NATION AND 2023
By
Tari Ogbowei