The National Publicity Secretary of the apex Yoruba Socio-Cultural Organization, Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, dismissed speculations that former President Olusegun Obansanjo was not a Yoruba man.
He also took a swipe at Yoruba sons whom he accused of trying to join others to denigrate the heritage of the former president in a bid to advance their political interests.
The Afenifere spokesman was responding to claims by a former Lagos Senator, Anthony Adefuye, that the former Nigerian leader was an Igbo man born by a Yoruba woman.
Adefuye had in an interview with a national daily said among other things, “I believe in 2023, the APC will zone the Presidential ticket to the South. When it comes to the South, then it will be narrowed down to the South West because that is the only region that has not produced the President since 1999. It has always been the North and Igbos.”
Odumakin noted that, it was absurd for anyone to seek to deny the Yoruba ancestry of the former President.
Odumakin said, “That was a twisted and perverted logic. The South West produced Nigeria’s president in the person of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for eight years 1999-2007. If anyone wants to be President, he should go ahead but not use the name of the highly sophisticated Yoruba race to push through a perverted logic to try to sell his candidacy. Chief Obasanjo is a Yoruba man.”
